Madden 2006 is one of the most popular football games ever. Its one of the top football titles out there right now. It has everything you would ever want, online play, great action, and great features. It’s what the ideal sports game would be.

Madden 2006 has great graphics, every year this game goes up a notch and this year was no let down. They took this game up another notch helping to make this the best football game in this year’s field. These graphics aren’t going to make you touch the screen thinking its real but they are enough to convince you its not some cheap game.

This one also has some of the best controls of any game I have ever played. You can do anything. There is a button for everything you could want to do. And it’s not some action were you have to hit 40 keys just to do a spin, all the control's are easy to use. Making the control's very easy to learn and very easy to use.

The sound is probably the lowest point of the game. The menu music is very nice with a nice mix of alternative to rap. The problem comes when you get in the game. John Madden’s comments tend to repeat and not fit the situation very well. Still if you played last year’s version you will be surprised; it has improved from last year were John was completely out of sync with the game. So it’s still overall very nice.

(editor note: Also if you’ve watched Monday night football at all in the last couple of years, then Madden’s insane in-game rambling will also be an improvement over what you’ve come to expect from real life.)

If you buy or even rent this game you will find yourself playing it for hours and hours. Even if you not a football fan you will find that you can’t put it down. With so many in game features you will keep coming back time and time again. This goes hand in hand with fun factor. It is just endless fun.

Madden NFL 06 has one of the best online zones of any games I have played. You can go online in the Xbox, Xbox 360 and PS2 versions. You can talk with buddies who are on any EA game. You can voice chat, play your franchise games online, play exhibition games, or even play a game called rushing attack. In rushing attack you take turns being defense and offence running the ball. You can get really tied up online, and play spending tons of time online without even realizing it.

There are also other modes to keep you busy. The first is called Superstar. In Superstar you create a player from randomly selected DNA, or you can upload your player from NCAA 06. After you create your player you do interviews, take movie rules, and of course get drafted into the NFL. Then you have to balance your life by keeping your popularity up while keeping your appearance nice and making it to practice to sharpen your skills for the game. This feature was a great addition to Madden!

Franchise is another mode. It has features like radio, and email, among others. You can get scouting reports and get email from your players and staff to keep your team ready.

Madden NFL 06 has many mini-games I can’t begin to list them all, but I will talk about a few of the more noteworthy ones. There are training camp games where you do drills to try to get cards to improve your players. Also there is a 2-minute drill which is great for when you have friends over. Go up against each other for 2 minutes to crown the champ or you can extend that out into a tournament.

There is so much more to this game than I have time to say here. I really think you should buy it if you are at all a fan of football. And if you’re not then I suggest you rent this one and give it a try. You might surprise yourself and really love it.