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Madden NFL 2006 Review
Written by Robert Falcon on Monday, October 10, 2005
Finally a decent Madden game for handhelds.
Extremely long load times.
WARNING: Certain copies of Madden NFL 06 contain bugs that will cause your PSP to lock up whenever Franchise Mode is selected, shut down, or prohibit you from using the Wi-Fi feature. EA has gone on record as saying that only a select number of games are infected, so buy at your own risk.
When it comes to console gaming, EA Sports' brand of Madden football is nothing short of a juggernaut. Year in and year out, the game has sold millions of copies, keeping a stranglehold on the competition while feeding football freaks with the feast they crave. On handhelds, however, the game hasn't exactly been what you might call up to par. A recent release for the mobile phone circuit showed some promise, but fell apart due to gameplay problems. And the two past editions for the Nintendo DS? Forget about it. They managed to do a couple of right things amidst a field loaded with problems. Fortunately, we now have the PSP version to comfort us, and, for the most part, it does the job. Just prepare yourself to cope with a huge flaw.
The game is very similar to its console cousin, as it represents true simulation football for on-the-go play. There are all of the NFL players and teams that you know and remember, including a few classic ones that you can challenge. There's also a franchise mode, which features an assistant coach mode where you must meet a certain number of goals within the week by completing mini-training games and other drills, along with maintaining a season with your intent to get the Super Bowl Trophy. The game also features connectivity between your PlayStation 2 and PSP versions of the game, so you can continue a franchise effort and then download your results right back to the PS2 after you get back from your road trip. I think this is awesome.
The mini-games are a lot of fun, especially if you get some friends involved. But it's the main game of football that will really entice gridiron freaks, and fortunately, it's a solid game. EA Tiburon has made sure that most of the gameplay elements have remained intact with the running, passing, and defensive plays, and even went as far as to dump the bothersome QB Vision that plagued the console editions. It's not perfect, though. Sometimes the analog stick is a little sticky in terms of precision movement. You'll get over it though.
You can link up with friends via online play and really make things interesting, either in general football play or the mini-games. Granted, you can probably just do the same thing on a console, but if all you have are a gaggle of PSP's, this is just as good an option. The online play runs smoothly enough and offers some human competition if you're sick of the computer beating your ass over every time.
As far as presentation, the game is pretty much the same as the console edition. Graphics look pretty good, although not amazing, in terms of animation and camera views, and the detail in each stadium is rich. The sound is alright, although there's really no way to liven up boring commentary by John Madden and Al Michaels. At least most of it is spot-on. Other sound effects include on-field grunts, tackles, and of course, crowd noise, and it all works well.
So what doesn't work well? Aside from some suspicious analog problems, the game suffers from a horrific plague that hurt previous EA Sports releases: LOADING. The game takes quite a while to load up between menus and pass plays, and this really hurts the flow of the general game. Furthermore, when you access online against friends, you have to go through a sign-up process that's rigorous. It makes boot camp look like kindergarten.
But these are small flaws. What we have here is a competent handheld edition of Madden NFL 06 that we should've had alongside the console versions to keep us happy. It may be late, but at least it completes the drive in stride, most of the time.
posted November 1, 2005