Unlike previous years where a single player was featured on the cover of the game, this rendition features two players – one from each of last year’s Super Bowl teams. On the one side you have Larry Fitzgerald, a wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals and on the other you have Troy Polamalu, the safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Even the game demo (for pre-orders) focused on the Super Bowl teams with players only being able to play the Steelers and Cardinals in a Super Bowl rematch.

With the popularity of Fantasy Football lately, this version of Madden NFL implements an online franchise league where players can play in a fantasy style franchise with other Xbox Live gamers. Instead of relying on actual NFL player stats to determine points, the focus of the online franchise is to win the Super Bowl by playing weekly games against your friends within your league. This new feature may help the staying power of the game throughout the year. It’s been my observation that after football season starts to wind down, players tend to put Madden NFL down in favor of other games. Perhaps the draw of competing against friends in an organized franchise will help keep the game being played until EA can churn out next year’s version.

Unlike previous Madden games, this year’s game featured Xbox achievements that were, I’m sorry to say, relatively easy to get. Usually the achievements took doing something so rare that in order to get them you had to play for hours. This time it seems that most can be achieved within a few hours playing with friends or cooperatively. The hardest to get is probably “Look what I found!” : “Win a fumble pile-up in the end zone for a TD. 5 min qtrs, All Pro (no co-op)”, only because causing a fumble isn’t something that your friend or coop partner can’t cause deliberately all the time (but I’m sure someone has found a sure fire way to do it by now).

For those who consider themselves football fans, the game is fun to play. Due to the fact that EA releases a newer version every year, I really can’t recommend buying this unless you haven’t picked up one in the last two years. I find that the game just doesn’t change that much from year to year, but every 2 or every 3 years lets me feel refreshed when playing. If you are new to football or want to teach your girlfriend/wife about the game, this is a great tool for doing that. All you have to do is turn off the play clock and you can take all the time you want to explain plays and formations.

One feature I would like to see implemented into this game would be a virtual coach. When I say that, what I mean is the game would simulate having a coach who could give you observations as to tendencies they see and players you should target due to injury or experience. This could be something that could get more helpful the more you exploit the information they give you, or less if you ignore them (get them fired). One feature I really could do away with is the ‘Create-A-Player’ and ‘Create-A-Team’. While this may be fun for some, it really isn’t part of the NFL experience. I can accept being able to draft players out of EA’s NCAA Football game, but the ability to create super players in the NFL just ruins it for me. The NFL doesn’t really expand and contract enough to make me want to use the Create-A-Team part of the game.

What might be fun is if EA created a high school football game, where you had teams from any town in the country and you could play any number of offensive schemes. The NFL has very limited rules for offense, but the NCAA is a bit more flexible. High school football would be even more open to what you could use. Everything from the single wing to the A-11 offense could be available. A game like that could also be used for actual high school coaches and players to teach their own playbooks.

But back on topic of this year’s Madden game and shutting the door on wishful thinking, I’d have to rate Madden NFL 10 somewhere around a 7 out of 10, using standard ratings.  It would rate higher if it wasn’t so similar to last year’s game.  The graphics haven’t improved much beyond maybe some better weather simulation.  The gameplay still feels overly complicated, with human players being at a severe handicap to the computer.  It still seems the game can complete passes with ease against the best defense in the league using the worst team ever.  The system for implementing difficulty is better than most, but still feels like it needs improvement.  The game clock feels slower than it should with teams easily able to march down the field in 2-minute drills.  If you’re a football fan, it’s a good buy.  If not, I’d recommend staying clear.