Madden 06

Microsoft XBOX 360

Click HERE for screenshots. 

The first foray by the Madden franchise into the world of “HD Gaming” on the XBOX 360 is uneven and in many ways a step backwards from the previous three games released on the less powerful PlayStation 2 hardware. 

The first thing I noticed about the game was a positive though- the font used on the menu screens (and throughout the game) is crystal clear.  This might sound like a trivial matter, but it really bothered me how difficult it could be to read text on the screen at times in the Madden franchise.  Now, after 16+ years, they finally figured out how to display a crisp readable font.  Thank you HD.

As I began my wildcard matchup against the Steelers, I immediately felt that something was wrong.  Something important seemed missing as the players were introduced and kicked the ball off.  Then I realized- there is NO JOHN MADDEN COMMENTARY in this game.  In fact, with the exception of an “ask Madden” option in the play-calling screen (see below), John Madden is completely missing from Madden 06.  While I will concede that I have criticized Madden’s role in the game in the past, playing a Madden game with no John Madden felt surreal and left a huge vacuum in the game’s presentation.  Instead, we are left with an exceedingly generic one-man “radio broadcast” in which some unknown dude quietly tells you the down and distance.  “You don’t know what you got til it’s gone.” L

The graphics have undeniably been jacked up for Madden 06 on the XBOX 360 – the HD presentation makes everything sharper.  EA Sports has imported player faces for key players, so they vaguely resemble their real-life counterparts.  This works better for some Patriot players than others (Richard Seymour looks great, Tom Brady looks a bit brutish).  The player models are OK, but I thought that at times players looked like monsters and the proportions were a little too exaggerated.  I also thought that the models had a bit of a plastic sheen to them (almost like the ken-doll look of Madden 2001).  Players shouldn’t glisten from head to toe the way they do in Madden 06. 

Play calling has been revamped dramatically and I found this infuriating.  Play calling has been more or less identical since Madden ’91.  Sure, the presentation has changed a little bit over the years, but the core mechanics are always the same- pick a formation, pick a play.  Three plays are always highlighted at once and chosen by pressing the corresponding button.  I never thought too hard about this mechanic because it always made sense- put simply, it WORKED. 

However, in Madden 06, you are given a variety of options for how to go about calling a play.  You can go by formation, play type, “ask coach”, “ask Madden”, by player position, or choose by “recently run plays”.  When you go by formation, rather than giving you the base formation and then being able to scroll to variations (i.e. Shotgun>Shotgun trips right, Shotgun 5 wide, etc.), they give you every formation under the sun all at once (goal line, I-form, I-form 2 TE, Shotgun, Shotgun trips-right, Weak I 3 wr, etc.).  They can’t fit it all on one screen, so you have to scroll around to find the right one.  This was a clusterfuck of options that was more or less unsorted.  Making matters worse, is that rather than highlighting 3 plays at a time (which saves time), you only can highlight one.  SO, if you need to pick an option at the bottom of the list, you have to frantically scroll around until you highlight precisely the correct formation (and then play) that you need.  On offense, you have a 40 second play clock, but on defense, you usually have about 10 seconds to sort through hundreds, if not thousands, of possible plays. 

They offer the “ask coach” or “ask Madden” options to simplify this, but I didn’t care much for this either.  This would cough up 5 vanilla plays to choose from depending on the down and distance situation.  Basically, you have a choice between frantically sifting through 1000 plays or choosing between 5 boring ones. 

I compromised by playing vanilla “ask coach/Madden” defense while mixing things up a bit more on offense.  By sorting offensive play calling by “play type”, I was able to call plays classified as “inside runs” or “regular passes” or whatever.  While this was better than the vanilla “ask coach” options, I still was left wondering what was so bad about the old method?  It had worked well for 15 fucking years. 

Back to the action, I immediately was struck by how crappy the camera angle was on the field.  It was basically at field level, making it extremely difficult to see what the hell was going on.  I went to the (sparse) options screen to change the angle, but alas, there was no option to adjust the camera!  This seemed like a glaring omission to me, and after some research I was able to determine that by pressing the “right trigger” on the XBOX controller, you could zoom all the way out with the camera.  While this was a bit further away than I would have preferred, at least it gave me the chance to see where players were lining up on the field and a chance to read the defense.  Once again, Madden 06 presents you with two extreme choices- either position the camera on the ground, or in the blimp.  (I also found it annoying that I had to press “right trigger” for EVERY PLAY – there was no way I could find to fix that setting, at least not from the “in game” options screen.) 

The control scheme has also been completely re-done for Madden 06.  Some of the default settings are simply bizarre.  For example, while the left analog stick lets you steer the selected player on defense and on running plays (and after passes are completed), it will not allow the QB to scramble in the pocket.  Instead, it will cause the QB to stop in his tracks and “pump-fake”.  To move the QB in the pocket, use the d-pad.  Why the hell would you assign the analog stick to “pump-fake” when a simple button would do?  I had to remember before each passing play (after I hit the right trigger to fix the camera) to move my thumb off the analog stick and onto the d-pad (but not on runs).  It just feels like they are being obtuse for the sake of being obtuse.

Back to my wildcard game against the Steelers, I had managed a weak 6-0 at the half.  I made note of the fact that there is no longer any notification when a quarter ends or when the 2 minute warning happens.  Pay attention to the little clock on the screen, because the CPU sure as hell isn’t going to mention it.  Also, why does Madden insist on periodically taking away drive summaries from their games?  I find them useful and that they add to the narrative of the game.  There are none in Madden 06 – not mid-drive or after a score.  I couldn’t find one even in the convoluted “game stats” section (which you access by clicking the right analog stick when you are on a specific screen). 

The camera is particularly useless on punt returns, putting it at such a low angle that you have no idea where the ball is going to land or where your returner is- he is often completely off camera as the ball is coming down. 

In the second half, I extended my lead to 13-0, but the CPU responded with a fluky hail-mary TD play of 80 yards.  I countered with a TD of my own after a decent drive to put the score at 20-7.  Weirdly enough, the CPU had a second fluky 80 yard TD pass and the game ended with the score 20-14.  I basically shut them down all day, but they had two big plays which made the score seem close. 

The divisional round was against the Ravens.  In this game I noticed how wonky the physics seemed to be at times in the game.  Players would whiff on tackles in an unrealistic way (like they are going for a flag rather than a player).  I raced to a 14-0 lead in this game before a fumble resulted in a Ravens score.  I responded right before halftime and the score stood at 21-7 Pats. 

In the second half, I fumbled on my opening drive and once again they converted it into points, putting the score at 21-10.  On their next drive, I picked them off, but inexplicably fumbled the ball a split second later.  They scored and got a 2-point conversion.  Suddenly my commanding 14 point lead was reduced to 3.  With the score 21-18, the CPU more or less gave up as I tacked on a late TD and won 28-18.  For the second straight game, I had led throughout and held off a half-hearted comeback by the CPU.  Both games had also taken over an hour in real time.

The AFC Championship game against the Colts was even less competitive as I won handily 27-13.  The most noteworthy event in this game was the glitch that surfaced late in the 4^th quarter when the CPU attempted to run a “no-huddle” offense.  While scrambling to the line, their fullback got “stuck” to a wide receiver and the players seemed “glued” to each other.  In spite of the fullback’s best efforts to “detach”, 20 seconds were run off the clock before the QB snapped the ball.  Weird. 

Going into “Super Bowl XL” against the Seahawks, there were some recurring themes in my notes.  Comments like: “this game makes me feel cold and alone” and “this game was slow and boring” and “the game feels far away to me, in spite of the polished graphics” or simply “this isn’t all that much fun”. 

For “Super Bowl XL”, there were virtually no changes in presentation from the previous games (except the Super Bowl logo in the endzone and at the 50).  The game itself followed a similar script to the others- I raced out to a nice lead (21-7), the CPU appeared to threaten to come back (21-14), but it was never really close and I won handily (28-14).  The game took over an hour of real time.  My “reward” for winning the game was a big fat pile of nothing.  No fireworks, no Gatorade shower, no trophy, no acknowledgement whatsoever. 

In summary, in spite of the pretty graphics, Madden 06 strikes me as a very THIN game that just barely works at all.  I don’t use most of the features in Madden games, so the fact that I noticed that so much is missing is alarming.  This feels like a rushed product with too many poor design choices for me to recommend it to anyone.  Madden 2005 on the PS2 is a much better product- I'll take slightly less flashy graphics and great gameplay over this any day of the week.