Madden NFL 06

Madden is without a doubt the most popular football video game franchise. Now that this year EA Sports is the only official licensor of the NFL teams and players, there isn’t any competition anymore and this somewhat shows in Madden 06 for the 360. The core mechanics of a football game are there, and the presentation is definitely there, yet a lot has been stripped from this game that the past versions of the series offered.

Upon launching Madden, you will prompted to choose your favorite team and that will determine the game’s menu background and colors. The menu itself is very cool; I really liked it and thought it was very well done. However that said, once you’re in the menu there isn’t actually that much to choose from. You have the basic Play Now mode which let’s you start a quick game between two teams you wish to go head to head and to play a season, you have the Franchise Mode.

Franchise lets you control the team by managing both the roster and the coaching, and at the same time you can play the games themselves. If you like the managing parts, you can simply simulate the games. The actual simulation itself will take a couple of minutes; something that I thought was a little phony, but if the system is actually favoring teams based on roster... I just hope it’s accurate.

You also get the same online mode from previous versions, which is great for playing friends over Live – set everything up and play a nice match of Madden to see who’s better. So, as you can see, not many additions in the Madden camp for this first next-generation iteration of the series.

Madden 06 provides a very good translation of football onto your video game controller and it definitely doesn’t lack in the gameplay department. Once you’re in the game you have what seems like hundreds of plays and alternations based on the play set-ups.

On both offense and defense you can select plays based on the play book or by asking either your coach or John Madden himself. I felt the impressiveness of the actual play choosing was overwhelming, they give you everything a football fan can ask for.

Once you’re on the field you can switch plays, flip them, and call an audible. On defense you can control the lineman and use your right thumb stick to tackle or sack the quarterback. On offense, once you hike the ball your thumb stick serves as “QB Sight,” where your quarterback is actually looking on the field. This effects how accurate the throw is going to be. Throwing the ball to a receiver out of your sight can result in a miss throw or even an interception.

It will take you some time to learn every single action of Madden’s controls but most of the time you can get through the game without even knowing many of them. The game pretty much tells you when to press a button.

Returning or running with a ball gives you some options in terms of using the right trigger as a sprint button and having the Y, B, X and A buttons as ways to maneuver around the defensemen that are trying to tackle you. Mastering these buttons will yield long kick returns and big rushing yards.

There aren’t many complaints against the mapping or the sensitivity of the controller, which can be adjusted. It’s just that it feels like there could be more done with the 360 controller. The addition of QB Sight is great in this regards and I’m looking forward for more innovations in the future.

Madden definitely has the ability to look good. The up-close, “cut-scene” type shots reveal very detailed faces and uniform textures. Yet, most of the game will be spent in a distant camera view in which very little detail is seen. Everything about the players and the coaches looks great, and it is a very good looking game, however it still needs just a little more to really stand head and shoulders over last-gen graphics. For example, the weather effects, although good, are not too much of a leap from the last-gen consoles.

The animations are excellent in the game, every single move the players do looks realistic, and the Madden team did a great job in that department. What I would like to see in the future Maddens is a little better lighting effects, mixed with some better weather and some nice mud physics. After that, the game would be just pure gold, but that’s only something to hope for in the future.

Don’t worry though, the good thing about this game is it is extremely smooth. The FPS never spikes and is always hovering at a good 60 frames per second minimum. Very important for a sports game and I’m glad Madden runs this smooth.