ately it seems that PSPs have been collecting dust due to the summer drought of new PSP software.  Well kids, Summer is over, and Electronic Arts is leading the charge with some serious PSP titles that should easily drain your wallets.  One of the most highly anticipated releases from the company - Madden NFL 06 - is hitting stores on September 20th, and we’ve gotten our hands on the final version of the game.  We take a look to see how EA Sports first PSP pigskin title fares….

For those who have struggled with portable football games of the past, the good news is that for the most part EA Sports has successfully transferred the console experience of Madden to the PSP.  Franchise, precision passing, mini games, mini-camp, smart routes, EA Trax, online play – it’s literally all in the game.  NFL Superstar, create-a-player, create-a-team, and QB Vision didn’t make the cut this year, but the amount of football love EA Sports packed into this UMD is quite impressive, especially for the games’ first outing.  If you’ve played Madden NFL 06 on the consoles, especially on the PlayStation 2, the PSP version is going to feel extremely similar from the get go.

Gameplay in general feels almost identical to the console version, which is definitely a first for portable football.  Even though the PSP is missing two shoulder buttons and the right analog stick, EA seems to have mapped everything out well enough that I can’t really tell if there’s anything missing.  The analog nub feels great and I’ve had no response problems from any of the controls so far.  I actually didn’t look at the control scheme in the manual right away just to see if I could get the jist by my PS2 Madden knowledge, and everything felt in place to me. 

While I do miss the truck stick and hit stick in situations, you can still drop your shoulder or dive after players.  I think it’s better EA Sports didn’t try to map out those types of moves with one of the leftover buttons like select or the music button to force these elements.  At least EA kept in important things like precision passing (hands down my favorite feature of NFL 06), hot routes, and smart routes.  It seems like EA took the best of this year’s console version and left out what wasn’t essential for gameplay.

I have however noticed a few odd glitches in the number of games that I’ve played.  On one of my coin tosses I called heads, and the coin came up tails, and I was told which side I wanted to kick from.  For some odd reason I had the opportunity to receive.  Another game I was playing it was 3rd and 12, my quarterback was sacked, and the defense was called for face masking.  Al Michaels said that the defense gave up the chance for 4th down and gave the team a 1st down, but after the play was over, my choices were either 3rd and 12 or 4th and 12.   Since the game has the ability to download roster updates, if there are persistent glitches that affect gameplay it would be nice to be able to download some sort of patch.

One of my favorite features of Madden in the past few years has been the Mini-Camp.  While I feel every year I get better and better at the game, practice never hurts.  Exclusive to the PSP version are 10 specific mini-games which can be played in the franchise mode Mini-Camp, and the Mini-Camp party play style competition mode.  These mini games include: Route Running, Punt inside 20, DB Cover, Rush QB, Passing distance, Punt Return, Kick-off Return, Kicking Distance, 40-yard dash, Protect QB.  For some unknown reason you can’t play the exclusive mini-games in the normal Mini-Camp mode, but you can do the competition with only one player.  The new mini-games are a nice bonus, some are better than others.

Another PSP exclusive is the inclusion of the new Assistant Coach mode.  When you’re playing through Franchise mode, you’ll be given specific goals to accomplish.  Rushing yards, passing yards, and the like.  As you accomplish these goals you’ll get Assistant Coach points which can be spent on players in your practice squad.  With these points and some extra practice in Mini-Camp, once they’ve improved to your liking you can sign them to your team.  This addition adds a little more depth to the franchise mode.

Visually Madden NFL 06 is the best looking sports game on the system.  Even though the presentation has been watered down, the on-field action looks fantastic.  Player animations are clean and fluid.  You will notice however there are no players on the sideline, and the crowd is flat as paper.  But for how good the action on the field looks, minimal things like that can be overlooked.  One big thing that the game lacks is instant replays.  There are no automatic or manual replays.  So if you smoke your buddy with a cool spin move to break into the endzone, you better enjoy the action as it unfolds because that’s the only time you’ll see it.  The game also suffers from some minor slowdown issues and dropped frames which have caused some unfortunate results.  I’ve noticed at times that when frames are either dropped or slow down occurs receivers have sometimes missed or dropped passes; where if the framerate was constant there would be no reason why the player would have missed the catch.  This hasn’t happened too often, but I’ve noticed it a few times. 

Madden NFL 06 has terrible load times and the interface and presentation can also be choppy.  The initial load time is over 60 seconds to boot from the PSP Logo until you’re told to press start. There’s a stutter every time text comes on screen signaling a touchdown, first down, or other elements.  Before your player even crosses the goal line fully the game stops to post the text before your player crosses the line.  Since there’s no auto save function for your game files outside of one or two instances while you’re online, you’ll get dumped to the main PSP save area to save your files.  Fortunately the game doesn’t have to reboot, but for different save areas you’ll be bounced back and forth from the save area.  There seems to be an overall lack of fluidity in this game, and these quick little breaks and load times get to be quite annoying.  Portable gaming is supposed to be about quick pick-up-and-play gameplay, but if I have to wait for crap to load all the time or elements get broken up by choppiness, that means I’m not doing what I want to be doing – which is playing football.  Hopefully in next year’s version they can speed everything up.

Madden NFL 06 also has connectivity with the PS2 version of Madden NFL 06.  By hooking your PSP up to your PS2 via the mini-USB jack and selecting PlayStation 2 Link from the PSP menu and PSP system link for the PS2 menu, you’ll be able to download and upload files to and from your PS2 to your PSP.  Elements that can be downloaded are rosters, profiles, and spawned franchise games.  You can’t trade your complete franchise from your PS2 to your PSP, but you can spawn specific games and then play those on your PSP.  What some people might love or hate about this spawned game process is that if you lose that spawned franchise game, you can turn off your PSP, reboot, and then replay that game.  Or, even easier, after you spawn a game from your PS2 you can unspawn it without penalty.  Even though you can more or less cheat the system, the ability to transfer these files and play franchise games on the road is fantastic, and most likely one of the best features of this game.  Unfortunately, this only works with the PS2 version.  Next year EA better throw some weight around to allow this for PS2, PS3, and Xbox 360.

The game does support wireless two-player gameplay, but the big multiplayer news is Online play.  Online play sponsored by ESPN (or it’s $2.00 if you want it sponsor free), just like the PS2 version, and if you’ve set up a Madden account, EA Member account, and EA Nation account you can use all of these user names and passwords with your PSP version online.  However, if you haven’t, expect at least a 10 minute setup process.  Unfortunately, since only a few people have this final version we haven’t been able to play games online yet.  But with our fiddling, we noticed that the backend looks identical to the console online component, with downloadable rosters, lobbies, sports ticker, and ranked games.  Wireless Madden makes us drool, and we can’t wait to play this.

Outside of loading issues, and some bugginess that could get fixed, EA Sports first foray into PSP football is a good one.  While it’s far from perfect, it’s more or less console football in the palm of your hand which has never been accomplished successfully before.  Plus add a decent franchise mode, PS2 connectivity, and wireless and online gameplay, for anyone in need for some quality football on the road EA has your medicine.