NFL Fever 2002- pray for an aspirin

[Kevin Trotter]

I was fortunate enough to get an XBox for my 42nd birthday (no laughing) As consoles go this is the Bentley. From the ability to record your own tracks to accompany your favorite titles to the cavernous hard drive(no more memory cards)it is state of the art. Although it looks unwieldly the controller is ergonomically sound as easy to manipulate. Among the few drawbacks are the $30.00 remote required to playback DVD's , the July 2002 target date for broadband to come online

and sadly, one very bad football title which is thankfully, an xbox x-clusive, NFL Fever 2002.

Where do I start? How about being limited to five minute quarters even in the All-Pro difficulty setting. Another faux pas is the ability of nearly every QB to toss 70 yd bombs.

Add to this almost no ability to stop the other teams passing game and you're in for some frustrating games. In the dynasty modes where you

negotiate with free agents you can't control the salary offered and apparently what ever you offer other teams free agents , they accept . Compare this Madden 2001 for PS1 where you bid and counterbid as well as speak with the players agent

and NFL fever comes up short. The Stats engine is impressive but doesn't list League Leaders in a compelling fashion or allow you to track pro bowl votes for top performers. The game play stats of your human controlled teams don't jibe with the CPU teams stats at all. Foe example for my Steelers K.Stewart had only 221 attempts but 43 td's while K.Warner had 4200 yds in 478 attempts for 21 td's go figure. Atlanta led the league in rushing with 3200 yds while Green bay was second with 1986. huh? Ad to this Ron Pitts sorry play by play banter and you get me searching for the

store receipt and return policy. My dear wife claims Halo and Madden2002 were sold out so until payday here I sit with an aspirin NFL Anthrax 2002