If It's in the Game...

Big news from EA Sports about Madden 06 and NCAA Football 06. I admit that I was very worried that EA would become complacent after signing exclusive licensing deals with the NCAA and the NFL a few months ago. In other words, if you want a football game with the actual teams/schools/players, EA is your only choice. With its competition eliminated, what incentive does EA have to make significant improvements to its top games? Well, I was wrong (for now).

NCAA Football sounds like its going to be awesome. Check this article out. Apparently, the newest addition to 06 is “Race for the Heisman” mode. You start out as high school prospect who’s trying to impress college scouts. Based on your performance in the assigned drills and what position you choose to play at, schools will offer you scholarships or if you sucked, you can walk on. Basically, you play as the prospect in the game not as the coach. You get do all the things any other college athlete does - bitch about playing time, leave early to enter the draft. (No word on whether you can accept payments from boosters.) You have 4 years to get the Heisman, collect trophies and get on as many SI covers as you can. (No word on whether you can collect groupies too.) But word is, your girlfriend gets hotter as you become more famous.

While Madden 06 doesn’t appear to have very many cool new features (the ability to look off receivers doesn’t inspire me to rush to spend $50), the biggest improvement is supposedly the graphics. EA isn’t revealing much besides a few screenshots (see below), but they look amazing. There will be a 90 second ad for the new Madden during the 1st hour of Saturday’s NFL Draft.

JD