Madden 06 for PSP Review

The Gameplay

With the exclusive NFL license, Madden has locked up playing your favorite football team to their games. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially this year, since the EA (Electronic Arts) games have improved.

Madden ’06 for the PSP offers you the standard modes associated with sports games. You can jump right into a game with the Play Now mode (essentially an exhibition game) with basic team stats and player attributes. There is also a good wireless play mode (see below). You can start off with Mini-camp mode. (which also allows up to 4 players to join in via a competition atmosphere) There are 19 mini-games designed to hone your skills in passing, rushing, blocking, and ball-swatting. Ten of these games are PSP exclusive. The game keeps track of your progress because you have to get 100% completion (getting all golds and unlocking the ‘Game Situation’ feature of each mini-game) in order to do everything.

Of course, Franchise mode is the bulk of the game. You can take a team through a 30 year dynasty, trading players, cutting players, recruiting... basically the same things you can do on a big brother console version. There’s also an assistant coach mode where you can sign players to a practice squad and sign them up when they ready or when injuries take your team over. Thirty years is impressive to me on the little PSP. Before each year starts, you have a chance to run your team through mini-camp to gain some attribute points for your players. This only happens before the season starts and while you can skip the camp altogether, it’s advisable to run your players through some of the game to get a couple points here and there. The only other time you can get some points is reaching your weekly coaching goals for a game. These goals could range from getting 2 interceptions, passing for over 350 years, or simply winning the game.

The only frustrating portion of the gameplay is the kicking. Field goals and punting is done by a meter that you hit X to start, hit X again to pick your power (up to a hundred) and hit another X to get your accuracy. There’s a boundary that you have to get between for your accuracy and the moving bar isn’t consistent in it’s speed. Sometimes you're right on or maybe off just a little bit, but other times you miss the mark completely and sail a punt right out the sidelines, causing you a penalty. It would be different if there was a learning curve and I got better, but I still can’t get it right. I make some and I miss some... I guess that’s the philosophy of every kicker, right?

The Controls

I’ll warn you right up front: you use the analog stick during most of the game. Running, precision passing, and other on-field maneuvers require the use of the analog stick and this is good and bad. It’s good because you can be accurate with your running back and scrambling with your quarterback. It’s bad because the precise passing isn’t so precise at times. It’s supposed to help lead your receivers, but I find it tends to be awkward when trying to scan the field, avoid linebackers, finding routes, etc. I simply use the analog button features (hit hard for a bullet, tap for a lob) and that gets the job done is 99% percent of my passing game.

Juking and stiff arming is done with the left and right shoulder buttons, but your player’s reaction is a bit slow. Taking control of a player is pretty intuitive and smooth and you don’t have that jerkiness associated with the transition. Controlling your quarterback is pretty realistic. It took me half of my first year to realize that my low completion percentage was due to the fact I wasn’t letting my QB set himself for the throw. Sure Trent Green (my team is the Chiefs) can throw off balance, but only on his strong side. Once I started letting him set before the throw (provide the darn Broncos weren’t blitzing on me) my rate went up.

The Graphics

I would rate the graphics pretty freakin’ good for a handheld. If you can imagine a 96-bit system that came out after the PSone, then you can imagine the graphics. There is some slowdown once in a while when passing into heavy coverage, but that’s about it. The fields are nice and crisp and the players are well-animated. Although everyone seems to have very small forearms for some reason. Is this football evolution? The spectators are bland and there’s nothing going on at the sidelines, but those aren’t things to complain about. I mean, you have a great football game on your PSP!

Online Play

After a while, you’ll probably get bored playing the computer, unless you’re playing on the All-Madden difficulty. So take it Wi-Fi or Ad-Hoc. I played a couple games Wi-Fi and there seemed to be no shortage of games of varying difficulty and time commitment. Signing on was easy and in a couple of minutes was in a quick game. A little more slowdown than I had hoped for, but it was fun play some Detroit Lions lover because hey, he played the Lions.

Ad Hoc mode let my friends and I link up with more ease. But again, more slowdown than playing by myself. In either mode, it keeps track of your wins and losses against anybody and saves it to your profile to playing online won’t go in vain.

Thompson’s Two Cents

Don’t think that Madden gets lost in the translation from console to portable. Obviously the graphics get trimmed down a little bit, but the actual gameplay doesn’t suffer. Quick action, nice graphics, and the addition of 10 PSP exclusive mini-games give your PSP some linebacker power to sack any other sports game on it any other handheld system.

But give me some time, I still have 27 years left of my dynasty.