Playaction Controls: Madden NFL 07 (Wii) Review
Posted on
Friday, January 05, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
It's been five years since I was what one might call a fan of the John Madden series of console football games. After buying 2001 and 2002 for the PC, there seemed to be glacial change from year to year in core gameplay mechanics. Having heard that the 2k series of football games were better, I tried them and said goodbye to Madden for what I thought was forever. The NFL 2k series of games were simply vastly superior to Madden where it counted, on the virtual field. Not only did the game look better, lacking Madden's signature Fatty McFattenstein out-of-proportion player models, it played better as well. When EA decided to shut down what had become sturdy competition in the football video game market by signing an exclusive licensing deal with the NFL, I vowed to boycott Madden for as long as I could hold out.
One year and an E3 video of Madden for the Wii later, my resolve failed me. Rather than being disappointed, I'm pleasantly surprised and satisfied with my purchase.
Madden NFL 07 for the Wii is first and foremost a Madden game. Anyone who has played previous versions of the game will recognize just about all of its trademark features, including the pork pie models mentioned above. The nuts and bolts of the Madden series really hasn't changed a great deal since 2002. Defenses both CPU and player still give up big pass plays, though run defense has improved. The soundtrack still contains way too much rap and alternapop from bands I've never heard of and never wanted to hear of. And just like EA's other football franchise game, Head Coach, the menu interface is still badly designed, with too much screen real estate engulfed by useless buttons while important things like play diagrams are shrunk to mouse anus size.
But if you are able to stomach the Madden formula of design, you'll find a pleasant football game. More importantly, you'll find a new control scheme thanks to the Wiimote/Nunchuk setup that elevates this game above its clones on other platforms. I've played this game on the X-Box and found it lackluster, much as I expected to. The Wii version is a cut above thanks to the motion-sensing control scheme.
Passing is more involving when your arm movement controls the power behind your delivery. Jukes and stiff arms are more satisfying with a flick of the nunchuk or Wiimote. The kicking game, a source of frustration and disappointment for me on traditional console controllers, is smooth on the Wii. Hold the Wiimote down and then bring it up in a motion pantomiming the leg's kicking motion, with the amount of power in the swing echoed in the kick and the deviations from a straight upward line providing hook or slice to the ball. The hardest part about the kicking game is getting the power right when not trying to put everything into a kick. Tackling requires you to push both controllers away from your body with various buttons used to add power, and additional pulls of the controllers towards your body makes your player attempt to strip the ball from the ball carrier. In pass coverage, raising your arms will attempt an interception while pushing your arms away swats the ball down.
The controls work. Not perfectly, mind you, but they give the game a measure of immersiveness that isn't there in the X-Box version. Defense is still a weak point, as moving a player with a thumbstick to the correct tackling position is imprecise; this isn't a measure of the Wii's controllers since I have the same problem on the X-Box. The Wiimote can be used as a pointing device on menus but I found this option to get in the way more than be helpful. Calling audibles, shifting linemen, sending players in motion or setting hot routes takes a bit of getting used to. In order to do any of these, you must first select the player with the Wiimote pointer, hit the A button and then perform a thumbstick or digital control pad movement to set it off. It's complicated at first, but as you learn the correct control pad movements, it gets easier.
Graphics and sound are both good without being spectacular, and each has its flaws. The stadium background graphics are very low-resolution, and it stands out in a big way during certain plays. The sound piped through the Wiimote is meant to add immersion, with calls of "HUT HUT!" being tossed out of it in the pre-snap. However, the game's normal sound channels also scream "HUT!" in the pre-snap and sometimes the two do not match, either in timing or even in verbiage. With a control scheme built on immersion, it breaks that immersion. The manual is atrocious even by console standards. It consists of about 6 pages of control diagrams or instructions on play, a few pages of credits, and a cover. It could certainly make the strategy guide useful, which is sold separately of course. EA has to pay back that ginormous license fee somehow.
One other complaint I have about the game, which applies equally to every single football game I've ever played, is the camera angles. While there are a number of camera angles to choose from, most of them aren't very good. All of the angles are shot from the offense's side of the ball, which puts the player on defense at an immediate disadvantage. I would like to see an option to set the camera for when the player is both on offense and defense. Let me set the camera in a defensive position when I'm defending, and then have it switch back to an offensive one when I have the ball. I've yet to figure out why no one has done this. NFL 2k4 and 2k5 allowed you to see from the defense's perspective but only in first-person mode, a gameplay mode I miss dearly.
This year's version has no online play or online stats updates, something I hope is added in next year's inevitable version. The game is a good start and with some interface changes, defensive changes and slight change to the art style, next year's version could be great. As it stands, 07 for the Wii is a worthy purchase for football fans that have no other option anyway. It beats the other versions in everything but graphical prowess and sound design.
One year and an E3 video of Madden for the Wii later, my resolve failed me. Rather than being disappointed, I'm pleasantly surprised and satisfied with my purchase.
Madden NFL 07 for the Wii is first and foremost a Madden game. Anyone who has played previous versions of the game will recognize just about all of its trademark features, including the pork pie models mentioned above. The nuts and bolts of the Madden series really hasn't changed a great deal since 2002. Defenses both CPU and player still give up big pass plays, though run defense has improved. The soundtrack still contains way too much rap and alternapop from bands I've never heard of and never wanted to hear of. And just like EA's other football franchise game, Head Coach, the menu interface is still badly designed, with too much screen real estate engulfed by useless buttons while important things like play diagrams are shrunk to mouse anus size.
But if you are able to stomach the Madden formula of design, you'll find a pleasant football game. More importantly, you'll find a new control scheme thanks to the Wiimote/Nunchuk setup that elevates this game above its clones on other platforms. I've played this game on the X-Box and found it lackluster, much as I expected to. The Wii version is a cut above thanks to the motion-sensing control scheme.
Passing is more involving when your arm movement controls the power behind your delivery. Jukes and stiff arms are more satisfying with a flick of the nunchuk or Wiimote. The kicking game, a source of frustration and disappointment for me on traditional console controllers, is smooth on the Wii. Hold the Wiimote down and then bring it up in a motion pantomiming the leg's kicking motion, with the amount of power in the swing echoed in the kick and the deviations from a straight upward line providing hook or slice to the ball. The hardest part about the kicking game is getting the power right when not trying to put everything into a kick. Tackling requires you to push both controllers away from your body with various buttons used to add power, and additional pulls of the controllers towards your body makes your player attempt to strip the ball from the ball carrier. In pass coverage, raising your arms will attempt an interception while pushing your arms away swats the ball down.
The controls work. Not perfectly, mind you, but they give the game a measure of immersiveness that isn't there in the X-Box version. Defense is still a weak point, as moving a player with a thumbstick to the correct tackling position is imprecise; this isn't a measure of the Wii's controllers since I have the same problem on the X-Box. The Wiimote can be used as a pointing device on menus but I found this option to get in the way more than be helpful. Calling audibles, shifting linemen, sending players in motion or setting hot routes takes a bit of getting used to. In order to do any of these, you must first select the player with the Wiimote pointer, hit the A button and then perform a thumbstick or digital control pad movement to set it off. It's complicated at first, but as you learn the correct control pad movements, it gets easier.
Graphics and sound are both good without being spectacular, and each has its flaws. The stadium background graphics are very low-resolution, and it stands out in a big way during certain plays. The sound piped through the Wiimote is meant to add immersion, with calls of "HUT HUT!" being tossed out of it in the pre-snap. However, the game's normal sound channels also scream "HUT!" in the pre-snap and sometimes the two do not match, either in timing or even in verbiage. With a control scheme built on immersion, it breaks that immersion. The manual is atrocious even by console standards. It consists of about 6 pages of control diagrams or instructions on play, a few pages of credits, and a cover. It could certainly make the strategy guide useful, which is sold separately of course. EA has to pay back that ginormous license fee somehow.
One other complaint I have about the game, which applies equally to every single football game I've ever played, is the camera angles. While there are a number of camera angles to choose from, most of them aren't very good. All of the angles are shot from the offense's side of the ball, which puts the player on defense at an immediate disadvantage. I would like to see an option to set the camera for when the player is both on offense and defense. Let me set the camera in a defensive position when I'm defending, and then have it switch back to an offensive one when I have the ball. I've yet to figure out why no one has done this. NFL 2k4 and 2k5 allowed you to see from the defense's perspective but only in first-person mode, a gameplay mode I miss dearly.
This year's version has no online play or online stats updates, something I hope is added in next year's inevitable version. The game is a good start and with some interface changes, defensive changes and slight change to the art style, next year's version could be great. As it stands, 07 for the Wii is a worthy purchase for football fans that have no other option anyway. It beats the other versions in everything but graphical prowess and sound design.
Labels: NFL, Sports, Video Games, Wii
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:38 AM
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