Madden NFL 06

I have to confess, American Football is not my strong suit. I had never watched a game and don’t know who any of the stars are and have even less of a clue regarding the stars and best teams from 2006. After playing the game though... I still don’t really know what’s going on.

There’s not really a lot else to say – it’s a football game – so let’s dive straight into the achievements.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 11 Achievements

Due to low amount of achievements I’ll do a play by play (pardon the pun).

1.       Activate RS Card. All you have to do is click the right stick when you start a franchise.

2.       Score a Touchdown. Pretty self explanatory and I did manage to get this without the help of a guide telling me how to play American Football.

3.       Get a First Down. Having heard downs mentioned in previous conversations with people who actually know what they are, I was still stumped.  However, a little research revealed to me that it is making ten yards down the field. I got this one with the above after running past all the opposition on an easy difficulty level.

4.       Complete an Offline Game. Again, self explanatory. Simply completing a game versus the CPU, regardless of winning, is enough.

5.       Enter History Book. This is the same as number 1 – all you have to do is enter a specific screen in franchise mode and the achievement is yours.

6.       Four Sacks in One Game. This is where they start getting a little less straight forward. I had to mess around with some settings to make this easy. By turning offsides off you can stand next to the Quarterback and take him down as soon as he gets the ball. Do this 4 times and boom, achievement unlocked – at the end of the game you are playing.

7.       Rush for 200 yards. Setting the game to low difficulty and always using plays that hand off to players that run rather than passing will get this is one game. The plays are easy to identify. I used Madden’s advice most of the time and every time there was an opportunity to pass to a Running Back, I took it. Having the difficulty down means that you should be able to run past the opposition again. Make sure to pay attention to the amount of yards covered by the player as the achievement won’t unlock until the game is completed.

8.        Pass for 350 Yards. The same as the above except use passing plays instead of running plays.

9.       Win a Franchise Game. This can be doubled up with Complete an Offline Game. The only reason I didn’t get them at the same time was because I was trying to learn how to play the game first!

10.   Win the Super Bowl. The easiest way to claim American Football’s most coveted prize is to start Franchise Mode and select all the teams as user teams. You can then just simulate to the end of the season – you don’t even have to play the Super Bowl match to unlock the achievement.

11.   Complete 30 Years of Franchise. This achievement is a joke but is also worth 400 of the 1,000 total points available. The only real way to do this is to select a team and simulate the 30 years of franchise. Despite skipping all of these games, it still takes in excess of 4 hours to complete.

Downloadable Content – N/A

I do enjoy learning things from games and I have increased my knowledge of American Football from playing this. However, I didn’t enjoy it and I don’t have the patience to learn an entire new sports game to the point where I would enjoy it. I won’t be playing another American Football game but this is mainly due to the fact that the games are made by EA and they have online achievements which have subsequently been discontinued.