The game also comes with a new set of mini-games that resemble the training drills seen in previous incarnations of the game on other consoles. Also included are button or stick tapping bench press and sprint drills. You’ll probably check them out once and have enough with them. I would have liked to see games like NCAA Football 07’s tug-of-war included instead.

If you played Madden NFL 06 then you probably racked up most of the achievement points on your first day playing the game. Madden NFL 07 uses a much more interesting system that will require more work on your part to pick up your achievements. Your game performance is measured in a number of categories that all add to your overall game score. These game scores are accumulated between games to determine your overall Madden level. It’s kind of like leveling-up through experience in an RPG game and is a pretty cool new feature in 07.

Madden NFL 07 plays a great game of football and the graphics are pretty slick. One thing I did notice is that the in-game graphics do not look quite as sharp as the between play cutscenes. The stadiums look good from every angle pretty much all the time, and the game is quite proud of that fact as it shows you every angle of the stadium during a game.

The biggest disappointment with the game is that it just doesn’t seem to be completely polished. The menu system is totally confusing and you can get stuck at some screen without any apparent way to return. The quick save option doesn’t seem to enabled at every screen either, so sometimes I found myself stuck on a screen without the option to save my game before powering down. There are also a number of bugs and issues with the game itself. The fatigue meters don’t seem to work as everyone is always at full strength throughout the game as far as I can tell. Also, the radio announcers always call the plays one yard short of the stadium announcer. The radio announcers actually get a lot of things mixed up, such as the result of the previous field goal try. I even saw the players on the sideline wearing a different uniform than the players on the field – the Seahawks seem to always be mixed up on what color pants they should be wearing. All of these problems are just sloppy and should have all been caught during testing.

Overall Madden NFL 07 is enjoyable and football fans will enjoy their time spent with the game. It’s just a bit disappointing to see so many quirks in the game. Hopefully they are already working on ironing these out for Madden NFL 08.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 82%.  A big improvement over the 06 version, but next-gen Madden still has a little way to go.

« Page 1 of 2