June 19 part 2: Madden NFL 07

Another game that i tried out for the first time today was Madden NFL 07 for Wii. This was not only my first time playing Madden on Wii but my first time ever playing Madden. That might sound weird to you, a big time gamer who never played Madden. The thing is that Im Swedish and American football isnt that big here in Europe.

From what I heard madden hasnt changed much for a long time and EA keeps selling basically the same thing year after year. That isnt hard for me to believe since thats what they are doing with our football game here in Europe, namely FIFA. The Wii version of Madden supposedly is changing it up a bit with its new "free-motion" control scheme. The new controls have been very well received and Madden is currently the forth best reviewed game on Wii according to Gamerankings. I personally really liked the controls even if I thoght that they were a bit complex, but I have nothing to compare it to since I never played Madden before.

My first impression of Madden was a very positive one, it seems to me like EA's big yearly iterations usually are very sold and good games. That is if you never played them before or not many years. Since they have a habit of releasing almost the same thing year after year I and a lot of other gamers tend to get bored with them. The upside of having released 10+ versions of the same game is of course that it will be very polished. So its not weird that when I for the first time pick up a series like Madden that EA has been working on since the eighties I am very impressed.

My big problem is not with the game, its with myself. I have never watched a game of American football other then as a part of a movie or TV show. Therefor Im very uncertain of how the sport really works and the game lacks a tutorial for anything other then the wii controls. So while I can have fun messing around with the game I cant really play a serious game of football.