It's been 25 years since John Madden crashed through the front cover of your video game like a moppy-haired Kool Aid Man. That's 25 years of digital touchdown celebrations and the Cleveland Browns making it to the pretend Superbowl, just like in their dreams that never come true. For an anniversary so important it warrants messing up a long-established naming scheme, you’d think EA Sports would do more to celebrate it than just put in some retrospective trivia in the loading screens. Unfortunately Madden NFL 25 is more of a run-of-the mill upgrade than a big anniversary edition, but it is still a great version. Madden NFL 25 makes a lot of small improvements that build on last year’s big Madden NFL 13 revamp to create one of the finest football gaming experiences available.

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The differences aren’t huge, and hard to spot at a glance, because most are under the hood. Over a few games, though, it becomes apparent that Madden 25 doesn’t screw up as much. The Infinity Engine 2 physics got a lot of tweaking, and players look more realistic than ever in action. Each tackle feels and looks different, with players tumbling to the ground in myriad ways, but this year they do it without the crazy splaying legs and linebackers comically tripping over a downed receiver after a play. The cartoonish goofiness that took us out of the experience is gone, and Madden feels one step closer to replicating the look and feel of a real NFL broadcast.

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The other noticeable enhancement to moment-to-moment play is a much better set of tools for the running game. Maneuvers like spins, dives, stiff arms, and hurdles have all been improved and expanded, making great running backs and tight ends more awesome to play with. If you’re playing with a superstar athlete like Adrian Peterson, you can use a new Precision Modifier to really amp up the moves – if a player's stat in, say, Hurdles, is high enough, he can leap greater bounds, jumping over diving defenders. It's tough to pull off, and can only be done with the superstar athletes, but it's so satisfying when it happens.All of the modes from last year's game return, with some new tweaks that add another fun layer on top. Like in Madden NFL 13, each of 31 online players can decide if they want to play as a coach or as a single player (created, real, or legendary) in Connected Franchise. But now Franchise lets you play in Owner Mode, putting you in control of an entire team's staff, finances, and stadium. For the most part this is just a lot of metagame menus on top of Coach Mode, and deciding the price of hot dogs and jerseys isn’t the kind of thing that’s going to be long-term fun for most. But there is some cool stuff in here, most notably the ability to move teams to new cities. I was pleasantly surprised that when I decided to move my St. Louis Rams I was encouraged to pick Los Angeles, and when I did the mode's faux-Twitter stream mentioned the return of LA's prodigal sons. Owner Mode is a novelty to some extent, but it's a well done novelty, and adds a new way to play the already expansive Connected Franchise.When playing Franchise as a created character, the mode has been improved by offering way more opportunities to earn XP and raise your stats. Arguably it might be too big of a boost (I became the best quarterback in the league in my rookie season), but it definitely streamlines your progress.

Also returning is Madden Ultimate Team, the combination online season/trading-card game. It features the return of Team Chemistry, which gives you boosts if you match up players’ styles with each other. A Long Pass QB gets a bonus if he has a Wide Receiver who can make it down the field. Again, it's an extra metagame, but I really enjoy it for its strategy and rewards. I wish this mode had more offline play to offer, though I love that EA Sports has used special rare MUT cards to incentivize Madden's new Skills Trainer (essentially a tutorial mode). Learning the finer points of the game is a lot cooler when I'm being rewarded for it.

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When Madden's presentation is at its best it’s awesome, making me feel like I'm having a real Sunday afternoon experience. But all too often it dips into sub-par territory, and all of those seem like small things that were disappointingly not addressed. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms provide excellent commentary, sounding natural and well-timed. It’s some of the best I've heard, in fact, but there's nowhere near enough of it. By the end of the season I was sick of hearing them, no matter how excited they sounded. Likewise, seeing the same few touchdown celebrations I griped about being reused last year show up again is a tad discouraging, and sucks some of the thrill out of victories. On top of all that the presentation suffers from a few glitchy hiccups. News recaps and tweets occasionally say my team barely won, when the final score is 35-14, and sometimes the announcers get confused about which quarter it is.I love that EA Sports is finally prioritizing the efforts to make Madden NFL look like real football, but it comes up short in those important spots. Other sports games are lightyears ahead of Madden 25 here, and while it seems like a superfluous thing, it makes a big difference.