The first time I have played  Madden 2001, I was amazed, and I still am. Believe me, there aren't other football  games with the realism of this title from EA sports.  After you have seen Madden 2001, you simply can't play with your beloved NFL 2001 or with any other sporting game with the same eyes. You will perhaps continue to love these games, but their graphics won't succeed in satisfying you. Madden 2001 introduces a perfect graphic engine. Looking at this game you will constantly think that this can't be just a video game.
The players are marvellously built with a dizzy number of polygons in comparison to other sporting titles. The perfection of the players is also in the very smooth animations and in the realism of the movements during one of the frequent clashes. The helmets shine under the sun and they seem indeed of true metal; and the definition in the musculature of the athletes is comparable only to that seen in ESPN Track'n Field. However the faces are not realized with the same care used for the bodies. I wonder if this defect is due to a limit of the graphic engine or to the usual launch-titles' brief development. The stadiums are perfectly recreated; the crowd on the bleacher is very defined and all the persons and the details that is possible to see in the immediate border of the field are wonderful. Your players, no need to say, can interact with these secondary figures. For instance, rather than stopping your adversary, you can always decide to break the bones to one of those unfortunate men. The light effects conceived by the developers is faultless and each game will appear different according to weather conditions. In Madden 2001 a rain effect couldn't really be absent, and so you'll see the water squirting around the players, or you can see them completely dirtied toward the end of a game.

Considering these aspects and all other maniacal details that you will discover playing, Madden 2001 is probably the first football game really featuring something near to a TV-like appearance. For a large part of the game, the difference between real world and simulated world is unnoticeable.

The sound quality is obviously elevated, even if  the vocabulary of Mr. Madden is really too restricted. This is a defect common to most sports games; at present there are no games able to recreate a believable running commentary like one heard in a football match seen  on TV. Nevertheless, there are many good idea in Madden 2001. For example, suppose you've created a new player and you've given him a name. Well, if this name is included in a special database, you'll be bale to hear Mr.Madden calling your hero during a game.
The noises of the stadiums, the chants of the crowd and all the things that is possible to hear in a gigantic football stadium have been discreetly recreated, even if there is not much difference with many good PsOne titles. Briefly, speaking of sounds, Madden Nfl 2001 doesn't shine like in its graphics or gameplay.

If you like American football, Madden Nfl 2001 is surely one of the launch titles with the greatest replay value. For all those who instead don't like this sport it will be rather difficult to disentangle themselves in this Ea Sports'game. The large number of gameplay modes, the possibility to create your players and the Madden Cards  make this game a must-buy. If you add to all this the extraordinary multiplayer mode, we can really say the Madden 2001's replay value is practically boundless.