Madden NFL 07 Xbox 360 Review

How American Football has got its name is beyond us, it’s a sport that isn’t played in conjunction with the ball and a persons feet too often, so it’s a rather silly and empty name. In other parts of the world there’s a game that you may have heard of where the players actually do kick a ball around, which is very fitting of the word “Football”. Our point being? Well, it’s just something this writer wanted to get off his chest. Now let’s get on with what’s important, that being the review.

Where Madden has promised to excel this year is in the running game, in which you can now switch to your blockers to penetrate the defence, leaving the ball carrier yards of space to run through the exposed and battered opposition. It’s a good idea that is clumsy to begin with, but it is one that is sure to bring smiles to the faces of the many players who used to yell at their AI blockers with fire and frustration.

The Highlight stick is another new feature, in which using the right analog stick during the running game gives you different results dependant on the player you are controlling. A guy with big body mass may put his shoulder through a blocker for instance, whilst a smaller player is a little lighter on his feet and uses dancing footwork to make some ground up instead. It’s a neat idea, which replaces the more basic Truck stick seen in previous yearly revisions.

EA’s quality always manages to shine through, and Madden 07 is no exception, therefore the graphics and presentation are characteristically top-notch. The animations of the players are simply terrific in every sense of the word and truly draw you onto the pitch. It may not look as good as the rendered movies of Madden 06, which were falsely advertised as the “actual” game, but it has still come quite a long way since last years edition.

Also standard for an EA game is for the development teams to put as much content as time will allow into each of their games. Madden 07 boasts a franchise mode, an online mode, and a superstar mode amongst others. The former is a full season where you can do most of the things you would expect you could do in such a mode, whilst the latter is a little less ordinary. In the Superstar mode you take control of a singular player and you must work your way towards being a true NFL superstar, it’s a fun and satisfying mode at times, although once the novelty wore off we found that playing as a team opposed to part of one is much more enjoyable.

Madden NFL 07 is a feature-packed and very playable version of the glorified game of Rugby that the American’s like to call Football. It moves fluidly without any real problems to its name, and is intuitive enough to pick up for even series initiates, but also has the depth that many command in their games. We don’t consider ourselves fans of the heavy hitting American sport, but we still appreciate a good game when we see one.

8/10

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