Madden 07

When you say football in the U.S. of A, this is what you’re talking about. Men knock the daylight out of each other and pull off amazing feats with the pigskin. All complete with fifty different camera shots, slow motion replay, halftime shows, and commercials. The perfect sport for a man of short attention span. Which is why the sport is so popular in America versus the rest of the world’s football, which we know as soccer. We Americans you see, are the pinnacle of laziness, and therefore we want our entertainment on-demand. Which could help explain the popularity of the National Football League’s official game franchise: Madden. You can knock the daylight out of other men and pull off amazing feats without ever getting of your lazy behind. EA’s Madden NFL 07 hopes to improve upon past installments so gamers can truly feel like athletes.

The seventeenth installment of the best-selling American football franchise of all-time, Madden NFL 07 has a bunch of new features this time around. The running game has improved greatly, with twenty new runningback animations. Instead of generic animations with adjusted speeds for each player, runningbacks run like they would in real life. So, Jerome Bettis will look different running then LaDamian Tomlinson. The biggest edition to to the ground game is lead blocking. Before the snap, you can take control of any player on the offensive and use him to block on a run play. The A.I. controls the runner for a split-second as you position the blocker so you can create a hole in the defense. If you tap the right analog stick as soon as you block someone you’ll pull off a bone rattling shoulder block. The control shifts to the runningback as soon as the blocker you’re controlling makes contact with your opponent. The main frustration with Madden since the beginning of the franchise was that the A.I. would not always block where you wanted it to, so your controller would be thrown farther then the ball in some cases. In Madden NFL 2004, you could control a blocker during a play with the right analog stick’s playmaker on PS2. This felt unnatural and was too much of a distraction though, so many never used it. The lead blocking feature could potentially be the biggest improvement to Madden since the leap from 2002 to 2003.

Another gameplay change is further proof of EA’s love affair with that analog stick: the highlight stick. The highlight stick replaces the truck stick this year, and it allows specific players to have specific moves. Tap up on the highlight stick during a play with beefy TE Bubba Franks and he might do a shoulder charge. On a smaller, more nimble player like Steve Smith or Terrell Owens, the highlight stick may be used for a juke or to tiptoe on a sideline catch. All the gameplay modes that were mysteriously missing from the 06 version have returned in 07. There is also a new Hall of Fame Mode, where you control one player’s journey from rookie to legend. The mini-camp is back with different, more enjoyable mini-games like bench pressing and 40-yard dashes. Playing these during a franchise can increase player attributes, so it’ll be interesting to see how much it effects the game.

This may seem small, but for the first time ever Madden NFL 07 will have 3D grass (which is not seen in these screenshots yet). Instead of just a flat plane like before, grass sways and moves in real-time. During a game or bad weather the grass will form ditches and puddles. Physics on the player jerseys have improved, and now you can also see the surrounding area around a stadium when the camera pans before a game.

Madden 07 could very well be the Madden we wanted 06 to be. EA is trying to take advantage of next-gen visuals and power to quench the thirst of all the American football fans. Club Skill will have a review when the game comes out in August.