So… You've heard about this new Madden NFL 13 physics engine have you?

Well, I'm here to tell you the infinity engine is indeed legit. It's downright unbelievable actually. Call it a "fresh coat of paint on the same old game" if you want to but I love it.

I played a couple of games last night with some various members of the media and came away very impressed. Sure it's not perfect, you will see limbs getting bent in painful directions occasionally, even see a body slide or rotate a little awkwardly, but all in all, the new Infinity Engine the Madden team has implemented is unbelievable.

I must have seen at least 60 different animations in what little time I had to play with Madden last night, but every one of them made me smile. Getting the right touch on passes never felt so good. If there was one thing I could complain about, it's the offensive and defensive lines. They really need to add 400 animations to those guys next year, to go along with the 400 new ones that were added this year for the receivers. While it is a little better this year, the patty cake stuff is really getting old. I will have to analyze it more to see if strength and ratings really matter down there in the trenches.

Running backs explode through holes and you can actually see them putting their head down to attack a defender on occasion. While watching another gamer playing Madden in the cube next to me, I noticed he was running with Stephen Jackson. As he flipped, while rolling on top of some players on the ground, he stuck his hand down and took off running for some extra yardage. Momentum, for the most part, works as advertised. Bigger players will push smaller players backwards, players will jump and get flipped into awkward positions. When players collide, you will see helmets and necks snap back.

I never played with the Cowboys, but I did roll with the Ravens and Redskins (did I just say that?), just to get a feel for the defense of Baltimore and the RG3 effect for the Skins. He's pretty quick and has an accurate arm, which is very dangerous, as many Madden fans know. The Ravens defense seemed to be everywhere and I mean everywhere. Swarming to the ball at all times. The Steelers defense was no slouch either, as I found it difficult to find any open receivers or run against them at all.

Players don't just get wrap tackled, they will trip over other players feet, on occasion as well. This one time, in band camp… Oh wait, this one time, I flattened a corner, but as I ran by him, he shoestring tackled me, by bringing his arm up and tapping my foot, causing me to trip. It was the wildest thing I ever saw. A couple of times I went into replay mode and instant replay wasn't an option. Guessing it was just an odd bug.

I'm still not seeing many penalties at all and definitely not seeing any pass interference calls. I'm thinking they implement penalties more next year, as they continue to tweak the Infinity Engine. I'm not seeing double teams on pass rushers, but it was only two games and I didn't pay that much attention to it. If you are worried about seeing over the top tackles happen all of the time, I didn't see many of them during the two games I played, but will get plenty of time, over the next three days to find out.

I didn't go into any other modes, just strictly gameplay. I'll be capturing a ton of videos of Madden and other games this week and will post them as I have time.