o NFL team appears overnight with a playoff-caliber team. It takes good drafting, coaching, and wise free agency acquisitions. It takes time. Madden fans can be assured that the last two years of the franchise weren’t all for naught. This year’s game sees the franchise finally reaching an acceptable level on and off the field. There is undoubtedly work still left to be done before the series can match the glories of the past, but this is a noticeably better game the moment you pick up the controller.

A small benchmark I have for a football game is what happens when I play defense – specifically cornerback. Being out on that island where reaction times and smooth transitions between movement animations make all the difference gives me a good feel for player movement. I can thankfully say that this game is quick and precise enough that I’ll no longer just be playing the defensive line. The game feels faster than last year, and the action has no problem leaping off the screen at you. Receivers make spectacular grabs, defenders are feared for the ferocious hits they lay out, and offensive tackles desperately shove defensive ends as they get beat around the corner. But for every play that feels like the Madden we remember and love, there are times when the animations take precedence over user control, players morph through each other, and the AI exposes itself. Defensive backs are aggressive, but can rely on ESP, and conversely there are times receivers are unaware of the ball. The QB directional passing is also inconsistent.

Fans have lamented the drop in features in past Maddens, but 08 pulls things back up to speed with extensive scouting/draft options and pre-game training for improving players. Overall, there are more draft tools at your disposal – including being able to manually rearrange your entire draft board, although the process itself of scouting and drafting is a little cumbersome. There are also financial info and stadium options, but finances aren’t a major part in your franchise, and you can only build a new stadium if you relocate to another city. In general, some of the new features are a mixed bag. The designation of star players as weapons is a useful concept, as it helps you engineer weaknesses – my favorite weapon skill was the one that allowed me to see an opponent’s play if they called it too many times in one game. On the other hand, the effect of the receiver catching controls and defensive spotlighting of star receivers was so slight as to be non-existent.

If all this year’s Madden did was restore its feature set, then that alone would hardly be cause for hope. However, by improving the gameplay, it makes it so I’m much more apt to actually play more than one season before putting my controller down. This series isn’t out of the woods just yet, but this year lets it be known that Madden’s best days aren’t behind it.