Another year and another version of Madden hitting store shelves. With all the buzz surrounding All Pro Football 2K8, many questions arose concerning whether or not the developers at EA games could right the many wrongs that plagued Madden ’07. Thankfully, many issues were resolved, mainly in the gameplay department. The defensive players no longer feel like mindless robots this year. Some even say that the guys at EA over did it on the defensive side of the ball saying that it’s too difficult to complete even the simpilest of throws.

I would like to congratulate EA for the work they’ve done in this years version of
the game. The biggest complaint of last year was that players on defense were lacking any intelligence. Passes could literally hit a defender in the helmet and they would fail to react to it. A more difficult defense is more than welcome than a mindless defense. One complaint in this years game is the amount of turnovers. When the game first shipped, countless amounts of people began to complain about the turnovers. Complaints about the fumbles and the random INT’s that kept happening. EA has since released a patch to fix these issues and hopefully the complaints will fade off.

Eli Manning is inconsistent in Madden 2008, just like real life.

One huge flaw in this years game resides in the Franchise mode. It seems that when you finish a few seasons, the game will randomly freeze making it impossible to continue with it. Freezes also occur during random stages of franchise, thus making franchise mode almost unplayable. Fear not franchise lovers because the patch that was released also effected these bugs making it ok to start a franchise again and play it for 30 seasons. Woot.

The biggest feature that EA added this year would be the Superstar abilities.  Whether you have the blazing speed of Devin Hester, or the spectacular catch ability of players like Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, or Chad Johnson, you can assemble a team in your franchise mode that tailors your needs exactly.

Calvin Johnson is one of the most dynamic players in the game.

The superstar abilities are a great addition, and EA actually took the time to balance out this system.  Each ability has a counter ability that can render it useless if used at the right moment against the player.  In past years, EA would throw us a great feature like superstar abilities, and leave us with nothing to counter it (Michael Vick and the playmaking feature in 2004).