Stop the presses. Call Hell, see if they're seeing snow flakes.

I bought the new Madden game, and I love it.

That's right, you read correctly. I, shameless Madden hater extraordinaire, gave in and purchased Madden NFL 08 for my PlayStation2 and found myself hooked ever since. It's still not quite the gridiron classic ESPN NFL 2K5 is, but considering how I loathe this series? Hooked is saying a lot.

I'm not even sure what it is, to be perfectly honest. It's sure as hell not the graphics, because these guys look as mutated and stunted as ever. It's not the sound, cause frakkly, it sucks. I guess ... it's the fact that the game actually feels solid. It's not the AI disaster previous editions of the games were and it's got a lot of the features I look for in a football game -- like Franchise mode.

Yeah, ESPN 2K5 has that too, but for some reason, I felt drawn to Madden 08 and now that I have it, I can't put it down. The running game is challenging without being frustrating, the passing game isn't nearly as laughable as it used to be (no more succeeding in triple coverage!) and overall it's just a better game of football.

ESPN 2K5 is still smoother and quicker and an overall more realistic football experience, but Madden 08 is a lot like Madden 04 in that it fixed everything I hate about the series and left behind a pretty enjoyable, if not uninspiring, game of football. If I gave out ratings (and I probably should start), I'd give Madden 08 a four out of five stars.

ESPN 2K5, to this day, still gets five out of five. It's just that good.

Okay, enough of this insanity; time to go back to my Guitar Hero fixation and consider starting a weekly YouTube videogame review show. Let me know if you think it'll be a good idea.