Chris Holmes Online

Every year EA hits us with a new Madden video game. And every year there are people who decline to purchase it for various reasons: not enough new features, removal of older features that were loved, reported glitches, bugs not fixed from previous versions, etc.

If you are one of those people – if you decided to skip Madden 2006 or Madden 2007 – now is the time to upgrade. This year’s Madden is as good as they come.

To start, this is the best looking Madden ever. Not so much in terms of player models (they don’t look much different from last year), but in terms of motion. Madden 2008 is the most fluid looking version in the franchise. From the moment you launch the program you can tell: this game is smooth. The menus operate as fast as I’ve ever seen them (on the same machine I’ve used for Madden 2006 & Madden 2007), and the player animations are the best they’ve ever been.

Part of this visual improvement is due to some new (and much needed) additions to the player animation library: defensive backs now have a much more realistic set of moves to use when defending deep passes (I have yet to see the Superman Jump-Swat); some additional tackles have been added that improve the running game quite a bit; the players huddle up and break into formation right after you choose a play. The visual touches aren’t overt, but you notice the quality of the game as a whole while you’re playing. This is the closest Madden has ever come to looking like a real NFL game.

But not only does the game look good, it plays good too. The running game seems more realistic between the tackles; wide receivers on crossing routes don’t seem to get tracked down as easily by linebackers; out routes seem much more viable; long passes down the sidelines seem to have a much more realistic outcomes; punt and kick returns are much more fun to deal with. You’ll still catch an occasional linebacker making a Superman slide on skates to catch up to a receiver in the flat, but overall those sorts of imperfections seem to be fewer and farther between this time around. For the most part, this version of Madden plays as good as it looks.

Even if the visuals and game play were the only improvements over last year, Madden 2008 would still be worth owning. But the developers have added a number of features and tweaks to the system – almost all of which are worthwhile – so that gamers don’t feel cheating out of their money.

To begin with, this year’s Madden fixed one of the most glaring issues from last year’s game: the complete absence of the QB Slide. I complained about this last year and was pleasantly surprised to find that this year’s development team was smart enough to include this much needed feature. Now, when your QB runs across the line of scrimmage, you can drop into a QB slide by simply tapping a button on your controller (holding the button down causes a dive). With the proliferation of scrambling QB’s at an all-time high in the NFL, this is a feature you can’t live without.

Player Roles also return this year, but this time they are augmented by Player Weapons. Different player weapons grant different abilities. For instance, a Smart Quarterback can read defenses before the snap, revealing the oppositions play call to you. Unfortunately, while the icons for player weapons do show up in the manual, the exact benefits do not; the descriptions of each weapon are incredibly vague and don’t give you the slightest idea of what exactly the benefits will be. It seems amazing to me that with 12 months between releases of Madden, EA can’t afford to print a comprehensive manual for its game.

There are other tweaks as well. This year, there are four difficulty levels: Rookie, Pro, All-Pro and All-Madden. In recent years, players such as myself have complained that the difficultly system was inadequate: All-Pro was too easy and All-Madden was too hard. Well, All-Madden is still too hard (for me) but All-Pro mode seems to have been beefed up. In the dozen games I’ve played so far only a few have been blowouts, and I’ve seen more close games than ever before (though no losses). With the four modes it appears there’s a much better chance of finding a mode that fits your own skill set. The sliders still exist for adjusting specific deficiencies, but they’re necessity seems diminished. I had to bump pass-blocking to 75% because, as usual, my offensive line faired much worse than the CPU’s, but at least I didn’t have to max it out at 99% and still watch my QB get smothered. The other sliders I have yet to touch (although, like seasons past, there are almost no penalties called during a game, but I suspect this has more to do with the Madden Challenge and increasing the sliders may create a more realistic experience).

A Long View has also been added to the view points you can watch the game from. The Long View is at a much higher angle behind the quarterback and gives you a much better view of the field as a whole; finally you’re able to see the wide receivers to your right and left and know whether a defensive back is sitting on that hitch route or not.

Probably the most radical change to the game has to do with the kicking. The classic button-clicking method has been done away with. Instead, you kick field goals by pulling back on the right analog stick and thrusting it forward when it has reached peak power. Any deviation to the right or left is picked up by the analog stick, and if you deviate too far right or left while thrusting up or down you fall out of the Accuracy Zone which can cause the kick to veer off to the right or left. The change adds a whole new dimension to the kicking game; field goals can be an adventure until you get the mechanics worked out. Unfortunately, users of the Logitech Rumblepad may experience problems with their right analog stick not being detected during the “push up” phase of the kick. I experienced this problem with my own pad, making it impossible to kick a field goal. Some users have reported that swapping their Rumblepad to a different USB port cleared up the problem. Hopefully this oversight will be corrected with a patch.

If there’s one area of disappointment it is with the play books. I expected to see a bunch of new plays this year, and I expected team play books to match their real life counterparts more accurately. But alas, when I opened up the Seahawks playbook I saw the exact same formations and plays as last season, many of them wrongly affiliated with my favorite team.

Creating a custom play book seems to be more glitch free than last year, but unfortunately the custom play books are still limited to 10 formations and 75 plays which is totally inadequate. After creating a custom play book and using it in a game I went back to using the Seahawks’ play book because the custom one was just too small.

While most plays were not changed, there was one small tweak: on some plays, certain players will be sent in motion prior to the snap of the ball. You do not have control over this, it is a set part of the play. These motion routes are indicated with a bright green line, instead of an orange or yellow one, so they are easy to find when navigating your play book. It’s a small detail, but it adds a bit of realism to the game.

My biggest gripe, other than the small custom play book, is that the Seahawks still don’t have monochromatic home uniforms. It seems absurd to me that a team that was in the Superbowl two seasons ago still does not have its uniforms replicated in Madden correctly, yet the Arizona Cardinals, who have not even sniffed the playoffs in many years, do have their monochromatic uniforms.

All in all this is the best Madden ever. It looks better, plays better, and has more features. If EA continues to make these kinds of improvements every year we won’t have any more excuses not to upgrade.