Madden NFL 08 Review
by YVG Staff
Overall Score: 5 out of 5
(Xbox 360 version)
Pros:
* Smooth and responsive gameplay
* Great visuals
* Addictive Superstar mode
Cons:
* Lame radio announcer
* Still lacking online leagues
Football fans, your wives and girlfriends are about to hate you. Such is the engrossing quality of Madden NFL 08. While you took your team to its third consecutive Super Bowl in Franchise mode and played through a season of Superstar as Calvin Johnson, dinner got cold and your relationship is in shambles. The only thing you could do worse to your woman than buy Madden 08 would be to hire Najeh Davenport to hide in her closet.
But that's just love, right?
Right. Because with Madden 08, EA Sports finally got it right. Players move how you want them to move, teams mimic their real-life tendencies, the view from the gridiron is gorgeous, and playing with a friends is simply addicting. While the game does have some minor hiccups, Madden 08 is without a doubt the best football game to be released in several years and is a must-have for any red-blooded football fan.
It was hard to say just what made Madden so ho-hum the last few years, but the sluggish controls and unremarkable AI made the game about as exciting as a staring contest with Art Shell. In Madden 08, the controls are tighter and more responsive than ever. As a result, the game is fast, twitchy fast, but it's also smart enough that a guy like Michael Vick won't be able to scramble 62 yards in the backfield before throwing a dart to the end zone.
This new level of control is based mostly upon a slick branching animation system. Let's say you take a toss to the left with all-world tailback LaDainian Tomlinson. After following your fullback and a pulling guard, you burst into the second level to find a strong safety charging at your face. With a tap of the highlight stick, you throw a juke that leaves him hugging air, only to be met by a linebacker. You throw a quick spin move but he catches you in the act, wraps you up and is about to drive you into the ground when -- WHAM -- the free safety dives in to finish the play but misses LT and hits his teammate instead.
Suddenly you are on your way again, ready to stiff-arm, hurdle and high step to the pylon. Everything from manually catching bombs with a receiver to de-cleating ballcarriers using the hit stick feels like you controlled it, not like an animation. In short, the days of canned auto-play are gone. You could see something new and exciting with every play thanks to the infinite possibilities of these branching animations. Gang tackles, mid-air collisions, leaping over the goal line on a simple dive -- this is next-generation football.
It also just so happens that these animations are gorgeous to look at, from Reggie Bush doing his trademark summersault for six, or a Chad Johnson river dance after a score. This is because the game runs at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second. So when Peyton Manning annoyingly calls three audibles and a hot route at the line of scrimmage, it never looked so good.
It even sounds good -- EA recorded many of the voices of real NFL quarterbacks like Manning and Tom Brady. You can almost make out Jeff Garcia's lisp. One of the low points of Madden, however, is the radio announcer, a generic play-by-play man that would be better suited to hosting infomercials than professional football games.
But football is really all about the players, and that's clearly where EA puts its major focus in 08. New this season are weapon categories in which stars are broken up by their abilities, be it brick wall defenders like Ray Lewis or Smart QBs like Brady. These weapons will have access to special abilities too -- smart players can see an opponent's play art about once a game, while Spectacular Catch receivers can make amazing grabs no one else can. The goal here is to make NFL stars play like stars and to exploit matchups, and in this, EA succeeded -- a great touch, overall.
Off the field, you can jump right into quick games with your buddies as well as the standard franchise mode, this time with up to 32 teams, ideal for a fraternity house full of football fans. Unfortunately, multiplayer franchise is limited to offline-only as EA has yet to match the online leagues of 2K Sports. Still, you do have the option to create players and a custom team, building a stadium from the bleachers up.
Probably the most enjoyable single-player mode is Superstar, a breath of fresh air from traditional 11-on-11 football. You take control of a created player or a rookie like Adrian Peterson and play as that player his entire career, from the NFL combine, to agent signing, to practice, to Canton. If you already created an All American in NCAA Football 08, you can import him too.
Online, the ESPN partnership is in full effect with downloadable video highlights and segments from ESPN radio. Then again, we would trade all of that in for online leagues because most of us already have, you know, cable TV and radios.
In the end, Madden 08 is simply superb. If you could only own one next-gen football, this is it. That is, unless the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader sim finally comes out. Maybe your girlfriend will get behind that one. Then again, maybe not.
looks like madden is a must buy this year. 
*this review is based on the xbox 360 version.
