Previews

The veteran American Football videogaming franchise is back in Madden NFL 25 for Xbox 360 and PS3, celebrating its 25th year of pixellated players running, leaping (and smashing into each other) on the hunt for Superbowl glory.

Don't go looking for a revolution though - but simply an exceptionally-crafted evolution of an already fantastic sports sim that continues to score touchdown after touchdown in its pursuit of 'reality'. And as to be expected with any EA Sports game, acronyms do their level best to convince you of this.

Whether it be the graphics ("4 x the texture resolution"!) or Player Sense ("50 x as many contextual decisions"!), it does its best to bamboozle you into a state of awe, man. But behind the hyperbole, all you really need to know though is that the game offers a host of all-new moves and better tackling and running options plus wonderful touches such as the ability to dupe your fellow meatheads on the pitch while making a glory-seeking run on the hunt for that Superbowl-snatching touchdown.

The new Connected Franchise option allows up to 32 people play against each other - that might sound a lot like last year's Connected Career - but this time you can fret over the Owner Mode too (last seen in the 2011 edition) which allows you to dictate the direction of your entire franchise from merchandising and new stadia down to fans and where they can park their SUVs before the big game.

The detailing is spot on too - from the abundance of sponsorship tags littering the game to Phil Simms and Jim Nantz's sparky commentary plus fake Twitter feeds about your team's performance, EA's obsession with making Madden play like a TV broadcast with all the social media trappings continues to grow and grow - and for those of us this side of the Atlantic, that's about as realistic as it gets for us.

What you're left with then is yet further evidence that Madden is the absolute pinnacle of American Football videogaming for your current console. The only room for improvement? The next gen - thankfully, there's a version of Madden NFL 25 planned for the launches of Xbox One and PS4 too. Watch this space.