Madden NFL 07
It's next-gen Madden. What, you were expecting something more?
Published: November 30, 2006
Oh Madden how I've made fun of you. It's not so much that you, as a game, are a bad thing, it's that I'm tired of seeing the sales numbers every year. Millions eagerly plunk down cash ever 12 or so months to get a few minor upgrades and yet, here I am, playing the game yet again because we're committed to reviewing every launch game on the PlayStation 3. And EA is laughing all the way to the bank. So who has the last laugh now? Yeah, it's EA.
One of the plusses to taking a break from the series is that I've completely forgotten the control scheme, a plus given that it was entirely remapped this year to fit in line with the 360 controls. That's fine, since there have been some fairly big changes to the running game and of course the Quarterback Vision system introduced with Madden 06 is still present, allowing you to focus a QB's vision downfield and opening up the SIXAXIS' face buttons and shoulders to freely choose a receiver.
The SIXAXIS functionality feels a little shoehorned into the gameplay, however, and its glitchy at times. While on the line, you can pitch a player forward to get a jump on the snap, but too often I did this too late and the game assumed I was making the motion for what is normally a Hit Stick tackle and I blew things open by accident. Now granted, this isn't much different from when I try to do tackles, but it's still an unintentional mistake on the motion sensor's part.
Luckily, the whole tackling and blocking system is a little more natural. While on defense, you can shove the controller toward the ball carrier to initiate a big hit, and while on offense, the so-called "Run to Daylight" system for blocking allows you to throw more weight into your blockers, though it takes a little finesse. Hell, you can even fake a snap by moving up and back, though this doesn't work as often as you'd like -- even in online matches.
The online play as a whole is a little rocky. The PS3 must've gotten EA's crappier servers, because during matches the game hitches like crazy. I'm all for showing some stadium detail, but showing the same half-dozen views in jerky little scenes while picking a play -- the same stuff that you can see behind the HUD -- just doesn't come off as a terribly next-gen experience. We ran into lag on multiple games, and it was only when playing against friends that I knew had a solid upstream that things started to get more solid. On the plus side, this will likely encourage playing games with people on your Buddy List, which is, if nothing else, capitalizing on the PlayStation Network's unified features.
The time between the 360 and PS3 versions of the game wasn't so great that a ton of things were changed, but then most PS3 owners are probably going to be moving from the PS2 up, and there were some significant improvements in how the game looks and feels, some of which isn't in the 360 version. Some of this just comes with a new Madden, but there was some nice improvements to the animation system, allowing for hits to actually register with player weight and momentum. In fact, fumbles actually feel like they were knocked loose -- especially if you get two tacklers hitting at about the same time.
One of the plusses to taking a break from the series is that I've completely forgotten the control scheme, a plus given that it was entirely remapped this year to fit in line with the 360 controls. That's fine, since there have been some fairly big changes to the running game and of course the Quarterback Vision system introduced with Madden 06 is still present, allowing you to focus a QB's vision downfield and opening up the SIXAXIS' face buttons and shoulders to freely choose a receiver.
The SIXAXIS functionality feels a little shoehorned into the gameplay, however, and its glitchy at times. While on the line, you can pitch a player forward to get a jump on the snap, but too often I did this too late and the game assumed I was making the motion for what is normally a Hit Stick tackle and I blew things open by accident. Now granted, this isn't much different from when I try to do tackles, but it's still an unintentional mistake on the motion sensor's part.
Luckily, the whole tackling and blocking system is a little more natural. While on defense, you can shove the controller toward the ball carrier to initiate a big hit, and while on offense, the so-called "Run to Daylight" system for blocking allows you to throw more weight into your blockers, though it takes a little finesse. Hell, you can even fake a snap by moving up and back, though this doesn't work as often as you'd like -- even in online matches.
The online play as a whole is a little rocky. The PS3 must've gotten EA's crappier servers, because during matches the game hitches like crazy. I'm all for showing some stadium detail, but showing the same half-dozen views in jerky little scenes while picking a play -- the same stuff that you can see behind the HUD -- just doesn't come off as a terribly next-gen experience. We ran into lag on multiple games, and it was only when playing against friends that I knew had a solid upstream that things started to get more solid. On the plus side, this will likely encourage playing games with people on your Buddy List, which is, if nothing else, capitalizing on the PlayStation Network's unified features.
The time between the 360 and PS3 versions of the game wasn't so great that a ton of things were changed, but then most PS3 owners are probably going to be moving from the PS2 up, and there were some significant improvements in how the game looks and feels, some of which isn't in the 360 version. Some of this just comes with a new Madden, but there was some nice improvements to the animation system, allowing for hits to actually register with player weight and momentum. In fact, fumbles actually feel like they were knocked loose -- especially if you get two tacklers hitting at about the same time.
