Every year, EA and Tiburon’s Madden franchise looks surprisingly better and better. The graphics always seem to be at the top of their game and the animations that accompany the players have again improved with new moves that are very fluid. The little things that make a game gorgeous are included as well, like the changing sky and lighting that accompanies the time of day. All of these things combined are what make games like Madden NFL 06 at the top of their league.

Once again gracing your speakers are the voices of Al Michaels and John Madden in the announcers’ booth calling the play by play. While these commentators may never be perfect, they certainly do a pretty good job of calling the action on the field. The in-game and in-menu music and sound effects also do the game justice, not taking away from the experience like so many games do.

Despite what the critics (including me, quite frankly) of EA’s exclusive NFL license thought, Madden NFL 06 is going out with a bang on what may be its last leg on the current generation of consoles. Many thought that the lack of competition would halt EA’s progress with the franchise, but Madden has finally seen the leap forward that we have wished for every year. New moves and new modes round out a great experience for NFL fans of all ages.

The greatest addition to the series since making the leap into 3D has got to be the all-new Superstar mode. While the concept is nothing new, in practice it is done very well. As if you’re starring in your own soap opera for men, you control your created or imported (from NFL Street 2 or NCAA Football 06) player throughout his entire career. You’ll be able to round out his personality and determine his career choices through a complex (yet compelling) series of text-based question and answer sessions. If you’ve played the Career mode in any of the recent WWE wrestling games, you’ll see striking similarities. While from the outside it may seem silly to watch over your star player by making him dress well and have great interviews, once you get into it you’ll certainly not leave. This welcome addition makes continuing to play Madden 06 much more enjoyable than just simply replaying season after season.

The on-the-field action also has improved greatly with the addition of QB Vision Control. Each quarterback in the National Football League has a different rating, so EA has created a “cone” vision that is based on each QB’s stats. The better the quarterback, the wider his field of vision will be. Throwing the ball within this cone increases the accuracy of the pass, and tossing the ball outside usually results in a poor pass. In addition, Precision Passing allows you to now lead your receiver to the best spot to catch the ball. You’ll be able to throw it high or low, or find the open spot by leading or throwing behind your intended receiver. All of these actions do result in greater passing abilities, but can also lead to an increase in interceptions thrown if you just wildly hit buttons when you play.

And finally... after years of pleading, begging, and groveling... EA has heard our cries to allow Franchise games to be played online. That’s right, you’ll finally have the ability to play Franchise games with your buddies who are too far away to pass a memory card back and forth. Unfortunately, you really won’t be playing the franchise games online; instead you’ll be transferring the saved game file from one PS2 to another in order to share these season games. All we can hope for is that next year this ability will be improved, and allow for actual games to be played via the Internet.

Additional new features allow you to actually save key games throughout your Franchise and play them at a different time. After playing the game, you just need to “merge” the game back into the Franchise save and continue as normal. This ability to spawn games is how you can share game files with your friends. Also, if you have Madden NFL 06 on PSP, you’ll be able to share your files to play a Franchise week on your handheld.

Madden 06 is very similar to every other year’s incarnations of the best-selling franchise of all time in that it offers different degrees of difficulty, so that all levels of gamers will be able to enjoy the game to the fullest. The new QB Vision Control and Precision Passing gameplay options offer an additional difficulty due to the extra controls involved (see below), but after some practice you’ll get the hang of it and start passing into areas that even Peyton Manning wouldn’t dare throw into. Getting together with a friend is usually the greatest competition, however, because as with any game, the A.I. can always be beaten with enough practice.

While the basic gameplay of Madden NFL 06 has remained relatively unchanged over the years, the controls continue to be tweaked into perfection. A couple of the moves from last year have been updated to accommodate the new set of moves freshly introduced this year. When running with the ball, for example, you can now use the right analog stick to juke back or power your way through with the Truck Stick. When passing with QB Vision Control enabled, a combination of the R2 button and many other buttons can sometimes get confusing to the new user. With a little patience and practice, the controls feel very good on the PlayStation controller. Newcomers to the franchise may be intimidated by the controls, but veterans should have little trouble adjusting to these great improvements to the Madden series.

Sometimes it’s hard to recommend to the casual fan to drop 50 dollars (US) every year for what usually seems like a simple roster update with little added features. This is NOT one of those years. Even for the occasional gamer (who has any interest in American football whatsoever), buying Madden NFL 06 should be at the top of your wish list. The new features of this year’s game are well worth the money for the game, although the ability to share Franchise files over the Internet is almost like a curse that you can’t actually play the games online. Hopefully this long-awaited feature will become more accessible next year on the next-generation of consoles. Now stop reading and go buy your own copy of the game!