Madden NFL 07 Review (PS3)

Ever since EA aired a highly publicized commercial touting the graphics of its upcoming next-generation Madden games, gamers everywhere anticipated stellar leaps in the visual experience to go along with the fantastic gameplay. The commercial featured extremely photorealistic players and thus the debate began: are these graphics even possible? With the PlayStation 3 release of Madden NFL 07, we can answer with a resounding "no," but that doesn't stop it from being a good-looking, great-playing football video game.

In Madden NFL 07, gamers select one of the NFL's thirty-two teams and set out on the annual quest for a Super Bowl ring. Season mode walks teams through a regular season, through the playoffs, and into the Super Bowl for a chance at the championship. Franchise mode takes the Season mode play and draws it over three decades to see if a dynasty develops. Of course, gamers can just hop right into a single game against the CPU, a friend, or other people over the PlayStation Network.

Superstar Mode adds an extra dimension to the game. Here, players are created, guided through pre-draft training and possibly a career that ends with a spot in the NFL Hall of Fame. In this mode, influence and ego come into play to see how well that superstar influences his team and how that player performs on game day. In this mode, players encounter training in the form of mini-games. These mini-games include weightlifting, passing, running and sprinting. Depending on how well the superstar does, his attributes are appropriately increased. These mini-games are also available from the start menu, and they are a nice break from the regular football action.

Madden's popularity as a series is because it delivers a great game of football, and the PlayStation 3 version of Madden NFL 07 lives up to that legacy. Executing spot on passes and jolting players with stiff arms can be achieved with just a few button presses. The game's user-friendly control scheme turns armchair quarterbacks into a regular Peyton Manning, even if it relies on most of the same moves gamers have been pulling off for years. Clearly, the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra applies to Madden NFL 07.

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