Pros: QB Vision Cone, Truck Stick, and Game Planning are all welcome additions.
Cons: Superstar Mode is pointless, so is Bruno, draft classes are messed up.
The Bottom Line: A good game from top to bottom, but largely the same as last year's. If you need that $50 for a next-gen console, then skip '06 and save the dough.
strykerbc's Full Review: Madden NFL 06 for PlayStation 2
There have been some down years for Madden lately. 2002 through 2004 added seemingly little to the game, but 2005 gave us a new less-offensive defensive AI and the brilliant Owner Mode. It stands to reason that with the next-gen consoles coming out sooner rather than later, EA wouldn't try to push revolutionary changes into this year's version, but rather wait for '07 when the XBOX 360 and (hopefully) PS3 are out and operational. As a result, Madden 2006 is not any worse than '05, but for the first time in several years, it's not any better than the game before it.
Let's begin with the new features. The best new feature is a part of Owner Mode, the mode that EA was trying to downplay this year as being "too complex" and alienating the "average gamer." By far the best new feature this year is the game planning tab in Owner Mode. It's not just an expansion of the game plan button from last year, which offered three tips to help your team beat their opponent du jour, but rather it's a complete position by position breakdown of your opponent. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? If you really want to get into it, you can practice a gameplan presented to you by your coordinators, and see the resulting bump in performance by your squad that weekend. My only complaint with this new feature is that if you score high enough in the practice gameplan sessions, you will effectively create "money plays" that can be run again and again, with a near-100% success rate. It opens the door up for a real cheese-a-thon, but fortunately has no effect for online play. There were no other major changes to franchise/owner mode this year, and I don't have the time or energy to recap every last bit of what was in there already. If you want to know, look at some Madden 2005 reviews (preferably mine, wink wink nudge nudge).
Speaking of online play, seeing as how the game has only been out for 24 hours or so, it's too early to judge that aspect, however the games I have played online have been fairly smooth and without any real cheesing. The new "Fair Play" feature that EA installed is a real boon for online ballers--it limits the ability of players to go for it on fourth down, go for two, and try onside kicks. Basically, if a real team wouldn't do it, you can't either. Some may see this as too limiting a feature, and for that reason, Fair Play is 100% optional. There are also optional no-huddle usage penalties to keep players from exploiting that bug which allows you to wear down a defense in 3 plays flat, leaving them wide open for the long bomb.
After last year's defense-heavy game, EA has gone back to what it does best--shootouts with a final score of 73-69. The Truck Stick feature for running backs is a welcome addition, kind of the anti-Hit Stick. Instead of trying to use speed bursts and stiff-arms to pray your way through traffic, you can hit the Truck Stick and bowl over a defender. One major high point of this feature--it's realistic. Using the truck stick wears down your runner fast, and more importantly, it only works with larger backs. If you try and use the Truck Stick to blast Quentin Griffin through the line of scrimmage, you will be let down in a big way. If you use it with Jerome Bettis, however, you'll probably blow up a pair of tacklers.
Another welcome change--the run-juke bug is GONE. Like the jetpacking bug of years past, the run-juke bug allowed a skilled player to essentially cheap-shot the CPU defenders by juking their runner left and right, all over the field and into the end zone. CPU defenders would fly right past them and never lay a finger on the back. This year, the jukes are more realistic, and if you try to make like Barry Sanders on pep pills, you'll be hit harder than Ted Washington at a gay bar (let's see if anyone gets that joke).
And finally among the new features I felt really add something to the game--the QB vision cone. You're either going to love this or think it's a real pain in the backside. Basically, you need to have the receiver you want to throw to in the lighted area, or the QB's "cone of vision." The better the QB, the bigger the cone. Try to hit a target outside the cone and you'll miss. Badly. Probably be picked off, too. I think the cone makes the game infinitely more challenging, even at the easiest of levels. If you don't progress through your reads quickly, you're screwed. If you stay locked on to one target for too long, defenders will read your QB's eyes and flow towards him. Another neat trick in the cone is "precision passing." By moving the stick up, down, left, or right while throwing to a receiver in the cone, you can control whether or not the ball goes farther, shorter, left, or right of the target. It's another neat wrinkle to the passing game. Many people, however, will be very happy to hear that this feature can be turned off.
The next neat trick EA installed, and the most-hyped one of the year, is "Superstar Mode." In Superstar Mode, you create a player by choosing his parents, completing interviews and and IQ test, being drafted, and basically living their life as an NFL player. This was EA's way of reaching out to the casual fan who found Owner Mode too deep and confusing, and it shows. The game mode is repetitive and, frankly, pretty boring. Adding Terrell Davis as your "mentor" was a neat touch, but the game mode itself is seriously lacking in depth and material. Sign an agent, take a Wonderlic test, memorize some movie lines, do some endorsement deals, and, oh yeah, play some football or you'll get fired and the show's over. More than anything, this feature reminded me of a dumbed-down NASCAR 2005 career mode port, as the cell phone, agent, schedule, and endorsement deals are all very similar. What's missing is anything interesting to keep you hooked. TD offers little advice, the agents are mostly an annoyance, and the barber shop and tattoo parlor are eye candy only. Who knew that stepping into the shoes of an NFL "superstar" could be so boring? Maybe EA has an amped-up version of this in the works for the next-gen consoles; who knows? All I know for sure is that it's a real letdown right now.
I'm not even going to touch the soundtrack, as most of it is (c)rap music once again. The few bands on there that aren't pumping out the (c)rap are hardcore punk acts that don't now and never will have the appeal of, say, Green Day. I suppose the game's target audience might enjoy all the (c)rap and punk, but seeing as how I'm dead in the middle of the game's target audience (20-year-old male), I have to assume I'm the exception and not the rule.
What I will touch, however, is Tony Bruno's show. I identified this last year as a repetitive, annoying segment that added nothing to the game except white noise, and expressed my gratitude that EA let us turn it off. This year, I'm pleased to report much the same. (Some of) the segments are new, but it's still the same bag of crap...just a little more insightful crap this time. If crap could talk, this year's Bruno show would be the Rush Limbaugh of crap as opposed to the Geraldo Rivera of crap. Only a slight step up in the world of feces, I know, but it is a step up nonetheless. Again, thank God that EA continues to let us turn Bruno off/shut Bruno up.
While we're on the topic of in-game audio, perhaps I should mention the Madden/Michaels commentary, eh? Long story short, it's much the same as last year's, with a few new phrases here and there and some new names recorded (just try and find a Merriman in '05, I dare you). It's still the same, it's still boring, it's still incoherent, and it's still able to be turned off. Again, thank God.
Visually, the game continues to run on the antiquated Madden 2001 engine, one which will remain with us until the next-gen consoles are out. It seems that EA either gave their graphics designers the year off or sent them all to work on next-gen versions of the game, because aside from the Truck Stick animations, there is nothing new to report here. There is a positive to that, though. At least when we see tornadoes, blizzards, hurricanes, firestorms, and flying cows on next-gen versions of the game, we'll know why the graphics are the same as they've been for 5 years now in '06. The interfaces are almost exactly the same as those of '05, just with different fonts and some minor graphical touch-ups.
Some all-new bugs have popped up already, though. Used to be EA only screwed up the stats of incoming rookies by giving them career numbers of 10,361 yards rushing on 3,221 attempts. Now they've managed to mess up already-existing players. Don't believe me? Go to the Jacksonville Jaguars roster and check the career stats of Daryl Smith, outside linebacker. Mr. Smith was drafted in the second round by Jacksonville in 2004. He started most of the season at linebacker for the Jags, yet he's listed as having played for the New York Giants in 2004.
WTF mate?
As usual, I have plenty of issues with the rosters, and feel that some players are vastly overrated (how on God's green Earth can Chad Scott be the best CB on the Patriots' roster???), some are vastly underrated, and some were unforgiveably left off of their proper teams. Just because Tedy Bruschi isn't playing this year doesn't mean he's not still a Patriot. Roster woes are easily corrected, however, by visiting websites like http://www.football-freaks.com, or http://www.consolesports.net for Struttdaddy's PC rosters. FF has a vast array of roster files available for all versions of Madden, and Struttdaddy, though he's a PC-only roster guy, is widely regarded as the best in the "business"
***Segment below edited in on 8/10/2005***
And then there's the draft. EA has killed the draft. Have you seen the draft classes this year? They're almost exactly like porting a class from NCAA--without porting the class! Quarterbackss are listed as having "Bad" arm strength and "Terrible" accuracy, yet still being ranked top-10 overall? Then when drafted, their THP is 92 and their THA is 90. I had a defensive tackle ranked top-5 fall to me...late in the second round. 82 OVR.
Beyond that is the issue of overrated players. I was able to draft a player in the 6th round who was 75 OVR and wanted a $1M/yr deal. Guys were drafted in the 7th round who had 72 OVR. Guys drafted in 3 were still around 75-80.
Not only is the draft class too tightly bunched in terms of ratings, but the ratings are too high and players fall too far. There should not be 6 quarterbacks rated as first-round prospects, 8 running backs rated as first-rounders (so that I can get one rated 79 OVR in 3), and wide receivers rated as 4th round guys who end up being 74 OVR.
I suppose there is a silver lining in the mess EA has made of the draft, however. At least most of the running backs have SPD ratings higher than 75 this year...
***End edited segment***
Overall, Madden '06 is a letdown, but it's one we should have been expecting. It's not that the game is a bad one, it's just not as great of one as we'd like to see. Considering that EA is hard at work on the next-gen console versions of Madden, that's entirely understandable, but it doesn't change my rating. I'm going to make a rather unprecedented move here and give the game 4 stars, then decline to offer a recommendation. My reasoning for this is simple. Madden NFL 2006 *is* a very good game. The problem is that the best parts of it are already in Madden NFL 2005, and if you're short on cash and need to skip a year, this would be the one to do it. Put that $50 towards a 360 or PS3, and just dream of the times to come when Madden hits those babies.
*Edited 8:19 PM MST, 8/9/2005*
Based on the comments made by jkafer, and based on some rethinking of my own, I've changed the rating of the game to 3-stars. 4-stars is a little generous for a game that offers just a bit more than last year's version, and is basically a rehash of the rest, no matter how good the rest was last year and is now.
*Edited 11:03 AM MST, 8/10/2005*
After sitting down through an offseason with my franchise late last night, I was shocked and irritated by the draft class algorithm that EA is using. I've added several paragraphs about this, and while I'm not lowering my rating again, it should be noted that I am none too pleased with EA for this screw-up.
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