By Bradley Philbert, Frank Ling, Mitch West, John Duong, Adam Aragon and Jesse Wingert.
We got a chance to play about 10 minutes of Madden NFL ’07 this afternoon for the PS3. It was an eye-opening experience. In the interest of full disclosure, and to be fair to Sony and EA, the game was a 30% build.
Graphically, Madden ’07 on PS3 was nowhere near as impressive as Madden on the 360. There just wasn’t a comparison – the 360 version I played at Microsoft’s booth was much more detailed than the playable PS3 demo at EA. The word circulating around the GN newsroom was “underwhelming.” While we’re all aware that it’s just a 30% build, this was not an impressive display from a company that, just yesterday, stated they were integral in the next-gen race.
The biggest gripe, by far, is the weight of the controller. It is far, far too light to be used seriously. Like a weighty pen, a controller must have some bulk to it for finer use of the integrated motion-sensing. This new controller just does not have a pleasant hand-feel; we were afraid we would break the controls from the moment we took the helm. Perhaps the weight problem will change as the motion-sensing technology is tweaked and perfected, but right now it is clear just how far behind Sony is in the console race.
GN will put this in more perspective tomorrow, when we get our hands on Nintendo’s Wiimote.
