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The most recent version of Madden finally takes huge steps with gameplay but tried to take those same steps with presentation and failed. That’s the simple way of reviewing Madden 10. With gameplay, this version is fantastic. Where NCAA Football 10 wasn’t improved on with gameplay, Madden was in big, huge fashion. There’s a new animation engine, there seem to be new mechanics with everything, and there’s gang tackling with multiple dudes! The new Madden’s gameplay- through XBOX LIVE, through playing somebody on the same console, playing coop, playing a franchise, playing superstar mode- anything you’re doing in the game on this version of Madden is the best ever. Not by a little. By a lot. It’s realistic, it’s still simplistic, and it’s crazy fun.

The problems with Madden this year come out of game- menu art and that type of stuff. There’s been a synchronization with video in the two football games this year from EA, and while it’s cool in NCAA (thank you Erin Andrews) it’s not so cool in Madden. There’s a halftime show that shows you scores and stats from around the league and shows you highlights from your game… cool the first time- the 20th time it takes too long to skip through. That goes for the same for their weekly show between games… it’s cool the first few times but why would you even worry about hitting it up after your first year of franchise?

The other flaw with the game is the Franchise mode. The games are fun to play and so are the typical offseason moves but after that it gets bare. This Madden is more about the football experience than Madden’s have been in the past and that’s good and bad- it’ll be interesting to see how that’s effected it’s replayability factor in three months. On one hand the in-game experience is better than it’s ever been but the menus and the video stuff just doesn’t work as well as the previous menu system has.

Playing Madden this year is more fun than ever before. Despite the presentation flaws there’s no denying that this is the most realistic game to ever hit a console and this Madden is the new standard for what Madden should be… and really that’s how it should be. Stop reading and go buy it!