Madden NFL 07
It's next-gen Madden. What, you were expecting something more?
Published: November 30, 2006
Rather than continuing with the mini-camp modes of previous years, EA decided to incorporate a series of training camp exercises into the Superstar Mode. The whoel Superstar mechanic was actually a smart move, as it basically paints each position that your up-and-coming player takes with a completely different camera style. Not only does this pull things out of the doldrums of the same camera view for hundreds of games, but it helps emphasize EA's attention toward bolstering the running game (which makes sense given that they tried to tweak passing with last year's game).
Running sprints and doing push-ups in little mini-game events during training helps establish a little variety in your player progress, but actually playing all those season games will have you racking up points which in turn make you a better player, stats-wise. Furthermore, it'll improve the skills of those around you, and in some situations actually pull down the stats of the other team. This means that if you're sticking to playing as, say, a receiver, you'll boost the skills of your blockers in addition to getting better as a player yourself, plus the points allow you to unlock Hall of Famers for your roster.
When the PlayStation 2 launched, Madden sold more than a few copies on the strength of its visuals alone, and for those that have holed up, playing only the PS2 releases of the franchise, the PS3 version is going to do the same. The impact of the hike (ho hooooo, so punny), isn't quite as significant given that the 360 version has already done the whole HD thing for a couple games now, but that doesn't mean the visuals are any less interesting. I already mentioned the improved motion-captured animations, and they really do give the game some oomph -- a necessary thing now that the SIXAXIS lacks rumble.
A lot of it is just in the details; fantastic texturing on the ball, the field, player jerseys, and so on go a long way toward giving thing more than just an HD push. Playing games in rainy or snowy weather will cause the field to slowly degrade into a muddy mess, the lighting on the field as a whole changes with the weather, and stuff like the ultra-reflective helmets still look purdy. The framerate when playing offline stays nice and solid for the most part, though playing online, again, gives quite a different experience, which is a shame.
Integration of ESPN Radio for light play-by-play is an interesting touch, but it doesn't really help the audio all that much, especially when John Madden is still as... well, let's just say obvious as he's always been with his comments. Luckily, the rest of the effects are fantastic. I've sort of made a thing of pointing out Dolby Digital in all the launch games (well, save for Tony Hawk, but that game's a mess on more than just the audio front), and I have to do it again with Madden. It's not just that the effects have tons of punch, or that there's nice usage of the back channels, it's just that everything sounds cleaner. Xbox owners have had this for years, but making the jump from Pro Logic II to real surround is a nice thing indeed.
Here's the poop: if you have the 360 version of the game already, then you probably aren't going to be going ga-ga over the SIXAXIS stuff, and the PlayStation Network, for being free and what it is, still isn't enough to hang with Xbox Live. If you were a PlayStation 2 4 Lyfe gamer, though, and you finally made the next-gen leap, you're going to crap yourself pouring over all the detail that went into things; the user interface is awesome, the texture detail and higher-res... well, everything just makes that HDTV worth it, and the additions to the game as a whole make it worth the purchase -- but only if you hadn't bit on the next-gen version of the game yet.
