With NFL 2006, Jamdat Sports maintains the momentum it began with last year's game, but it doesn't improve a whole lot on the formula. Again we have a beautiful, streamlined user interface, a solid playbook, full player rosters, and competent sprite-based visuals. This time around, we get 16 players on the field at a time, instead of last year's 14. This still is shy of the prescribed 22, but it's admittedly tough to fit so many players on a cell phone screen.
In Jamdat Sports NFL 2006, you can play through several seasons as any of the NFL's 32 teams. Player rosters are accurate, and each guy's skill seems to correspond to that of his real-life counterpart. You can choose the games' quarter length, and that's about it. No trades. No front-office options. It's just eight-on-eight gridiron action.
Although we played NFL 2006 on a fancy LG VX8100, it's not a V Cast game, so it runs on a variety of hardware. The game seemed a little slow, but this is mostly a product of the high camera perspective. The players actually cover yardage at a reasonable clip. The uniform colors are roughly accurate, but there's not much detail to the sprites. They've got legs and arms. What more do you want?
NFL's audio is a bit more impressive. There are some sparse vocal clips, as well as your typical whistle blows and contact noises. Even though there's no real commentary, we were impressed by the quality of the human sound bites present.
Undoubtedly, NFL 2006's best feature is its robust playbook, which is sorted into easy-to-understand sections for football novices. You won't have to worry about formations--just whether you're going to execute a short pass, a long pass, or a run. Defensive plays are organized in the same way. This might put off enthusiasts, but most people will find this system more accessible and better suited to a mobile game. The challenge is instead provided by the game's solid artificial intelligence. You don't know humiliation until you throw an interception in your opponent's end zone.
NFL 2006 also wisely reprises last year's passing system, which color-codes receivers for their likelihood to make a catch. This takes the guesswork out of your passing game and ensures that you make smart throws, even if you can't always follow the action on your handset's small screen.
Jamdat NFL 2006 isn't a major advancement, but it definitely remains one of the better games of pigskin on wireless. In this case, getting more of the same--albeit with one more player on each team--is a good thing. Plus, if this trend continues, we'll have full lineups by Jamdat Sports NFL 2009.
