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EA Sports’ latest football title dives into sports-management. Fans have been managing teams for years in Madden, but this mode just scrapes the tip of what a sports management game could offer. The game lets you control everything you want from calling plays to much more intricate details. Though rough around the edges, the game should satisfy fans of the genre though it may not convert too many of the Madden players.
The primary mode is the career mode. You’ll start off by creating your own coach who just led a team to a Super Bowl victory. Of course, other teams want you now so you’re able to pick a team of your choice to manage. Once you are the coach, you can schedule practices, train players by giving them more practice time, design plays, hire new players or coaches and keep in touch with others via email and by browsing the NFL’s website. The game isn’t particularly flexible since you’re only able to complete two tasks each day during your free time, as you’ll have to do everything else during the game’s chosen time.
As a coach, you’re also able to give specific advice to certain players. If a player is doing something you don’t like, you can call him out and advice him to change. The AI is developed enough that it will follow your advice, though you’re free to retract it later on. You can also try to motivate players by giving them either passive or aggressive feedback. Sometimes aggressive feedback is needed to get a player back on track although they may end up getting upset at you. Sometimes, inexplicably, giving a player positive feedback will anger that player. Arguably, NFL players are human after all and may be having a bad day, but this is probably just a fault in the AI.
On the field, you can change formations, call play and choose the overall strategy that your team will follow. The AI will handle the actual gameplay. For the most part, this works out well although there are some questionable plays at times. The game tries to be more accessible by allowing you to simulate certain events, like practices. While this is good to save time, your team will be negatively affected. It’s better than not doing anything but you’re not getting the full payoff, which is fair since you didn’t do anything to earn it.
It’s clear that the career mode was given the bulk of the development time but the game also includes an online multiplayer mode. While a good addition, the online mode showcases the game’s faults more than it adds to the package. For starters, it’s too dependent on the team’s rating. By and large the team with the highest stats will win the game. If you’re playing as a lower-ranked team, picking good plays and having a solid strategy will help you, but you’ll probably still lose. With that said you’re still able to communicate with your players, though again, the impact this has is minimal.
The game’s Madden-powered visuals are good. In this game, you’ll be navigating menus more often than not and EA has done a good job of making sure that everything is intuitive. You can easily find what you’re trying to do and the menus look pretty good considering that they’re menus. On the field, the players look believable thanks to the Madden engine, which also powers their animations. Although not quite as solid as we’ve come to expect from that series, what you have here is more than enough considering that on field action is hardly the game’s focus.
The game’s audio once again shows its Madden influences. The sound effects sound eerily familiar, though that’s a good thing since Madden has had so much time to perfect them. The soundtrack is provided by NFL Films music which was featured in Madden NFL 06 as a compliment to the licensed EA Trax music. The game has some voice acting by way or radio chatter but it is subtle. The game also lacks in-game commentary, though this is understandable.
NFL Head Coach gets a lot of things right. Basically, all of the micromanagement parts of the game will make fans gush with excitement. However, there are some tweaks that need to be made and some flexibility to be added before EA scores a touchdown with this franchise. While it isn’t perfect, it’s quite fun if this sort of thing is your cup of tea. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Jul 5, 2006
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