| | Operation Sports:One Size Doesn’t Fit All
By Shawn Drotar
Whether you’ve played the NFL Fever series since its inception, or you’re just trying it for the first time this year, NFL Fever 2004 has a style of play to suit you. The game’s User Profiles provide a quick, easy, and powerful way to ensure that you’re playing the game exactly the way you want—without having to bother with changing any settings each time you play.
Now, we’ll dive head first into the User Profile menu and provide you with all the information you’ll need. From the Main menu, select User Profiles. The next screen will provide you with options to create, edit, import, export, and delete your profile.
Let’s create one now.
First, select Create User Profile—it’s the first menu option available. Give it a name, and click OK.
The game will then ask you to choose a Play Style. Your options are: Rookie, Veteran, All-Pro, and All-Fever. Below each choice sits a description of each level to help you decide which one is best for you.
Next, you’ll select your Passing Style. The first choice available will correspond with the Play Level you just selected, but you can override this if you so choose. The options open to you are One Button, Trigger, and Read and Lead. As before, a description of each style is available on screen.
After that’s completed, you can change your Controller Configuration. If you don’t happen to like the default controls, there are two other configurations to choose from, and you can view how each button configuration will work for your quarterback, ball carrier, defense (both pre-snap and post-snap), as well as your pre-snap offense. Once you find the configuration that works best for you, press the A button.
Now we’ll select our Playpicker mode. The default mode gives you access to both the Basic and Advanced modes, but if you’d rather have one without the other, you can make that choice here.
After you selected your Playpicker mode, NFL Fever 2004 will show you what you’ve selected in the last four menus, and ask you to confirm your selections. When you confirm them, NFL Fever 2004 will save your new User Profile to your Xbox video game system’s hard drive.
That’s not all you can do with User Profiles, however. Here’s how to customize them further for even more control. From the User Profile menu, select View/Modify Profiles. Select the one you wish you modify, and press the A Button.
You’ll now see a variety of things to choose from—let’s look at what they do.
Controller Configuration
This menu allows you to change the selection you made when the profile was created.
Run/Pass Control
This menu allows you to change the Passing Style choice you made during your profile’s creation. It also allows you to toggle the Read and Lead Target (when you’re using Read and Lead passing, of course) between either the Locked or Unlocked setting. This selection will greatly change the way Read and Lead passing is used in a game of NFL Fever 2004. You also have the option to select either Normal or One Button run control from this menu. If you select One Button, a single button press will cause the ball carrier to juke, spin, or stiff-arm a defender. It’s perfect for the novice!
Playpicker Options
You may change a different option than the one you originally made during your profile’s creation. Additionally, you can choose to turn your “coach” off from this menu if you don’t feel you need his assistance or advice.
Custom Assignments
The most in-depth of the User Profile menus, this menu’s options change the way your team’s AI will react during a game. Broken Route Action tells your receivers how to react when a play breaks down. Should they head up field or come back to help your QB? The choice is yours. Read Route Delay, Disguise Coverage, Zone Defense, DB Matchup, and DB Cover Style all deal with covering the opposing receivers and provide a powerful tool for students of the NFL game. Further menu choices exist for linebacker and safety play. Set these menus correctly, and you’ll be well on your way to shutting down the opposition!
Custom Play Book
Use these menus to change your audibles and hot routes. With these, a smart coach can keep the defense on their heels. Favorite Plays will allow you to select 20 of your favorite plays—regardless of formation—and have them accessible from a single Playpicker box! There’s even a full-featured Play Editor that allows you to quickly and easily create your own plays from scratch and add them to your Playpicker.
Default Game Settings
This one’s easy. Select the level and quarter length that you prefer from this menu.
Win/Loss Records
Check out how you’ve done against human opponents, as well as the CPU.
Xbox Live Options
Ready to take your game to the outside world on Xbox Live®? Use this menu to attach your gamertag to your profile and adjust various Xbox Live options!
As you can see, the game’s User Profile isn’t just to keep track of wins. From the novice user to the most experienced NFL Fever 2004 player, the User Profile gives you total control of your game—just the way you want it!
Shawn Drotar pens the weekly columns “Splinters From The Pine” and “Starting 5” for OperationSports.com and is proud to provide exclusive coverage for Xbox.com. Shawn’s e-mail address is shawn@operationsports.com.
|
