Madden NFL 2005

"Madden NFL 2005 for the DS is, at the very least, a functional football game. You can do many of the things you could do in normal Madden games, just not quite as well. Unfortunately, the lack of any sort of Franchise mode cripples the replayability, making this little more than a decent romp on the gridiron in between rest stops."

"The Nintendo DS version of Madden, despite some solid gameplay and innovative features, falls short of the franchise's high standards."

"...most football junkies will likely stick to their consoles for gridiron action, but DS owners craving a portable football action will want to wrap their mits around this game."

"Don't expect to be floored by Madden's first year on the Nintendo DS. It's yet another launch title that obviously didn't have a whole lot of time dedicated to its development cycle, so it was clearly kept feature-minimum in order to make the ship date. But even with this in mind, the overall package didn't turn out too badly, and even without a sense of spit and polish to the presentation, it's at least a solid playing game of football that offers way more in gameplay than what the Game Boy Advance is capable of pulling off."

"Madden NFL 2005 makes for a fun game of football, make no mistake about it. However, there are just too many glaring problems that would make this game recommendable to anyone but the most faithful of Madden fanatics. If you're looking for a good portable football game, this is certainly your answer."