Regardless of how you look at it, without an NFL license All Pro Football is difficult to get into. Innovations aside, until Madden relinquishes their grasp on the NFL there is only one at the top of the mountain. But if you just want to get down on a good football game, All Pro does the trick.

Madden 08 (By: Anthony Kennedy)
4 out of 5

With pressure on EA to create a worthy football game, especially with the competition from respected sports gaming makers 2K Games with their All Pro Football 2K8, many were doubting whether your boys at EA could still produce a good footballer. Well props to EA. As Madden ‘08 for the next-gen consoles manage to deliver on the hype it’s been living off of for the last two next-gen games.

Considering they went out there way to load up the Madden with the Playmaker feature ( before plays, gamers get to locate that game changing offensive weapon and even properly adjust passing route for him) and new animation (i.e. one handed catches, gang tackling, and now even laying mid air hits on receivers.) However now more than ever, Madden is for vets only. On the higher difficulty level the AI is MUCH smarter than previous releases, passing is ridiculously hard, calling the right defensive plays may still result in a 70-yard TD reception, although surprising, running the ball isn’t as hard. Point is, you ain’t blowing teams out on All-Madden level.

Thankfully the controls weren’t changed much, and even so you can still set-up the buttons the way you like as in past Madden games. Never stagnant, Madden managed to tack on a few new features key to keeping you online win-loss record up. This year's version sees the hit stick get an upgrade as now you can place hard shots to your opponent up top or click the R-Stick down to up end offensive players with highlight precision. While it proves some "holy shit" moments, the new moves with the hit stick are really cheap when you are on offense, as they computer forces you to take a hit to the ground, when you clearly hit the button for a spin or hurdle.

While not the approaching the greatness that was Madden ’05, this year’s game is a huge upgrade over the past two Madden titles released on the next-gen systems.