The summer is almost over, which signals that Electronic Arts sports titles are about to get their yearly update. Having enjoyed the Xbox 360 version of Madden last year, will the Wii version bring anything new to the tried and tested formula?

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Most of you who are considering purchasing Madden 08 would of already played an American Football title in the past, and also will have some prior knowledge of the rules and play types. This in the past had alienated other players from experiencing one of the greatest sports titles on most consoles. EA have taken note and, using the Wii’s family orientated marketing, given Madden some well deserved training wheels. However, don’t let this put off the more hardened players.

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There is a new training guide that will take you through the basics of using the controllers, and also the rules of the sport. The main idea behind this is to close the gap between hardened players and those that are new to the game.

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The controls are very natural, the nun chuck controller moving your character and the Wii-mote for the hand movements. Tap a d-pad button to highlight the preferred player and wave the Wii-mote for a throw, when running, flick the Wii-mote to the side to stiff-arm your would be tackler, its as easy as that. The game will also help you along the way by flashing in the right corner to drum the controllers to shake off tacklers, and also warn if you have miss timed certain moves. EA have also included a family setting to the controls, where you just use the Wii-mote to play the game, whilst you do not get as much out of this, it will enable more people to join in with little or no skill.

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The main modes in Madden 08 are the Franchise mode, in which you have to build a team from scratch, dealing with the day-to-day rosters and training. For all you budding managers out there you can try Total Control Simulation and call the shots from the sideline, adding a different perspective to the game.

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NFL Superstar: Hall of Fame allows you to pick from the current NFL stars and rookies and play your way to the Hall of Fame. Here you directly control the decisions of our player, giving interviews, talking to agents and managers and making sure your player performs well on the big day. As long as you keep you ego in check you will be in the hall of Fame in no time.

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For those of you who are seasoned Madden players, there are quite a few new inclusions. The Read and React feature has icons over each player, these will explain what they are best at, you can then position your players to exploit weaknesses on the field. When you have a few people round and don’t want to bore them all with a full on game, Party Mode is now available, this has plenty of multi player games like tackling, 2 on 2, kicking combine, where you have to kick as many balls as you can whilst the opponent has to generate wind by shaking the Wii-mote and also training camps, with up to 19 drills that test all of your skills.

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Finally, the inclusion of the much welcome online support has arrived. Having a very easy to navigate lobby to arrange games and a live sports ticker giving you updates sports news whenever you play.