Madden 08 Great & Disappointing

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great gameplay, graphics and very interactive franchise mode

Cons: known bug that kills your franchise leaving you to start new

The Bottom Line: 
The bottom line is for me it was not worth buying because of the franchise killing bug. Graphics and gameplay are great but I would not recommend the game overall.

Author's Review
If you are a fan of great graphics and realistic gameplay this game is for you. Once again, as with every year prior, they have made improvements to make this the best Madden yet for gameplay. The overall gameplay is more realistic and it is much harder to rack up huge numbers on any level above pro. Players gain abilities when they become proficient enough and their overall rating is respectable which can be used when playing them. The abilities are denoted by a symbol below the player. There are a good amount of abilities that can be learned and this makes setting up a team more interesting. You can customize your defense to run stopping or pass defense much easier with these abilities. You can also create the kind of receiving core that suites your style of play much easier.

If you are one who just likes to pick up the game and play single games then this will be a great game for you. However, I think most of what makes the Madden series so popular for most people is the franchise mode. Here you can run all aspects of the franchise. You can play every game if you desire and then take part in a comprehensive off-season which includes retiring players, resigning players, signing free agents, drafting players, signing your draft picks, and setting your roster. You can literally spend hours in the off-season just trying to fine-tune your team (I know I usually do).

I have been known to play out a franchise to over 20 seasons because I enjoy the concept so much. If you are like me and enjoy long franchises then you may want to SKIP Madden 08. There is a known bug to where during the franchise mode at some point there will be a season to where a computer team will not have enough players at a certain position. If this happens you are helpless and nothing you can do will rectify the situation. They will not sign players to fill the gap and you can not trade players to them to fill the holes. Your franchise and that season will be at a stand still and you will not be able to play beyond that point. Even if you reset and start from your last save point before that it will still happen every time at the same spot. There is no exact time for when it will happen, it could be after the 6th season in franchise mode or it could wait until the 12th season. The only thing that is certain is it will happen at some point. So if you are like me and put a lot of time into each season in franchise, then I would tell you to skip this one and buy the new Madden 09. I personally wasted 60+ hours of gameplay when my franchise hit that point and it was a very disappointing moment.

So if you get the Madden games for the great graphics and realistic gameplay then I would say you need to have this game. The game plays great and looks great. However, if you get it to build a franchise with your favorite team then steer clear. EA is aware of the issue and hopefully with 09 the problem will be a thing of the past.