Despite what the critics (including me, quite frankly) of EA’s exclusive NFL license thought,
Madden NFL 06 is going out with a bang on what may be its last leg on the current generation of consoles. Many thought that the lack of competition would halt EA’s progress with the franchise, but
Madden has finally seen the leap forward that we have wished for every year. New moves and new modes round out a great experience for NFL fans of all ages.
The greatest addition to the series since making the leap into 3D has got to be the all-new Superstar mode. While the concept is nothing new, in practice it is done very well. As if you’re starring in your own soap opera for men, you control your created or imported (from NFL Street 2 or NCAA Football 06) player throughout his entire career. You’ll be able to round out his personality and determine his career choices through a complex (yet compelling) series of text-based question and answer sessions. If you’ve played the Career mode in any of the recent WWE wrestling games, you’ll see striking similarities. While from the outside it may seem silly to watch over your star player by making him dress well and have great interviews, once you get into it you’ll certainly not leave. This welcome addition makes continuing to play Madden 06 much more enjoyable than just simply replaying season after season.
The on-the-field action also has improved greatly with the addition of QB Vision Control. Each quarterback in the National Football League has a different rating, so EA has created a “cone” vision that is based on each QB’s stats. The better the quarterback, the wider his field of vision will be. Throwing the ball within this cone increases the accuracy of the pass, and tossing the ball outside usually results in a poor pass. In addition, Precision Passing allows you to now lead your receiver to the best spot to catch the ball. You’ll be able to throw it high or low, or find the open spot by leading or throwing behind your intended receiver. All of these actions do result in greater passing abilities, but can also lead to an increase in interceptions thrown if you just wildly hit buttons when you play.
And finally... after years of pleading, begging, and groveling... EA has heard our cries to allow Franchise games to be played online. That’s right, you’ll finally have the ability to play Franchise games with your buddies who are too far away to pass a memory card back and forth. Unfortunately, you really won’t be playing the franchise games online; instead you’ll be transferring the saved game file from one PS2 to another in order to share these season games. All we can hope for is that next year this ability will be improved, and allow for actual games to be played via the Internet.
Additional new features allow you to actually save key games throughout your Franchise and play them at a different time. After playing the game, you just need to “merge” the game back into the Franchise save and continue as normal. This ability to spawn games is how you can share game files with your friends. Also, if you have Madden NFL 06 on PSP, you’ll be able to share your files to play a Franchise week on your handheld.
