E-Mail This Article to a Friend Same old Madden Never mind the gimmicks BY MITCH KRPATA
	Madden NFL 06 For PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube | Rated E for Everyone | Published by EA Sports | Developed by EA Tiburon

Score: 7.0 (out of 10)

Whether it was during an interminable tutorial video about the new "NFL Superstar" mode or when I was returning the first kickoff of my season for a touchdown while Al Michaels intoned like a 1950s sci-fi robot, "He’s at the 30 . . . the 20 . . . the 10," early into my experience with Madden NFL 06 it hit me: like the guttural man child whose name it bears, the Madden series has become a grotesque self-parody. The underlying gameplay remains unchanged, no matter how many "Fear the D" or "Year of the QB" slogans EA Sports adopts, but around that redoubtable core a band of carnies has erected a freak show.

Consider: equally as important as playing football in Superstar mode is paying close attention to your created character’s business career. That means hiring better agents, constantly checking voice mail and e-mail, and making sure your player’s appearance is marketable enough to get lucrative endorsement deals. Without the right haircut and the right threads, you’ll just never make it as an NFL superstar. Madden 06 even provides a mirror for your character to admire himself in. This mode appeals, I suppose, to people who think pro athletes with multi-million-dollar contracts who still "gotta eat" shouldn’t be slapped repeatedly in a public square. Kinda makes you yearn for the old Madden ’92 ambulance to drive onto the field and roll your new superstar’s legs.

You can skip most of the window dressing and simply play football while still operating under the auspices of Superstar mode, or you can try the classic "Franchise" and "Play Now" modes. Either way, there are two notable gameplay innovations this year. "QB Vision" is a noble but failed experiment that darkens everything on the field except for a cone representing the quarterback’s field of vision. That seems like a faithful interpretation of what actually happens on the field of play, but within the game it feels gimmicky, and it reminds me of Solid Snake’s area radar in Metal Gear Solid; I felt tempted to sneak up behind the opposing QB and snap his neck (if only!).

"Precision Passing," on the other hand, is a great feature that allows you to choose which side of a receiver to throw to with a simple flick of the analog stick. Split-second decision making is key: precision passing can lead to serious yards after the catch, but you can also end up tossing more picks than Eddie Van Halen during a second encore.

John Madden himself is largely absent this time around. Narration duties for the tutorials have been handed to over to the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen. It’s an æsthetic upgrade: Madden’s phlegm-soaked warblings simply belong in a different era from Eisen’s dulcet tones. A dutiful Al Michaels has assumed almost all of the pre- and post-game analysis, seeming as far removed from the guy who once screamed "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" as he can get without legally changing his name. Madden provides only the usual canned color commentary during the games. EA might be using old recordings, or else it’s just sticking ol’ John in front of the mike for 15 minutes and then letting him go back to sleep on his bus. Either way, something’s missing.

But at this point, Madden NFL is like Vegas-era Elvis: bloated, occasionally embarrassing, and prone to passing out on top of a ham sandwich mid chew, but underneath the same classic entertainer. You can still pass for 500 yards in a half, still score more than 50 rushing touchdowns in a season, still orchestrate three successful drives after the two-minute warning, still outscore the computer 45-3 over three quarters and then lose the game.

Besides, now that EA has obtained an exclusive NFL license, it’s not as if you had any other options. Obey!