Game review: Madden NFL 08 promising, but has some fumbles
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 14, 2007 at 6:56am
By Matt Sellers
Are you ready for some football? You will be with Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL 08 (US$44.95)—well, sort of. The Mac version has a couple of flaws that will hopefully be ironed out soon. Once they are, this will be a truly enjoyable pigskin picnic.
Unfortunately, right now, on some Macs (including Dad’s 24-inch aluminum iMac) many of the game’s menus are pretty badly distorted. EA says they’re aware of an issue where the video card won’t load textures correctly and won’t display any of the game text correctly. This is a driver issue with the ATI card and is supposed to be resolved in an upcoming system update by Apple.
Also, right now there are problems with Mac users participating in online play. The Madden Team says it’s currently work on creating and deploying a patch so that Mac users can play online with Madden NFL 08.
With these limitations in mind, it’s been hard to really test Madden NFL 08 as I had hoped, but I’ll give it a shot. Aside from the graphics glitches noted, players in the game move realistically, aping the movements of their real-life counterparts (as when Reggie Bush does his trademark somersault). There are new smooth new player moves, including auto-motion and low-hitting tackles.
What’s more, EA recorded many of the voices of real NFL quarterbacks like Petyon Manning and Tom Brady, which adds to the level of realism. (But will someone put the generic, irritating radio announcer out of his—and our—misery?)
Features in Madden NFL 08 include: the ability to control the lead blocker or a wide receiver during a play, rather than starting in the shoes of the quarterback; Hit Stick 2.0, an enhanced version of a previous feature that lets you deliver more precise tackles on defense; and skill drills that help you sharpen your passing, rushing, and defense skills, along with your ability to adjust plays at the line of scrimmage. For example, there are skill drills mini-games.
In addition, teams now possess Player Weapons. Many players at all positions feature icons that, for example, differentiate between scrambling quarterbacks, those with extra arm strength, and the ones with on-the-money passing skills. These weapons will have access to special abilities. Smart players can see an opponent’s play art once or so a game. Spectacular Catch receivers can make impressive grabs that no one else can. All 32 NFL franchises are on hand, along with—to add to the fun—some historical teams, NFL Europe clubs, and some totally fictional teams.
Your achievements in Madden NFL 08 feed into the Ring of a Champion, another new feature that tracks your progress in key areas by filling in spots on a championship ring with diamonds and other stones. There’s also a variety of quick games, such as two-minute drill, where you try to score as many touchdowns as you can in two minutes, earning points for each one.
Madden NFL 08 for the Mac has a lot of potential. But right now the distorted menus and lack of online play keep me from giving it a hearty recommendation.
By the way, you’ll need a right mouse button to play Madden NFL 08. If you have an Apple Mighty Mouse, you can enable the Right Mouse Button in the following location:
Click on System Preferences. Then click Keyboard and Mouse. Change the Right Click drop down to Secondary Button. Of course, most PC USB mice are supported on the Mac. If you have an Apple legacy single button mouse, or a Mac Book Pro with only a Track Pad, you can emulate a right mouse button by holding down the Command key while clicking the mouse button, though this is a little awkward.
Macsimum rating: 6 out of 10
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later; an 1.83GHz or faster Intel Core Duo processor Mac; 1GB of RAM; 6GB free hard-disk space; a ATI X1600 series or later or NVIDIA GeForce 7300 or later video card; and a DVD-ROM drive. This game doesn’t support the GMA950 integrated graphics card.
MacGoog Says:
Well said Joe Wily and you can add Tiger Woods Golf. Has EA made a new game for any platform in the last 5 years, 10 years? I’m sleepy…
Posted on November 14, 2007
Michael Washington Says:
On maddden 09 you guys should have when a filed goal is missed that when the ball is caught we should be able to try and return it for a tochdown one more thing you should also have the lotterol on madden09 if on 08 then the game would have been much better but it is still off the chang
Posted on November 26, 2007
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
Joe Willy Says:
Graphics don’t look any better than the last Madden for Mac, Madden 2000. Looks like EA just picked up with Madden 2001. With all the flaws and crummy graphics sales will be low and EA will once again scream there isn’t enough interest to support the Mac platform. The real problem is them, but they will never admit where the problem lies as long as Microsoft and Sony hold the deeds to EA’s house.
Posted on November 14, 2007