Madden is fine, Americans, but there's one sports game that towers above all others, and that game is FIFA. Once the laughing stock of the football world, it's now the biggest-selling and in many's opinion the best sports game on the market. Here's why.
Speaking with Edge, the two men most responsible for the series' turnaround in recent years - designer Gary Paterson and producer David Rutter - explain the formula for taking a mediocre but cashed-up franchise and turning it into the most professional and best-reviewed sports game on the planet.
And it's all down to hating FIFA. See, both men are relatively recent hires, and both joined the company loving everything about former soccer game powerhouse Pro Evo, and hating everything about FIFA, which at the time was EA's laziest annual cash cow.
So they set out to do what Pro Evo did - namely, make the player feel like they were playing a game of football, and not just watching one - only do it better. Which with FIFA 09, they managed.
This story was a cover feature in the latest copy of Edge magazine, but if you didn't manage to see it there, you can read the whole thing below.