PlayStation 2
Released in 2006 by EA Sports
Grade: A-
Madden 07 on PS2 is another quality football game, but the few minor changes take it further from the perfectly balanced gameplay in Madden 2005.
Where it falls in the series
It’s the seventh of 12 editions on PS2. Madden moved up to Xbox 360 for Madden 06 and up to PS3 for Madden 07.
Praises and gripes
Like previous Madden games, this one has the same tight control and crisp gameplay. There are tons of plays and tons of strategic adjustments to make, and games unfold enough like real football games while staying fun and exciting.
The stupid “QB Vision” feature from Madden 06 is off with default settings, but you still have to see it when playing against the CPU. On the bright side, certain plays that didn’t work right in Madden 06 have been fixed.
What’s also new in this version is a focus on running the ball. Using the right thumbstick, running backs have new ways to wiggle out of tackles, so you’ll see more extended runs and 80-yard touchdowns. You can also control an offensive lineman, with various types of blocks to do. Other reviewers praise this nifty feature, but I didn’t enjoy it much.
The action is faster all around. Having played hours of the earlier versions, it feels like the game is in fast-forward. This might seem like a decent way to refresh the game for Madden veterans, but it makes the new controls that much harder to do. When you combine the faster speed with more slippery runners, tackling is more difficult. I thought they got tackling right in Madden 2005, but here they messed it up again.
Still, this is a fantastic game, and if you got dropped on an island with only this game, you’d fall in love with it. There’s a great re-playability factor, with teams that play different from each other and wide-ranging difficulty settings. The fun franchise mode has only minor changes from before, and only nitpicking dorks would complain about it.