Talk about your pointless releases. Created simply to take advantage of a system launch, "Madden 2005" may have been another solid edition on the home consoles, but here on the DS, things are shaky all around. Everything here feels rushed, pieced together quickly due to a short development time and minimal experience with the console. It may be a step up from the Game Boy Advance versions; that's just not really saying very much.

Immediately apparent is the lack of a franchise mode. That leaves the game with a feature set out of 1999. You can still play a full season, create a scenario, go wireless in multi-player, and practice. Still, no matter how many modes were packed in, it's all revolving around a slap dash game that fails to come together, much like the player models.

It's already apparent that the DS isn't the most 3-D capable console. That's fine. It doesn't need to be. The least any gamer could ask for is a polygonal model of a football player with its head attached to its shoulders. Looking at the right angle (which occurs often during replays and pre-game) you can see directly through the back of the player's head because they don't exist. The rest of the models are blocky, chunky, and hilariously deformed. Every single model is the same size as a lineman. Saying it's a first attempt at 3-D football on a portable is making excuses. Either wait a year until things come together or just go sprite based. There's no shame either way.

Usually there's not so much focus on the graphics, but they have a detrimental effect on gameplay. Deep down field, especially when using the closer-to-the-line camera views, receivers and defenders blend together in a mish-mash of color and flickering polygons. That makes one of the few decent features, the X and O's on the bottom screen, somewhat useful. Of course, that does require you to take your eyes off the main screen, away from the key action.

For the rest of the unique features, there's not much. Using the touch screen to select plays is novel, though it's just as easy to do with the normal buttons. Plus, since the actual game can't be played with the stylus, you need to switch your hands constantly to adjust and get ready for the upcoming play. It seems more like work than fun. Picking a hot route or an audible is a bit easier with the touch screen; but again, just map this stuff to the buttons. Why make players fiddle with the stylus, D-pad, and buttons all at once? It's yet another example of a company using the screen just to use it. You can't even use the stylus to make menu selections.