Madden '06

I love the Madden franchise. I first started playing with Madden 95 and it's been a yearly ritual to buy the newest version ever since. I'm not a great player, but I'm good enough to be competitive with most other gamers. Each new version would have something of a learning curve, but this year I think they managed to screw the pooch.

This year Madden added a new "feature" called QB Vision. Basically it's your QB's sight line. If a receiver is outside of the QB's line of sight you'd better not throw it to that receiver. It will be intercepted. I'm sure with practice I might come to love this new thing, but it just seems so painfully unnecessary. I could turn off the option, but I want to be able to play against my friends who will probably use the feature. So I need to use it as well. Plus, it's not like they won't keep the feature in the next version so I might as wellget used to it, but I don't have to like it.

I think they included QB Vision as a way to make the game more realistic. That makes me wonder whether they ever actually played the game. The standard setting for Madden is like a 5-minute quarter. In that five minute quarter, even on the most difficulat setting, I'm routinely able to rack up 20 to 30 points a game with a total time of possession of... 8-12 minutes. The game itself is unrealistic. It's designed to be fun and give me a bit of a football thrill until the real thing starts. QB Vision kills that spirit for me. It kills it dead.