Gameplay follows the same basic pattern as last year's title that, as you will soon come to discover, is a theme that will become very common as this review carries on.
On the offensive side of the ball, the game hasn't improved much at all. Passes still take three years to reach your receiver's stone hands, which leads me to believe that gravity ceases to exist once players step onto the field. This not only makes even the best players look like they're playing fourth string in NFL Europe, but it gives the computer more than enough time to get a man over to your receiver in order to either make an interception or swat it down. As you play, you'll discover certain nuances that help make the passing game a little easier to swallow, such as stepping up before you throw or sticking to nothing but shuttle passes and quick routes, but that takes some of the fun out of the game. One of the more helpful features this year is that when a receiver is open, his passing icon lights up - which allows for some quick throws. Unfortunately, this not only clues your opponent to who you're throwing to, the lack of gravity on the field as well as the ungodly reaction time of the computer make passing a risky gamble.
The running game is a whole other story and stands out as one of the better features of the game. While most of if depends on how good your line is, holes tend to pop up and its easy to get a some good long runs with some of the better backs in the league like Deuce McAllister or Marshall Faulk.
There's really not much to say about the defensive side of the ball because it's - yeah you guessed it - exactly the same as last year. All of the plays are the same, which means that any strategy you were able to use last year works the same. This makes sense if your team's defensive strategy hasn't changed much, but on teams where there have been big changes, some plays just don't seem to work anymore. Even some of the 'lesser' football titles change plays between years, so I would expect the same from this one. Without going into further detail, high scores and unrealistic offensive stats aren't unusual.
NFL Fever really stands out in the options department. All of the modes you have come to expect in a football game are present, although they remain unchanged from last year (but I'm sure you saw that one coming). The newest (yeah- you heard me) feature this year is Online support via Xbox Live. This is the feature that really makes up for much of the game's shortcomings. Offline, I had about as much fun playing Fever as Bengals fans do watching their team play. Online, it was a completely different story - sure, it didn't play any better, but the coolness factor of not only being able to play football online with someone, but having the ability to trash talk them and listen to their reaction to your back breaking a 60 yard run adds something special to the game.
