Another year, another version of Madden--this year is obviously a shade bit different because for the first time since the NFL granted video game makers to purchase rights to their league, Madden is literally the only game in town; thankfully, this is arguably the best version of Madden to date. It definitely has its warts, some of which have been in the game for going on six years now, but if you're a fan of the series, this is money well spent. On the other hand, if you're not a fan of Madden, it's highly doubtful that this new edition is going to change your mind.

The Presentation

This clearly remains one of the game's weakest links. It continues to amaze how a game with such a huge budget that sells millions of units each year continues to have ho-hum graphics on the Xbox. It looks muddy, there's a lot of flicker on the player jerseys, and the player models remain second rate (compared to the now defunct NFL 2K series).

Shockingly, when a quarterback does a play action pass he still faces in the wrong direction before he throws it. This was an issue in Madden 2005 and the fact that it's not fixed is a tad mystifying. There are some new animations, mostly in the run game, that look pretty good but graphically this is a very average looking game and it has been this way for several years now. In fact, EA's other football game, NCAA 06 is clearly the better looking of the two, which should never happen to a game as big and as popular as Madden.

The sound also continues to disappoint. At least the crowd now boos and cheers at the proper times, but the play by play and color commentary from Madden and Michaels is so grating that it actually improves the game when they are disabled and you're left with the crowd noise, player chatter, and PA announcer. Also disappointing is that there is absolutely no pre-game or halftime analysis at all. Even NCAA has Lee Corso putting on grainy looking helmets. For a company that seems so wrapped up in providing great looking games, Madden continues to get the short end of the stick.

(As an aside, buried inside the audio menu are ten authentic, full length classic NFL films music tracks. You have to turn them on, but it's a whole lot better than the EA Trax, because nothing says "NFL" quite like the Foo Fighters…)

The new hyped feature called Superstar Mode is quite possibly the biggest waste of code since the Mascot game. Basically this is a role-playing mode where you play a new rookie drafted into the league and you have to build him up into a superstar. You start off by deciding what your parents were like (my mother was a mountain biker and my dad an extreme sports star) and take a ridiculously easy IQ test that asks you to do basic math and then to decide if you were a tree what kind of tree would you be. It's heady stuff.

From there, you'll get inundated with cell phone messages from your mentor, Terrell Davis (who plays the role of stalker, apparently), Rich Eisen, your agent, and even your barber. You get to accept movie roles -- even though my guy was drafted in the third round, I was up for a starring role in some movie and I also had the stones to tell the media my goal was a 2,000 yard season even though I started third string.

This feature is just not fleshed out well at all, and it's frustrating that a lot of effort was devoted to it because it's just a terrible waste of time.

Gameday at Madden Field

Last year Madden was all about making the defense more fun with new features like the Hit Stick. This year, the offense has a few more toys with which to play, mainly in the form of the new Vision and Precision passing. The vision cone is one of the best ideas to come along in quite some time. The reason is simple: for the first time in a football game, a quarterback's "Awareness" rating actually matters when controlled by a human player.

In year's past, as long as your QB had a good arm and good accuracy you were good to go. Not anymore. Now it's a lot more difficult to see and use the entire field with a player with low awareness. For example, Browns QB Trent Dilfer still has good raw skills; his arm and accuracy aren't too bad but his limited awareness makes his vision cone much smaller than a player such as Brett Favre or Tom Brady. If you try to throw the ball to a receiver who is outside of the highlighted vision cone, the accuracy of the pass drops dramatically. Of course it's still possible to use a player with a low awareness but it requires you to either stick with your primary target or learn how to move the cone around, which is tough to do simply because the pass rush will get to you if you take too long scanning the field.

For a brand new feature, it's implemented fairly well. It's not perfect and can take a long time even for Madden vets to get the hang of, but it is well worth taking your lumps early in order to learn how to use it. It adds a whole new level to the passing game. Of course if you hate it you can just turn it off, although you cannot disable the cone for CPU teams. It's always there.