Ah, Madden time. When all of us gaming geeks leap onto the new Madden — even though usually (and in this case) the only real change is the rosters. But we don’t care. We buy it anyway.
This is probably the last Madden we’re ever going to see on current-gen systems, and to that I say: Good. Because Madden 2007 has some serious problems that I attribute to too much going on inside my PS2s limited computing capacity.
Here’s the deal: in a game, the damn thing will freeze up or skip a hell of a lot, usually when trying to read multiple tracks (multiple audio and video). This is really annoying.
When I first started, it was freezing so badly that I had to whack the top of the PS2 to get the DVD moving a little so the laser could pick it up. After that, I got fed up, thought my PS2 was all gunky again (it was), took it apart and cleaned the laser (I’ve written about this before — if you want to do this, it works, but it voids most warranties and you should really only do it if you know what you’re doing and/or you’re comfortable with electronics).
This worked, meaning, it got rid of the really bad freezes, but it still skips and freezes a little bit. I went searching on the web for people having similar problems and I came across a WHOLE lot of XBox/XBox 360 owners who said that not only was their copy of Madden freezing on them but it also somehow seemed to screw the machine up and make other games freeze. I don’t really know if I believe that, but anything’s possible.
Anyway, I just want to alert Madden fans that this year’s copy of Madden is a little frustrating to play because of the little glitches. But it’s still worth it, I have to say.