EA Sports' latest offering isn't perfect, but it's an incredibly fun game of football.

This all started years ago with the 2005 series of football games. Madden 2005 was the last great Madden game in more than a few fans' minds. That was also the year ESPN NFL 2K5 changed the game forever with a well-reviewed game at the bargain basement price of $19.99.
Then EA Sports opened its deep coffers and got exclusive rights to the NFL license, pretty much blindsiding all their competitors. Stop me if you've heard this one. Games since the no-competition era have lacked that little extra something that made EA enough money to buy the license to begin with. So is it a coincidence that the the best Madden game since 2005 comes out the same year 2K Sports gets back in the game? Probably not, but football fans will be too busy playing this latest installment to care one way or the other. No innovation, exclusive license, or marketing ploy matters without the gameplay.

Gameplay is where Madden '08 delivers in spades. Thumbs will go numb on this game more than any recent entry in the series. The biggest innovation here is ironically cribbed from a game series that's been in decline, the NBA Live games. In addition to traditional player ratings going up to 100, Madden divides players into "weapon" categories. Weapons show that superstar players like Larry Johnson or Ray Lewis have an entirely different skillset than the typical athlete. Like in NBA Live, the best players will have skills from more than one category. Chad Johnson, for example, has just about every attribute a wide receiver can have. LaDainian Tomlinson has Speed and Elusive Back attributes as well as the Stiff Arm and Power Back traits. It wouldn't be fun if the defense didn't have weapons at its disposal, and Madden touts a defensive counter for each offensive measure.

A Quick Receiver can make cuts that will leave most defenders stuck on stupid, but players with the Shutdown Corner ability can stay right with them. Making the stars more important to the game is a return to the golden days of sports gaming. Anyone old enough to remember still has fond memories of defenders bouncing off Tecmo Bowl's Bo Jackson.
Nobody's quite that overpowered in Madden '08, but covering Terrell Owens is a different experience than covering say, Keenan McCardell. And that's not just because McCardell uses a walker these days.

To counter all the havoc the offensive superstars can wreak you can use strategic adjustments, defensive weapons, or a combination. The right analog stick still serves as the "Hit Stick" but now you can pull up to tackle around the head or push down to make a leg tackle. You don't want any of Frank Gore's shoulder charge, so it's best to hit him at the legs. In contrast, a speed burner like Reggie Bush is best tackled about the shoulders.

If a receiver is giving you headaches, a simple button press calls for a double team or bump and run coverage. Gang tackling is at a premium in this game, as the first tackler will often hold the runner up long enough for the posse to nail them. This leads to some sweet tackling animations of ballcarriers getting jacked up. There are a lot more animations in this year's game on both sides of the ball. In previous installments you could see all the tackling animations the game had to offer halfway through that day you called in sick to play this game. Although watching Will Smith put his helmet square into Warrick Dunn's chest should be put on an infinite loop, I never tire of that.

 It's not just the tackling animations that look pretty. You'll actually see wideouts drag their feet to stay inbounds on critical sideline catches,or lay themselves out to make that catch in the middle of the field. Touch sensitive control on the Y button lets you determine what kind of catch you want to make. A quick tap will try for that circus catch that makes all the SportsCenter highlight reels, while holding the button down goes for an all-important possession catch. Hey, it may not earn you the Wheaties box but your coach will thank you.
The weapons and new animations increase the amount of things that can happen on the field. The bonecrushing tackles will probably take trash talking to all new levels. The latest features really drive home the human game of chess that NFL Football is.

There's a robust owner mode for that player that wants to see T.O. freeze his butt off in Buffalo, or thinks the Colts should move back to Baltimore. You'll be able to do everything from raising ticket prices to moving the franchise if you're willing to take the proper steps. The ambitious but busted Superstar Mode from last year received a necessary overhaul. Now you can import an NCAA Football '08 player, create yourself and chase that rookie dream, or play with a real high-profile rookie like Brady Quinn or Calvin Johnson. Using this mode, you could even make JaMarcus Russell show up for Raiders training camp. EA fixed the problematic camera from last year too. Madden is a game that really lives and dies by multiplayer, but these other modes greatly increase the single player experience.

But there are a couple of hangups that stop this one from entering the Hall of Fame. A few years ago a rumor started that EA wanted to remove Madden from the game completely, letting it stand on the strength of its NFL license. That may be a smart move, because Johnny isn't getting any younger. Other than the traditional "Ask Madden" the legendary coach doesn't appear in this installment. I understand Madden's near absence, but much younger broadcasters Marshall Faulk, Merrill Hoge and Mark Schlereth are all barely there as well. Marshall Faulk gives a pregame prediction and refers to it during the nonexistent postgame show. Hoge and Schlereth only appear to explain the various weapons and the best way to counter them.
EA paid a pretty penny for exclusive content and now they aren't even using it to its full potential. To make things worse, play-by-play duties are handled by the "EA Sports Radio Announcer." His half-awake, homeristic commentary lags behind the game action and subtracts more from the experience than it adds. This system of commentary doesn't even make sense. Why I would be watching or playing a football game and listening to it on the radio at the same time? Again, sports fans the count of professional football broadcasters that recorded voiceovers for the game: Four. The number involved in the game's actual commentary: Zero. The setup is bizarre to say the least.

And in other questionable presentation, there is no halftime show whatsoever. Unless of course, you count being able to click the replay button and view the biggest plays of the first half. It's a little sad that NFL2K5 put a real time halftime show in their game three years ago, on last generation consoles, and that presentation is better than the current industry standard.
As the only NFL game in town, gamers are buying it at $60 a pop expecting all the bells and whistles. The computer AI is uneven, making some brilliant plays on even the Pro level but being as dumb as a sack of hammers on others. When the computer doesn't try an onside kick when it's down by two scores with a minute left, or inexplicably punts on second down late in the first half, you'll swear Barry Switzer is coaching again.
There are also way too many fumbles for the rhythm of an actual NFL game. Between interceptions and fumbles, 8-10 turnovers a game is not unusual. For there to be as many fumbles as consistently as there are in this game, Tony Romo would have to be the ballhandling coach for half the teams in the league. It doesn't matter who's carrying the rock either. Typically sure-handed guys are as likely to cough it up as known butterfingers. On the tournament circuit this year, we will probably see a lot of guys running towards the sidelines in the fourth-quarter.

In spite of these gripes, Madden '08 is a really fun game of football. This year's innovations aren't just shoehorned in for newness' sake, they change how the game is played. If EA Sports builds on the good parts of this game and ups the presentation of things like play-by-play to a truly next gen level, this franchise will keep piling up the profits no matter whose name appears on it.