FOOTBALL GOES TO 11!!
I used to love the days of Madden Vs. Gameday where it felt like developers were reaching for something new, something different, a way to stand out. Once EA sucked up the NFL license it all went to poop. We either got Madden in the umpteenth form trying to look like Football on TV and the "competitive" football games that survived were "quirky" and sometimes fun, but never really took it to a whole new level. This game plays more like Mario Kart once you have the ball than the typical "I think I'm juking, or did I do a stiff arm?" play of a Madden like approach because you are knocking down snowmen, dodging, turtles and cows finding secret doors, hidden terrain challenges, jumping on everything, dodging rocks, it's freak'n nuts because I'm playing football at the same time! For controls, after some time with the game you you can clearly define a jump vs. a dodge to the left or right but you have to skilled, or tap the walk button to dodge a tackle and really start to utilize the unique attributes of your QB and different dogs, like using huskies on ice for better traction or small dogs in the grass for speed boosts, and augment with the ball types and treats. Once you start to dig deep, you find that you can put some skills in to your play that aren't available in other football games and really start to rack up some massive scores, like all dogs seem to speed up when running on whatever or going through tunnels which puts you ahead and also gives bonus points to collect on the conversion which they call arf. Once you lock in, you don't even notice the dogs, you are just getting extremely creative with some football like dodging past a pee spot so the defender gets stuck having a sniff and pee while you score the TD or jumping off a bus in to the endzone for a jump catch TD with bonus points.
I have unlocked a little more than half of the QB's and adopted all the dogs and I spend the money on treats and balls which are gameplay enhancers to throw farther or whatever instead of customization so most of my play time has been single player. I do multiplayer when my brother, nephew, and niece come over, and we have done a fair amount of 4P co-op to unlock some of the items, and I am a big co-op player, and hunt for the hidden gifts like on top of the waterfall in the Mansion which I prefer, but the kids like 2 on 2 so mostly do that. What I really like about this is that I don't have other games that we wall really like playing together, which was Wii Tennis but this replaced and if I have to spend time with the relatives, I'd rather do it getting my game on. So that rocks, and on top of that it's funny and ridiculous and challenging... it's not always easy to lock in the win. This game is just fun and I think this pretty much completes my Wii library. If they make it for PS3 or 360 I will probably get that though because I would like to play in hi-def (sorry Wii. I need HD!). Not sure how it will work with the Kinect though.