Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
EA Sports dropped the ball on this one., October 10, 2005
Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars
The last Madden football game I purchased was Madden 04. I deliberately held off buying the 05 version, because it seemed quite similar. When 06 came out, I thought it looked worth buying. After playing it once, I knew I was wrong.
Okay, I'll be fair, there are a couple of good things that have been added to the game: The 'truck stick' function that allows running backs to bull-doze their way through defenders was fun, though didn't add a whole lot to the game. I'd say the new QB vision function was the best part of the whole thing, creating a range of sight for your QB. The better the QB, the bigger the range. It made passing a lot more realistic (ie- a lousy quarterback can no longer lob the ball anywhere and have his WR catch it, they must be in his line of sight).
My beefs:
Superstar mode, was, to me, a super letdown. Frankly it's a waste of space. The interface was decidedly user-UN-friendly and quite difficult to navigate, not to mention being completely pointless. The football games themselves aren't played any differently, but in your off-time you sit in your apartment while trying out for movies and being stalked by TO and your snivelling web-master. After playing in this mode for about a half hour, I realized my time would be better spent doing something else.
Commentary: As lame as ever. You'd think after all these years, they could've changed it a little. Okay, this isn't a major issue, since my beloved Madden 04 has the same lame commentary, I just wish they'd given it a little more life.
Music: Much as my above comment, I realize that the earlier versions of Madden also had the same sort of music as 06 does, but after hearing the same angry rap song for the 10th time, I sort of want to throw myself out a window. One good addition to the musical repertoire is a number of traditional NFL instrumental tracks. These are great, and I wish they'd thought of doing that before.
Create-a-fan: Wtf? Is there even a purpose to this? Another waste of space.
Create-a-team: This used to be one of my favorite features. In Madden 04 (and 05 too, I think), as some of you are probably aware, you could play in the franchise mode with your custom team, taking them all the way from pre-season to the superbowl, and everything in between. For some reason they've taken that functionality away in 06. This is very frustrating and it renders the Create-a-team mode rather pointless. Sure, you can still play on-the-spot games with your created team, but to me, the loss of the ability to play them in franchise mode is a big one.
My overall assessment of this game is that, while the actual gameplay has been improved on a minor level, Madden 06 is a waste of money. You'd be much better off getting a copy of 05.
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most realistic football game ever!, August 27, 2005
I don't know what to say about the previous reviews and people having technical issues. I have (knock on wood) had no problems at all with getting the game to work. In fact, it has played flawlessly. Installation went smoothly. My gamepad worked instantly. Gameplay is smooth and fluid.
The last 2 football games I have played were NFL 2k3 and Madden '05, both for the Gamecube. Madden '06, hands down, is THE most realistic football simulation I have ever experienced. The graphics are amazing. The character animations are amazing - the tackles look great. Running the ball every down is a viable option unlike previous football games I have played. The blocking is SUPERB - Offensive and defensive lines go for their blocks and stick them. You can play as a lineman and roll off a block to try and get at the QB. Sacks on the QB are actually possible (unlike 2k3 where the QB would never go down). Another great thing about this game are the fake handoffs/draws. They look very realistic, fooling me even when looking very closely.
The main 'lure' of Madden '06 was this new precision passing feature. If you play on the easier difficulty settings, you won't really notice a 'huge' effect on gameplay. If you have some skill you can take your team to the Superbowl without worrying about the precision passing. However, if you go on a harder difficulty, you need to use this feature. Some QB's, noteably Favre (as I almost always play as Green Bay), have a field of view that is about 90% of the field. As such, when playing as him, you can totally ignore manipulating the field of view cone. I think it is too big in this case. Even a hall of famer like Favre can only look to a certain area of the field at once. Then I bring in a backup QB and his field of view is like 3 degrees wide... painful.
My 2 main gripes with Madden '06 are the kicking system, and 'the EA thing'. I've never been a fan of the kicking system in Madden games, so this is nothing new as it is the same system that was in '05. It seems way too hard - I shouldn't be missing 34 yard field goals with a pro-bowl kicker. And I play games A LOT, so it's not me sucking ;) The 'EA thing' gripe is the fact that this is the first game EA has released under their new "Exclusive NFL License". Because of this license, EA is the only company that can produce football games using the real names of NFL players. I don't like the thought of shutting other franchises (like NFL 2k) out of the market. They had good ideas too. Competition is good, and benefits the customers.
Graphics: 5/5
Sounds: 4/5
Commentary: 3/5 (nothing seems to have been added since '05)
Realism: 5/5
Overall: 4.5/5
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Support is even worse this year, October 11, 2005
Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars
The controls have been completely remapped on gamepads, and unlike the console versions, you cannot set them back to the way they've been for the last decade. It is going on week 6 of the NFL season, and a roster update has yet to be released, and moderators of EA forums have said that Tiburon expects it to be "a few more weeks" until any patch or roster update is released. There are starters on teams that didn't even make it to the pre-season. Don't ever expect to return a punt, as it is almost impossible due to buggy AI. If you MUST buy this game, buy a console to play it on. They've had patches and two roster updates so far.
Visit the player forums at EA for these issues and more. When EA bought the exclusive rights to the NFL trademarks, and the NFLPA rights last year, they made sure that PC purchasers had nowhere to go but to consoles.
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