Madden 08

Those of us who love pro football games are tired of having scorn heaped upon us, and we're not going to take it anymore. While the rest of the video gaming world makes fun of us for blindly buying Madden every year (and often nothing else), we're quite content to ignore them and restart our NFL fantasies each summer.

Sure, the first couple of games for the next-generation consoles have been kinda middling, but the promise of a true event horizon has been building with each release. Happily, that promise has finally been kept. Madden 08 for the Xbox 360 is finally the football game we've been hoping for - so the rest of you can go about your business and leave us the hell alone for a few months, thank you very much.

On the field, the action is tighter than LaDainian Tomlinson's cleats on a clear San Diego afternoon. Other than some nagging micro-pauses when menus appear (when will those ever go away?), gameplay is exceedingly fluid and more realistic than ever. Tackling, in particular, is supremely improved, as an updated Hit Stick lets you go high for the concussive knockout or low to ruin a knee or two. There also seems to be a lot more random, momentum-based takedowns and gang tackles, which ramp up the wow factor even more.