All of us were ready for it. Sitting on our couches quickly anticipating the 2005 NFL Draft. However, it was not because of the juniors and seniors waiting to be picked by NFL teams. But because of a promise made by EA, saying that they were going to debut a trailer that would represent what they were aiming for with the next generation of consoles. With the new power of consoles, fans of Madden and NCAA eagerly awaited the new iterations that would be debuting with each new sports season. But did the new versions succeed? Let's take a look as to what these games bring to the table in this new era of gaming.

It is now 3 years later and with that trailer in the past, we have also transcended into the “next-gen” of consoles and gaming. However, these last 3 years not only brought games, but also confusion and disgust with the new football games that had been released every year (with the exception of NCAA which debuted with the 07 version).

These “new” versions of Madden and NCAA bewildered all of the OSers as it seemed the once heralded franchises had taken several steps back. For NCAA: No FCS teams, repetitive commentary that seemed to have been recycled from last-gen, the absence of pre and half time shows, and even no referee animation with penalties. As for Madden: No commentary at all, numerous bugs that made franchise unplayable, virtually no presentation along with no use of the ESPN license, and the same robotic sidelines that had been seen since Madden 2001. Why is it that with the leap into the next-gen of gaming, the developers decided to take away features and items that had been in the previous versions of these games?

The producers of these games explained that they had just wanted to focus on the core gameplay aspect and to not be concerned with any sort of fluff that some games only try to perfect. When focusing on the gameplay, the producers of these games introduced new features and innovations to the game in order to help provide a genuine next-gen experience. However, these new features and innovations were nothing new at all. They were just old news because they had already been on the last-gen versions of Madden and NCAA. It is such a shame that as fans of these games, we have to get excited about features that should have been in the game since day one.

But have the games certainly improved with each new version? I believe that they have and they are certainly headed in the right direction. The 09 versions of these games are each promising 60 fps for both the PS3 and Xbox 360, and with the “new” addition of play by play commentary in Madden, it seems as though the producers are really listening to the fans in order to improve their games.

There is one game that I have failed to mention when discussing the football games of next-gen. A new football game by the name of Backbreaker is being developed with the euphoria engine by the company NaturalMotion. This engine has been seen lately with the release of Grand Theft Auto IV and may finally push animation into the next-gen phase. This euphoria engine cuts away from the standard motion capture animations that sports games have always used in the past and uses physics to determine the way objects move. With the release of Backbreaker, gamers may finally have a glimpse as to what football games may look like in the future thanks to the euphoria engine.

So have the football games finally transcended into next-gen gaming? Sadly no, as many of us would agree that there has not been a substantial move forward in order to believe we are in the next-gen. But something to look forward to is the new euphoria engine that will debut in a sports game with Backbreaker. Perhaps EA will think about acquiring this physics engine to use with Madden and NCAA 2010 and make an even further advancement towards a next-gen experience with football.

For more info on Backbreaker, check out our own Matt Blumenthal's preview.