Madden 10 was leaked again this year on many new torrent sites, which I detailed in my Madden 10 hub. I had some free time to sit down and play a few games, and wanted to share my overall impressions of the new Madden. As the Madden 10 release date approached, a lot of dev talk covered the improved presentation and design planned for Madden 10. The menu presentation is very visually appealing, and there are numerous pictures of safety Polamalu and receiver Fitzgerald displayed in various action shots. You will immediately notice how much these NFL stars look like their real life counterparts. These impressive art menus, and the attention to detail put into Madden 10, extend onto the Madden game field as well. The newly designed player models are incredibly realistic. When you combine these visuals with the plethora of animations introduced in Madden 10, this is easily the most realistic looking and feeling sports game to date.

Long Load Times and Minor Madden 10 Annoyances

I found these above mentioned Madden 10 interface and graphical designs to be top notch, but some of the other presentation additions were quite annoying. Particularly those "immersive" cut scenes included during actual Madden 10 gameplay. You can skip a lot of these pre-game scenes, but you still have to wait a couple seconds for each scene to load before you can click the action button; and you will need to do this multiple times before Madden 10 even kicksoff. Once the Madden game does start, these minor delays are much less frequent and not an issue; that is until halftime anyway. During this time you are bombarded with new scenes and the load times and number of these are much more annoying than those at the start of the Madden 10 game. Even after you click the skip button you have to watch the art move and listen to a sentence or two before the next one starts to load. This wouldn't be a huge issue if you only had to do this once, but there are 3 or 4 game stat and commentary videos. Still these annoyances and delays are a minor gripe and shouldn't influence any true Madden fan.

New Madden 10 Difficulty Customization and Ratings

One of the Madden 10 features I was surprised, and very pleased to see were the new choices you can make that affect the difficulty of Madden. No longer are you limited to simply Rookie, Pro, All-Pro or All-Madden. Now you can select the AI ability of your computer opponent, and your teams AI controlled players separately. In addition to these two AI settings being separated in Madden 10, there are now 3 or 4 sub sliders within each of the previously offered difficulty sliders. For instance In previous Madden games you could simply adjust a "pass defense" slider. However in MAdden 10 you can further customize pass defense with "reaction time", "pass rushing", and "interceptions".

Another way to effect the difficulty and feel of Madden 10 is by customizing the play speed and skill gap settings to fit your play style. This means you can make players move faster or slower to give you more or less time to react. The speed can be further customized in Madden 10 by a separate slider that makes the difference in player speed and skill more or less noticeable. This means you can make it so a player with 90 speed is much faster than one with 80; or If you prefer a more even feeling Madden 10 experience the other extreme will make a speed gap much less noticeable.

Also new in Madden 10 are some of the available player ratings. The most noticeable of these are the breakdown of QB pass accuracy. There are now separate accuracy and range ratings which allow Madden 10 to simulate QB styles much more accurately than in previous Madden versions. A QB is now judged on short pass accuracy, medium pass accuracy, deep pass accuracy, and throwing on the run accuracy. For those who want to pretend to be Peyton Manning, Madden 10 has added a separate rating which determines how good a QB is a fooling a defense with play action. This results in a wide diversity of Quarterback types available in Madden 10 and makes the game feel more like the real NFL.

Madden 10 delivers Brilliant Gameplay

When you get to the actual Madden 10 gameplay you will be thrilled to see how these above features deliver a realistic and smooth feeling Madden football experience. The passing system in Madden 10 feels much more realistic than that offered by previous Madden releases. There is now much more thinking involved than simply dropping back 10 yards and focusing on your receivers. You now have to keep an eye on how the pocket is moving and where the pressure is coming from. The creation of this pocket is thanks to all the new animations added to Madden 10.  With the addition of a physics system and more player interaction animations Madden 10 is able to achieve a startling degree of realism

While playing Madden 10 I noticed many running backs plow through a tackler or two after the tackle animation had started.  In previous Madden games you could drop the remote once you saw a certain animation begin; there was no way to change the outcome once an animation started.  However in Madden 10 running back size, momentum, and strength are now vital statistics to consider when deciding which back to go with.  Madden 10 uses these factors to help determine if a tackler, or tacklers, have enough strength to stop the back or will simply slow him down. 

Picking the fastest rookie and blowing by the defense is a Madden gripe that is finally put to rest with the release of Madden 10. You can now relive scenes of power and determination displayed by backs like Marion Barber or Brandon Jacobs on gameday. No football simulation has ever felt as much like the real NFL as Madden 10 does; not even previous Madden games. If you are a Madden fan, or fan of NFL football in general, you need to grab Madden 10 as soon as it hits store shelves later this month.

I am constantly adding new torrent guides to my Torrent World Blog.  If you are a new torrent user, or want to learn more about torrents check it out.  I will not be listing any Madden 10 torrent links, so don't ask or look for them there.  Torrent World is a collection of guides for both new torrent users and more advanced guides.