The nature of an annual release makes it hard for a team of developers to create a truly great sports game every year. It's hard to refine and add features that the gamers want. It's even harder to do those things when you have to develop a game for multiple platforms.
That said...there are some exceptions.
First off...if you own a PS3 and you like baseball, you'll be absolutely blown away by MLB 09: The Show. Check out my review for my thoughts. That game has all of the fine details down and it shows. It helps that Sony exclusively developed the game for their console, but I have to give praise where it is due. This is the best sports game I've played in a really, really long time.
That said, NHL 09 has an awesome online mode where you and your friends can play every position on the ice. This is how I want all games to be eventually. I hope to see the day where a Create your Player mode allows you to compete with others. In fact, I would bet that in the next 2 years, MLB: The Show will have a feature like this where your Road to the Show player can compete online to get into the majors. Only the best players in the world would get to the major league level. Wouldn't that be amazing?!?!?
Madden is slowly getting better with each year too. It's hard to make a quantum leap in quality and performance each year. Keep in mind that most games have development times far longer than a year. For a lot of these sports games, they have 8-9 months of development time and testing at most.
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