The Best Madden of its Generation 

Because a few people have asked, a "scorebug" is another term for what you're probably thinking is the "scoreboard". I see both used. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Score_bug

I saw Madden 24 on pre-order on Steam for $70. Then I looked at my shelf and saw Madden 2005 still playable.

Remember when you could tell the crowd to get louder while on defense at home? It would sometimes cause a false start penalty

One of the reasons Madden 09-11 looked so good, they brought in the art director from NBA Street. You can tell just how committed those games were to the turf, weather, and lighting

Being a kid/teenager during the PS1/PS2 era was so exciting. Each Madden that came out, basically from 99 to 06, it was genuinely a huge improvement and the meme about "sports games being the same every year with just different rosters" never applied. You always looked forward to huge changes in player physics, the quality in graphics + art style, the UI changes, how the menu would look, and what other crazy features they'd throw in. Like, I remember when Mini-Camp was new for 2003. I remember when owner mode was new. I remember when Superstar mode was new. I remember when create a playbook/play was new. I remember when create a fan was new. I remember when Football 101 was new. The August/September period as EA revealed features for NCAA and Madden that year was just super exciting. Even my dad, who didn't play video games but coached high school football, would keep up with it and try and sell me on the game, so I could develop an interest in football - and I very much did. Of all the games he'd ever bought me, he never hesitated to get me Madden. In the past 13 years, they have virtually nothing to show for their efforts. Madden has been a homogenous blob of the same features, with releases over several years being virtually indistinguishable from each other. Because I've avoided ultimate team entirely, there has been zero reason for me to buy this game.

Madden 11 and NBA 2k11 man what a great year of sports that was. I still play both of these games. I do custom rosters and leagues

Madden 11 is the madden I grew up and still to this day play. Amazing game

Remember when the crowd was dynamic? If you're team was sub par, the stadium wouldn't sell out. Or if the home team was losing bad, they'd start to leave? Bad weather, stadium might not be full. I miss them days. 😢

I've been watching Madden RU-vid since about 2009 a lot of those older guys gave up and stopped making vids after years and years of saying what you say now but in real time. But I've never seen anyone break it down and reach out to actual EA employees like you have and still stay objective. If Madden ever gets their shit together I hope everyone gives you your credit for being on their ass consistently. These other Madden insider RU-vidrs will lie every year and say the game is good instead of helping the consumer and that should be a crime. Thank you for your hard work!

Raiders were my go to online with this game. Terrelle Pryor, Darren McFadden and the fastest WR corps with Heyward Bey and Jacoby Ford. Can’t believe it’s been 13 years

Gus Johnson made this game fun. Compare his energy to two sponges for personality we get in Gaudin and Davis. Davis always sounds like he's taken too many downers.

This game was truly special. I was a huge fan of the sprint button being gone. The jukes were so clean. Pass rushing with the right stick in 10-11 was the best. It was never the same after that. I remember seeing the run-blocking tweaks in the NCAA 11 demo and felt truly excited about the game. If we had 11's gameplay with the added presentation they had in 12, we would've been set,

I cannot stress enough how this guy’s videos are spot on correct. Literally just shut off my Xbox 360 after playing a franchise game in Madden 11 (using imported classes from NCAA 11) and saw this video when launching RU-vid. Not sure how old you are, but I could not agree more with everything said. This man states facts.

I never looked at a notification and smiled so hard; absolutely loved this game as a kid on 360 and I just picked it up last year for my birthday on PS3, glad to see you're covering it

I kinda feel like Madden lost its final ounce of drive after NCAA Football went away. At least EA was competing with itself to a certain degree up until that point.

I loved hearing the coordinators before each play, particularly on offense

This is what I mean when I tell people that 4k high resolution on games doesn’t matter. Its all about attention to detail. Look at Fight Night Round 4/Champion. All barely running 720p but still look better than most games today.

Besides Madden 06-09 being nostalgic to me in my childhood on PS2, I feel this was the one of the best maddens to be created for how much you could do with the real time NFL at the time. The presentations, the uniforms, even the madden rewind?? This was the last madden game I had a competitive duel on the couch experience. I truly agree with your takes on this, Madden 11 was our last true Madden title.

Madden 11 was definitely my favorite from that era. Loved creating a cupcake team adding my created players and starting a franchise. Even the small things like presentation and menu interface was fire.

"Smell like a Man, MAN!" I loved playing Madden 11. My original copy broke, but I replaced it when I started collecting games. Madden 11 is probably my go-to for football; so many great memories with my friend that happened over a decade ago. That's crazy.

This is the game that got me into Madden years ago. I used to trade Vick to whatever team I was playing just to kinda understand what it was like earlier on. I miss my childhood man 😭

Madden 11 holds a special place in my heart, it was my first ever madden as a kid and I absolutely loved it

This was one of my first Maddens because of Tim Tebow's rookie year. Little did I know that the franchise were going to struggle so much that it would be considered a classic after over a decade of more Madden games.

Any Madden year that has create-a-team automatically has a special place in my heart

The grass looks WAAAY BETTER than today’s madden

This was one of the first games I played when I first got my Xbox. I had loads of fun with it, and it became one of my favorite Maddens ever. You were right about that AFL mode, it was a really cool feature that doesn’t get talked about a lot and I also wish that Madden would build upon that or do something similar to it. Either that or pray that competition is allowed again so that a developer who actually cares about the quality of their product can do something like that.

Madden 11 is arguably my favorite Madden, across both the PS2 and the Xbox 360. I feel Madden 08 narrowly edged it out overall, but 11 is special to me. I played Madden 11 on the Xbox 360 when I was over at a friends house back in Middle School. I was blown away by Madden 11. Madden 11, along side Halo: Reach where the games that tipped me over the edge and made me get an Xbox 360, and left my PS2 sadly mostly behind

I recently unearthed my old ps2 in the attic of the family house. Picked up a copy of nfl 2k5 and I've also got all pro 2k8 and madden 12 on my old ps3. That's enough to hold me over for football when I get the itch. Also picked up nba street 2 and ssx3 secondhand. Brings backs the memories of better days.

How cool would it be to have different broadcast teams, one for SNF, regular Sunday game, TNF, MNF. But, ya know, can’t even think about that cause that’ll never happen as long as EA has the rights.

This game meant so much to me because my New Orleans Saints had just recently won the superbowl hence Brees being on the cover so that made me go out and buy it for my Xbox 360 , so when I started playing it I was also glad that it was better than previous maddens plus I got to play with my superbowl winning saints roster whenever I wanted!!!

First off, another solid retrospective from you my guy, appreciate the realism and the trips down memory lane. From playing almost every football game since 1998, I’ve logged more hours than a lifetime. I keep a list of ideas for my version of the perfect football game been adding to it for the last 12 years. Would love to share them sometime from one fan to the next keep up the good work

I’d give anything for another middle school summer of madden 11 and madden 12. The golden era gone but never forgotten 😢

I have to admit, I just played Madden 11 for the first time in years and it was pretty good! Felt like a new game!

I actually have 11 for the PS3 and while I'm a bit more softer on 12, this video's getting me to rethink 11. NCAA 11 is when the game looked great, but it's still a ways from what we had with the PS2 era NCAAs (08-11 specifically, since this is when the series was at its best and deepest).

Thank you for doing this! Madden 11 is still my favorite madden of all time. I grew up on it, and i loved the playcall gameflow feature they had because it helped me learn the game back then lol

Broooooo!!! The madden 11 intro & the old intros in general I totally forgot as soon as you brought it up I immediately stopped your vid. To go watch it immediate goosebumps & nostalgia. These new madden's really are lifeless & soulless I just feel it while playing but these old ones I could play all night. I even still play 19 & update the rosters while putting my own spin on a few things in franchise mode.But still we haven't had a video intro since when was the last one?

I think this is the first Madden that you can intercept the ball on D while toe tapping on the sidelines.

I loved that this game was all about the QB. Dominated as the broncos with Kyle Orton and Tim Tebow. Remember that in the SB, Orton and the offense jumped out to a big lead so subbed Tebow in at QB for the 4th quarter to finish it out. Tebow won SB mvp...

Man’s always takes the time to speak his thoughts whether you agree or not and you have to respect/appreciate that effort.

Madden 11 will always have a special place in my heart. First played it for the Wii, now today I still grind with it on the PS2 and PS3!

Plus 10 & 11 had that realistic game day scenes,seeing the stadium,the fans,and having that madden mic,oh man,good memories. At gamestop,they offered me 50 cebts for both my ps3 copies of 10 and 11,still have these Masterpieces on my shelf=D

About the first part of the video: I have a really strong belief that since the PS4 and Xbox One launched, 90% AAA developers stopped caring about color grading and composition of the final image when they got a way bigger performance budget to use higher polygon counts and higher resolution textures. That's why Reshade makes some games look way better than default. Especially in open, sunlit areas, a lot of games become so flat looking (specially human skin texture, they look like wax statues). There are exceptions to this (TLOU2 on the base PS4 looks amazing and RDR2 with everything on low on the PC is still stunning looking, even with some textures looking like they come from a PS2 game), but this has been neglected ever since they stopped having to compensate for low resolution textures and models.

Man I can't do nothing but tip my hat. You're dropping so much heat. Thank you

Softdrink is a legend I am 100% on board with the message I miss my Madden cant believe i haven't played franchise mode for a decade 😢but these videos are so well done I come back to them every now and again just to watch them and reminisce amazing stuff softdrink bravo my friend

Honestly even though at the time me and my best friend in middle school noticed some flaws (like linebackers picking off balls over the middle by like jumping 10 feet in the air) (we also played it when it was new in early 2011-13) I had my favorite memories and just greatest and funnest games while playing madden 11. My friend and I both made our own custom teams and made ourselves as QBs like even our height he was 5'5 and i was 5'7 lol but we made that then loaded our teams into franchise mode and had a fantasy draft to start over and made up our own storylines as to why lol.That kicked off the greatest franchise mode we'd ever play. It was so much fun we made nobodys into stars. Like Brad Smith having multiple 1000 yard seasons, and Chris Redman filling in for my injured Qb and breaking a sack to throw a game winning td in the superbowl. We would break records yes but we had the difficultly high enough that there would be some close games and we'd even lose sometimes, even in the playoffs. Oh and if me and my friend played against each other in the Super Bowl we would call it the madden bowl put an even on facebook and make the game 15 min long quarters instead of 5 and some of the greatest battles have happen. We loved madden 11 so much after Madden 12 came out we didnt like it as much as went back to our original madden 11 franchise. And when Madden 13 came out we were so mad about no franchise. Sorry that was long but Madden 11 has some great memories for my middle school self lol

i remember the presentation in this game being so amazing

It’s kind of nice to have this validated for me because I have loved madden 11 on ps3 for years. I always thought it was pretty good and I had a lot of fun with it. I kept the same franchise mode for years too

this was the first madden i had. Im really glad you made a video

I know it’s old news but EA has lost it’s licensing agreement with FIFA. To celebrate this, are you going to reupload the fall of FIFA series or make a retrospective of any FIFA games like 12 or 15?

Appreciate you sincerely brother. You deserve so much exposure and subs, and your hard work isn’t going unnoticed. Never stop being you man. Love ya.

It's wild, I've been playing Madden since it was John Madden busting through the cover Kool-Aid man style and though its one of the few titles I pick up every year, it hasn't been NEARLY as enjoyable as really any of the titles on the PS2 (which I still have that console sitting next to my current-gen system for that reason). Great content as always man!

The best Madden era of all time were the Michael Vick and Eddie George covers. Madden 04 and 05 if I remember correctly. Dynasty mode was so deep because there were competitors in the genre.

My parents rented this game for me from Blockbuster on a Friday night and the Eagles were one of my favorite teams to play with. Such good memories

For Madden, I call it steps in the right direction towards a location that doesn’t exist

I love how Madden 11 didn’t have any online trophies. I recently picked up some old PS3 games and got a platinum for this even though the online servers are down.

That last scene brought back memories. I loved that Saints chant before the game started

Im always watching your channel on my ps4 youtube app. But listening on my phone with headphones, I had to comment about your taste in background music, pretty damn 🔥🔥🔥 Keep up the great work bruh.

What I loved most on 2k5 was watching the weekly update show with highlights from other games. Just bring that back for me so I can watch my team shine on the show each week

For the PS3/360 era, sports games from 2009-2011 tended to be pretty good. The games I got for the PS3 were NBA Live 10, MLB 11: The Show, Madden NFL 11 (the one in the video obviously), NHL 11, FIFA Soccer 10, Top Spin 4, Gran Turismo 5, and UFC Undisputed 3 (this is from 2013 but it counts because it's the best UFC game even if THQ still went with the yearly release after 2010). The library pretty much shrunk after the PS4 released and even more after the PS5 because the games are either uninspiring or straight up bad.

I loved seeing the announcers at the start of the games when you load them up felt like Sunday

Still my go to madden. Was the game i had from my first year being super into football. I watched a little before but I consider the 2010 season the year I fell in love with the sport. Happy to see this solid game get some recognition.

Madden 10-12 were the golden era of 360 Maddens bar none. Still had decent soundtracks & gameplay felt, as you said, authentic. Ultimate team was actually pretty fun in that you could earn a really good team with no micros. Cards were basic & simple & not all over the place with stupid upgrades & what not.

Can you please talk about Ncaa football 12 or 13 for the Xbox 360?

Thanks for the vid! I grew up playing this on the wii and xbox 360 and it was awesome. I went from this to Madden 16 and wasnt able to create a team and was immediately upset.

Was waiting for this fire video brudda

This Maddenis very unique to all the other ones I wonder the team that worked in this one are even on the staff anymore.

11 was only the second Madden I ever played. (First I played while it was newest, as I played 10 when 11 was already out) I love this game. I will never forget playing through all the Madden Moments, a great mode that was very underrated.

Haven’t bought a new Madden since 20 and don’t plan on getting one anytime soon. Only 2 things could make me get one: 1. Bengals win the SB 2. Joe Burrow or Ja’Marr Chase on the cover

I liked Madden 11 a lot but it's thx to Madden 10. It was advertised to have the best TV style presentation yet and for me, Madden 11 was Madden 10.5 . Both games had the classic NFL Films soundtrack by Sam Spence. It's amazing how important a good soundtrack makes is for the NFL. The pro tak was a bit, tacked on for 10 and forgotten in 11. 😏 but it was also a he first time I had the freedom to put legends into my season. The gameplay had it quirks, but man, Madden 10 is a blast. Madden 11 was a good pickup too. After that , seemed to be end of the golden era.of football Imo Fun factor is something that is long gone from this franchise. Great vid btw. Btw, Gus is great, but the choppy edits on his commentary was bad. He repeated stuff all too often.

finally.... somebody agree

Great video. Came here after I noticed alot of the cool features I miss like the offensive coordinator commentary.

I just went back and platinumed Madden 11. Im so glad that was the year I bought back in the day because it was incredible. The opening intro alone is great. My other favourite is 08.

My childhood bff and i tried completing the 30 year franchise mode. We both had nfc west teams and played everygame ( two h2h) every year. After the final year, a notification popped up that just said "congratulations" and madden was never the game since

If you disable anti-aliasing in the gpu section of RPCS3 settings those black lines in the menu should go away.

You are the only one who mentions presentation. Thank you

Been waiting for a madden 11 retrospective for a long time

Man, you have made me want to play Madden again, older Madden mind you but still, I ordered a new copy of Madden 11 off Amazon, I never owned 11 but I had 10 on PS2 and 12 for 360, so I am curious to try and I am looking forward to playing against Favre in his last ever Madden game, which is the reason why I bought this along with your videos I have been binging. Thank you for making like Madden again, it's been a long time. On a side note, you mention what you would like to see, I would love to see a legacy Franchise mode where you get to pick what year you start your franchise going back to 88 when Madden released. I personally would find that amazing, especially if they have accurate rosters and draft picks.

I like Madden 12 more than 11. Though 11 definitely made a big first impression the first time I played it. It felt like Sunday Night Football on NBC. But Madden 12 just made me feel like I was on the field and I could do precisely what I intended to do in any particular situation in game.

Bro you are the goat I don’t know why no one talks about this madden I watched your video and went back and bought it because I miss older games that had soul and I never played this back in its time and now I’m sitting in complete aww of how good this game was. Unpopular opinion “Best Madden Ever”

Madden 11 and 09 were my childhood. I really do think this was an underrated Madden

this madden was staple in college dorms . the most time ever spent on franchises. soundtrack was legendary

This era was the peak of my NFL fan interest. The rosters really taking me back

Great video 😊 I'm getting madden 11 tomorrow for my $10 game collection series

I bought Madden 11 primarily for the AFL mode as I really liked playing with all the teams wearing their throwbacks that year (as well as watching the AFL Legacy games on tv) along with the refs in their orange-striped unis. I still play this on my 360 to this day and haven't bought another Madden since because this one is so good.

as a steelers fan i remember in madden's 1996-2004 if jerome bettis got a firstdown, he'd do his iconic dance and slide .....if you played as the cowboys , michael irvin would do his point with the football and swing his arm and throw the ball when he got a first down...and madden 11 was definately a fun game all around... and of course i loved hearing the "hear we go steelers , here we go" chants at heinz field, in older maddens that happened at three rivers stadium too...they really cared back then

I watched this yesterday and your NCAA 11 video and then went out and bought both of them today for my PS3 so I can import my draft classes. Not as good as PS2 era (especially 05-07) but it at least gives a more modern feel than the PS2 era. I really need a good, modern football game. Im hoping the new NCAA game is it, but I just can’t be too enthused by the thought of another EA football game.

Damn bro you reminded me how old I am when you bored how long they’ve been using Charles Davis and Brandon. The Odell madden was my very first madden, got it after our first season game in sophomore year of hs. (As you can tell I got into football pretty late)

Thank you I love these throwback videos . I been playing madden 18 cause the defense is better then 23 ..they just got lazy over time

Crazy you made this vid Madden 11 was one of my favorites cuz it was the only Madden game if you time it right you can block a field goal. Plus NBA 2k 11 was the best 2k back then

Can’t say how much I love and appreciate these videos since they are the truth about EA and Madden.

This maddden helped me learn to break down a play on offense when i had it and 08 08 was my first but this one was by far my favorite fue to the gameflow system and wpuld love if Madden can bring it back especially for people new to football and it reduces the chances for calling all the plays if you want realistic football.

I had so much fun playing Madden 11 back then. I wish newer Madden's would do something like that game did. Not to be an exact replica, but to have the same creativity and something that shows us the same care and passion that those developers had shown on Madden 11.

First madden I ever owned and what grew my love for football and the saints and then watching drew just opened more doors for my love for the game

The last time we got a "Next-gen" Madden it was Madden 06 on the 360. Madden PS5/XBSX is a refurbished port of the PS4/XB1 games which ported over and used code and assets from the 360/PS3 games. These are HD remaster of the older games. This is what 20 years of exclusivity looks like. Madden used to be built from the ground up for new console hardware. Not anymore. That's why you can pick up a copy of a 10+ year, 2 generation old Madden and be able to put them side-by-side and directly compare them. The leap we SHOULD have in a Next-gen NFL game and what we actually have is so disgustingly, depressingly sad.

I busted out my 360 to play good football games, this being one of them. It's amazing the attention to detail these older games had. Oh what we took for granted

My brothers and I played this game so much. Hard to believe it’s been 13 years.

The synthwave music in the background always hits 😂

My gf just bought me a ps2 with madden 07 for my birthday. She's a keeper.

1:13 that falling forward animation is still in madden 23 lol that’s crazy how old some of these animations are

I remember screen plays being so OP in this madden. My favorite madden of the 360/ps3 era