- Precision passing, QB vision
control, and truck stick on offense help bring more realism to
the field
- Usual excellent franchise mode will thrill fantasy leaguers
- Online play solid and doesn’t allow for cheating or bad
sportsmanship
- More realistic than its has ever been
- Much-improved QB running controls
- Graphics haven’t progressed much
as should be expected
- Presentation values, especially announcing, not impressive at
all
- Is the best NFL video game around, but only because it’s the
only NFL video game around (no competition make it hard to
really judge how good Madden 06 is)
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Madden
NFL 06
Score: 9.1 / 10
When the calendar flips from July to
August, two very important events are right around the corner for NFL
fans and sports video gamers alike: the NFL is about to begin its
preseason in earnest with the season just a few weeks away, and its
almost time for the annual release of the latest Madden NFL video game,
which just happens to be the biggest selling sports franchise ever.
This year, Madden’s the only game in town. Electronics Arts, which
suffered a severe challenge for football game supremacy at the hands of
2K Sports and its great marketing strategy for its ESPN 2K5 last year,
made sure that didn’t happen again by buying the exclusive NFL license
(and also pulling the ESPN license from under the feet of 2K Sports),
effectively eliminating its toughest competitor and assuring that gamers
that would buy an NFL game would be buying a EA-published
While many were worried that exclusivity would mean less innovation, EA
provides another excellent football title in Madden NFL 06. Its
presentation values aren’t particularly good, nor does it go leaps and
bounds ahead in the visuals, but those are just minor, non-gameplay
affecting issues. What it does bring to along for the ride are improved
gameplay, a smart and
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fair-balanced online mode, and a few “new” tricks (some “borrowed” from
the former NFL 2K series) up its sleeve, especially precision passing
and QB vision control, that make it a must-buy for serious NFL video
gamers.
What EA is lauding as its biggest addition this year is the precision
passing and QB vision controls. They even state that on the back of the
game box, by saying Madden NFL 06’s season is primed to become “the year
of the quarterback.” These additions bring more realism to the passing
game, but they’re not totally innovative, because 2K Sports sported the
precision passing feature last year.
The QB vision control operates as an “eye” that shows you a vision cone
for each quarterback. It’s in that cone that the QB has the most likely
chance of success if he throws the ball. For Pro Bowl quarterbacks such
as Donovan McNabb and Peyton Manning, the cone is large. Rookie
quarterbacks like the 49ers’ Alex Smith or journeyman QBs have a much
such smaller cone and therefore a less likely chance of passing success.
The QB vision control works in tandem with the precision passing, which
gauges how accurate (including the right “touch” on the ball) your
quarterback is, and again his likelihood of completing a pass.
These two buddy features really eliminate the effectiveness of past
Madden players that would drop back 20 yards on a pass play to avoid the
rush, and then chuck it down field, completing a pass that wouldn’t ever
be completed in the pros. If you throw to a receiver that’s outside your
QB’s cone of vision in Madden NFL 06, you still have a chance of a
completion, but at a severely lower percentage rate, and more likely
will see the opposition pick it off or just have it go harmlessly
incomplete. You need to develop more of a passing touch to win on a
regular basis, but veterans of the series will acclimate quickly and
even newer players won’t be too taxed in learning how to precision pass
within the QB vision cones.
Running the ball on offense hasn’t been completely forgotten, however.
The big news for running game fans is the use of the truck stick, which
is really just the hit stick on defense used by ball carriers on
offense. When you use the truck stick correctly, you can smash into a
closing defender to gain more yardage or break through a pile of
defenders, or even use a back juke that make the runner perform a “ole”
bullfighter move, stepping the runner back to make the defender miss a
tackle in front of him.
Quarterbacks have an easier time running the ball, too. The controls are
much better, using the “A” button to move the QB into and out of
scramble mode. If the pocket collapses, get your QB running for open
field. If you start to scramble and a receiver suddenly opens up while
the quarterback is behind the line of scrimmage, you can let go of the
“A” button and fire a pass towards your target (hopefully inside your
vision cone).
Receivers do get open a lot because the game’s A.I. has graduated to
sometimes seemingly Mensa intelligence levels. If a QB moves outside the
pocket, receivers, including backs, adjust their patterns to provide a
better opportunity for a pass completion. They’ll even come back to the
ball, if that’s the best solution. Defensively, the A.I. is sharper too.
The defense doesn’t allow many “cheap” long-bomb completions and finds
ways of providing adequate coverage all over the field, both against you
and for you. It’s by far the best football A.I. around, and at higher
challenge levels (and online) really makes the game much, much more of a
true NFL simulation that before.
A 30-year franchise mode returns as strong as ever, giving you complete
control over your team, from drafts, signings and all personnel
decisions to where you play your games, to how much tickets cost, right
on down to how much you charge for concessions. The new mode is another
“borrowed” from 2K Sports (in a similar variation in ESPN 2K5), the NFL
Superstar mode, where you take a player you create (or have imported
from NFL Street 2 or NCAA Football 06), have him get drafted, and begin
an NFL career. You’ll start out in a small apartment, where you live
your rookie season.
But the better you play and the closer you get to becoming a superstar
of the football field, you’ll upgrade your living quarters. There’s an
agent to deal with and endorsements to chase, and bigger and bigger
contracts to strive for if you become a Pro Bowler. Heck, there’s even
the Madden cover to try for each season. It’s a good mode that give
players a self-serving interest in playing a lot (to see how big a
superstar you can become) if the franchise mode is just too detailed to
want to play on a consistent basis.
Online via Xbox Live is a stellar setup that provides a great place to
test out your Madden skills against other human competition. There are
no online leagues, but EA makes up for that with online tournaments. And
there are plenty of gameplay options that help to eliminate cheating and
bad sportsmanship. Instead of having players quit against you if you’re
destroying them on the scoreboard, you can have friendly quits that
don’t affect the win/loss column.
Besides that, you can concede defeat if you are losing by 22 or more
points in the third quarter (17 in the fourth quarter) or offer mercy to
a struggling opponent (same score rules). And there are only a limited
number of times you can pause the game. A disgruntled opponent may want
to pause the game, hoping you will quit in frustration, but the game
allows only a certain amount of pauses, which are timed, to eliminate
that. And no more playing the guy who goes for it on fourth down and 40
to go every time. The game simply doesn’t allow a player to select
anything but a punt when it’s fourth down and too long to go. Madden NFL
06 “keeps it real” online, and that’s welcome news for football
simulation fans.
Graphically, Madden NFL 06 isn’t much better than it has been since
Madden 2003. I was playing a game of Madden NFL 2003 to compare it to
Madden NFL 06. Playing as the Eagles, my son walked into the room and
asked how Duce Staley was still on the Eagles when he had been on the
Steelers for two years. He couldn’t tell that graphically that I wasn’t
playing the 2006 Madden instead of the 2003. That’s not a damnation of
the visuals, however. They are generally good as far as the players and
stadiums are concerned. But just a statement that they haven’t
incrementally improved much in the last few years.
Although the graphics are acceptable, the presentation values certainly
seemed to have slipped. First off, the announcing team of Al Michaels
and John Madden are not very good. There are way too many repetitive
remarks or just out-of-place commentary. Madden, in fact, seems to have
just called in his voice-over work this year. He just doesn’t seem to
have any enthusiasm in his comments like he has in the past. I really
miss the great announcing tandem of announcers Terry McGovern as "Dan
Stevens" and Jay Styne as "Peter O'Keefe" from the 2K Sports football
titles.
One area that ESPN 2K5 really outdid Madden NFL 2005 was the great use
of the ESPN license by using Chris Berman and a halftime highlight show
in the Xbox version of the game. It really made it seem that you were
watching a real football game, not just playing it. There’s nothing like
that in Madden NFL 06. EA did just take away the ESPN license from 2K
Sports, so maybe some more “borrowing” will take place in Madden NFL 07.
Musically, the game does the whole rock and hip-hip routine that’s been
part of the EA Sports experience the last couple of seasons. The usual
fare that should keep your foot tapping and groove going on.
Give EA credit for putting out the superior product everybody feared
they might not put out with the exclusive NFL license. This is
definitely a great football game, even though it could reach a
hall-of-fame level of excellence with better presentation values
particularly in the announcing booth and by possibly using the ESPN
license it confiscated from 2K Sports and replicating the ESPN studio
analysis that was part of ESPN 2K5). Superior controls and artificial
intellect go a long way to making this a quality simulation of NFL
football on the field. Another great franchise mode and online play with
a multi-faceted selection of modes (including tournaments) give Madden
enough Pro Bowl-level features to once again win over its own legion of
fans and also fans of the departed NFL 2K franchise.
