Madden NFL 07
September 1,2006 - With the NFL Pre-Season slowly coming to an end, armchair quarterbacks around the nation are just getting through with their Fantasy Football drafts. After that, just what is there to do until the opening kickoff on September 7th? EA Sports, time and time again, has answered the question with, “Of course, play Madden!”

Now in stores, Madden NFL 07 beefs up the gridiron experience in every way possible. Since 2004, EA Sports has incorporated a theme that matches its cover athlete. Madden 2004 featured the extremely athletic quarterback, Michael Vick, on the cover to showcase its brand new “playmaker” system. Madden 2005 featured the tenacious linebacker, Ray Lewis, on the cover to unleash its revamped controls on the defensive side of the ball. Madden 06 featured superstar quarterback, Donovan McNabb, on the cover to showcase the realistic “QB Vision” and the brand new “Superstar” mode. This year, MVP running back Shaun Alexander is on the cover to signify the revamped controls for running the ball.

So what’s really new with the game? As stated, Tiburon has revamped the controls for running the ball, not only for giving your running back more abilities, but allowing you to take control of an offensive lineman to make key blocks. So right after the snap, you can use the lead blocker, whether it’s the fullback or one of the tackles, for a limited amount of time and throw a block at an oncoming defender to open up a lane for your running back. It honestly isn’t that big of a feature, but when you’re playing in the All-Pro or All-Madden mode, it’s ridiculously challenging to be running the ball up the middle with the normal AI. The main problem with this system is that if you use it, you won’t have any control of the ball carrier until he runs passed the line of scrimmage. So if the AI gets stuck somewhere, you’ll be lost in your tracks.

When you actually have the ball in your hands, there’s a whole mess of things to do. In addition to typically juking your defenders with the pressure sensitive shoulder buttons, and throwing them a stiff arm, you have the option of using the “highlight stick.” Formerly known as the “truck stick”, the highlight stick allows the ball carrier to pull killer, but realistic moves to dodge defenders or break oncoming tackles. Let’s say you’re using the Pittsburgh Steelers and their variation of the thunder and lightning package. If you run the ball with Willie Parker and tap a direction on the highlight stick, he’ll be able to do some shake and bake routine to get rid of any oncoming defenders. But if you use Duce Staley and tap the highlight stick, he’ll just relentlessly run into those defenders hoping the tacklers fall down. It’s a nice change, and it’s a lot more accurate than last year’s truck stick, which had little guys like Warrick Dunn knocking over all the John Hendersons in the world.

In addition to those minor changes, the kicking game has been retooled for the umpteenth time. This time you use the left analog stick to decide where to kick it, and you push back on the right analog stick and then push forward at the right time to unleash the kick. The onside kicks have the same method, but you can choose the exact part of the ball you want to kick. It’s probably the most accurate representation of kicking a football, but it’s nothing that’ll set up a new revolution of gameplay. Besides, it was borrowed from NCAA Football 07.

The other nuance with Madden NFL 07 is its upgrades with the NFL Superstar: Hall of Fame mode. Last year, the mode came to many as a disappointment because it really just wasn’t any fun to play. This year, it still isn’t very mind-blowing, but the mode is actually fun now. The main thing going on now is you actually have the ability to play any position you want, as opposed to last year where you only had a few. Of course, there are quite a few positions, such as defensive tackle and kicker, that are probably useless anyway because who’d really want to be playing that for ten computer-generated years? Last year’s Superstar Mode was really bland because it pretty much played just like every other mode in the game. This time around, you only have access to your guy. So if you choose to play quarterback, he’s all you’re using. You’ll take the snap, drop back, and throw (or run if you’re Mike Vick); then you’ll watch the play happen. The cool thing is that every position has its own view of the field. So if you decided to be a defensive back, you’ll be lined up against a receiver and you’ll just see far enough to see the quarterback calling the play. Mind you, defensive back is the hardest position to play in the game. We really found these camera options to be a lot similar with ESPN NFL 2K5’s first-person football, but it’s a welcome addition and definitely gives Superstar Mode its own unique flavor.

But other than that, the mode really has nothing new to offer. You have all the same gimmicky player interviews and complaints as well as the stupid movies, but seriously—if EA took that out, there really won’t be much to do in the off-season, so it’s an indifferent thing.

Each Madden veteran has to be familiar with the game’s franchise mode, but in most faucets, it has pretty much gone unchanged. Some new minigames include the 40-yard dash and the bench press, but those really aren’t particularly fun. The only noticeable changes were made with the off-season client, and we’re proud to say that really make the franchise a lot more enjoyable, but at the same time, it’s a lot longer. One thing they’ve finally done is revamping the off-season roster building process. In previous games, the developers always made the free agency signing period before the NFL Draft when it’s actually supposed to be the other way around. EA Sports finally fixed it by having two separate Free Agent signing periods before and after the draft. Speaking of the draft, another factor has been added for your scouting purposes; you have the option of playing the Senior Bowl; the annual college all-star game that features all the best seniors declaring for the draft. In addition to that, there’s also some bad news for those people out there who get used to winning the Super Bowl every year by trading all their draft picks for franchise guys such as Eli Manning and Reggie Bush. There’ll be a new profiling system that’ll actually gauge the importance of each player to their roster and make some players, such as those two guys, to be unavailable for any trade. So this pretty much eliminates all those cheap dynasties.

In the Xbox 360 version of the game, you can track your career accomplishments in Franchise Mode to earn Madden Gamer Points, which you can use to unlock certain awards like new stadiums or Hall of Fame players. You can also wager the things you unlocked against online opponents on Xbox Live.

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