Dynasty mode has a few nice improvements as well. Besides the standard GM duties that you’ve become used to over the years you now have the chance to train select players between games. Training is made up of general and position specific mini-games. The general ones are conditioning related where you have your player run a 40 or lift weights while the position specific ones are running plays against a defense. It’s not just the skilled positions that get to try out plays as you can actually have your lineman run drills. The reason for running the drills is that you earn skill points to enhance the attributes of your players. It’s a nice touch that adds a bit of an RPG element to the game but it’s certainly not required as the games can get a bit repetitive.
Graphically the game is stunning on a HD set and there are enough little details to keep people interested in the game. One of the more amusing features is that certain players have had their signature Touchdown celebrations digitized into the game. This means that when the digital Chad Johnson scores he will actually put the ball down and do the Riverdance celebration that he did during the Bears game last season. I know it’s not a big deal to a lot of people (and it probably offends a lot of the football purists) but with TD celebrations being one of the big stories in the NFL last year you just knew that EA would have to include them. There are other signature celebrations in the game and half the fun of scoring (and being scored on) is seeing the dances. Player animations in the game are solid and varied. There are some improvements over NCAA and the signature moves for the running backs is solid.
In game audio is decent and EA has done something little interesting with the play by play calling in that instead of having somebody giving you the straight play by play you get a ESPN radio broadcast for your team. It is not quite as annoying as the normal play by play from years past but I still turned it off after the tenth game or so.
The base controls for the game remain the same but feature a few new tweaks. The kicking game is imported from NCAA 07 and has players using the right thumbstick to handle the kicking duties rather than the tried and true method of using the A button to on a pendulum. It’s a decent system that takes a little bit of getting used to. The new highlight stick as the right thumbstick is used for juking players and performing signature moves for players. The controls are tight and responsive. The real problem with the game is that there feels like there’s an expectation that you’ve played previous Madden games as the documentation for the game is minimal at best and there’s a lot of learn as you go which can be frustrating at times.
Despite the inconsistencies of the new features Madden 07 is still a solid football game and something that fans of the franchise will enjoy. If you bought last year’s half baked version for the Xbox 360 this one is certainly a big step up in terms of features and overall quality and should help you forget the product that EA pushed out last year. As somebody who played a lot of NCAA 07 this really felt like an upgraded version of the game to me…is that a bad thing? Not necessarily but you would expect a little more differentiation between the two games.
C+
While the new lead blocker and Superstar modess aren’t going to light the world on fire the actual football in the game is excellent. It is hard not to feel that you’re playing an updated version up NCAA07 though.
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