Madden NFL 08 Franchise Mode: Part 2

After the preseason the regular season begins. Made up of 16 games your team must try to win as many games as possible in order to advance to the postseason and eventually fight your way to the Superbowl finale. In the regular season menu there are variety of submenus that can be used throughout the season. In Team Management you can look through your roster, change your depth chart, release and sign new players. In Weekly Tasks you are looking at your PDA with a bunch of messages pertaining to recent developments and games, for example a player with low morale by send an email complaining about not getting enough playing time or a sponsor may congratulate you on an award or victory. Very much in style with the PDA from Superstar mode this really adds to the feeling and narrative of the player being the owner/CEO/coach of the team. Storyline Central adds to this feeling even more. Composed of two newspapers, one national and one local the newspaper writes short articles about recent games as well as coming with relevant news and information. The last sub-menu is one of the most important ones for a successful business – Owner’s Box. In this menu you can set the prices of food, drinks, merchandise, tickets as well as spend money on advertisements. There are several graphs and charts that show you how you are doing. Two important factors to look out for is Fan Support and Attendance, it is important to keep both of these high as this optimizes your revenue. If your team is playing poorly the support will decrease, fewer people will attend the games and eventually you’ll start losing money. There is also a Board Members Thoughts that give you information on how you’re doing and the thoughts of the board seen from a business side. For example they might tell you that you have set your prices too low and that should increase them to profit or that fan support is beginning to dip and you should try to do something about it.

The rest of the game follows the normal regulations of the actual NFL. You play 16 games, based on your standing you may enter the post-season. If you win all your games in the play-offs you win the Superbowl. At the end of the year players are given awards based on their performance throughout the year, these include : Most Valuable Player, Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year, Offensive and Defensive Rookies of the Year, QB/RB/WR/ect of the year as well as Coach of the Year. You don’t really get anything out of winning but it is a great feeling having a player that has played well enough to win a prize such as best running back in the NFL. Players are likewise also voted to the Pro Bowl where all the best players play a friendly game in Hawaii. The game has not impact on anything but it is nice that Madden follows the NFL for the optimal realism.