So I picked up Madden and Dead Rising this morning. Played a bunch of Madden with my brother in law this afternoon. First thing I noticed… there is so much lag in the menus and picking plays it isn’t even funny. Second - it’s almost EXACTLY the same as Madden 06 for the 360. I’m using NCAA 07 as my basis of comparison for a good football game for the 360. NCAA got almost everything right. The game engine is good, the speed is good, the graphics are nice, it has an announcer and all the extras. Madden should have built from this. Things missing from this year’s Madden still: no announcer, the speed of the game is much slower than NCAA on the 360 and Madden on Xbox and PS2. The game speed is the big thing to me. I can deal with no announcer. It makes the game a bit more fun with NCAA having a play by play announcer instead of just the radio thing in Madden.

The QB’s look like they’re constipated again this year. Why couldn’t they have fixed it? They put in mini camp, which is fun. The Superstar mode never grabbed my attention, so that addition isn’t a big deal to me.� The other new features don’t seem that good to me either. Madden level is cool, but Lead Blocker just seems like a pointless thing to put in to make people feel like it’s a new game. The fields look nicer and the grass gets worn down.

Overall, the minor improvements to the game don’t add up enough to make this worthy of a purchase. If you need your NFL dose on the 360, this is your only option. But if you want better, fun football, stick with NCAA 07.