Madden NFL 06

Platform: Xbox 360

Release date: 11/16/05

Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Annual sports games never seem to get it right on launch day. At best, you’ll get a marginally improved and prettier version of the past generation release. At worst, you’ll get an inferior and glitchy edition of the same game.

Madden NFL 06 on the Xbox 360 somehow falls into both of those categories. Being on new generation hardware, this was a substantial visual improvement over the PS2 and Xbox versions of the same game that were released just a few months earlier. Feature wise, however, Madden 06 is lacking compared to the “outdated” consoles. The gameplay is still the same rock solid Madden you have been playing for years, but it’s missing key features such as the pre-season camps and the franchise mode has been greatly simplified.

On the bright side, annual sports games do seem to get it right a year after launch. And that was no exception with Madden 07, which took the visual upgrade of this release and filled it with far more depth and features that finally made the past generation versions obsolete. Still, this is worth playing even today for the easy 1000G and if you’re curious to see what a major franchise looked and played like during the Xbox 360 launch.

The good: Compared to the last-generation versions, you trade superior HD graphics…

The bad: …for less features and depth.