Let's start off right away by talking about the new features. Owner mode is an extension of Franchise mode, which in the 2003 version basically made you the head coach and manager of any team, or teams, and you could play them through 30 seasons. You still have the standard things like rookie scouting, draft signing and free agent signing, but Owner expands on that ten fold. You now get the choice of being the owner of a team and handling the financial side of running a Dynasty. You can hire and fire coaches, set concession prices, change prices on food and drinks, have a fan appreciation day, renovate your current stadium or build it from the ground up. If you want you can even move your team to another city or country after playing through your first season.

In order to do all of the above you will need a stack of cash, and this is why it's important to try and make money when setting prices and paying staff. Don't worry though, if it isn't obvious what needs to be done you have a board of advisers who will give you some ideas of how you are doing, i.e. if your concession prices are too low they will advise you to raise them to the league average or higher. There are indicators when setting prices that show green (if price is set to league standard) or red (if too low or too high), and if your team is doing well and your fan support is high it wont be a problem setting some of your prices into the red as the fans will pay anything to watch their team win. You can hire new head coaches, as well as the assistant coaches that cover 3 areas - Offence, Defence and Special teams. Attribute ratings are no longer restricted to players as the coaches now have their own attributes and they play a major role in how well your players perform and develop throughout the season. You can also hire training staff whose attributes assist in team performance.

Playmaker is a new gameplay enhancement feature that adds so much more to your offensive and defensive game. In order to make use of this you will need a 10 button dual analogue controller. This feature lets you change the direction of a running play at the line of scrimmage by tapping the right analogue stick left or right. This is very handy as the only way to change the direction of the run in previous versions was to flip the play, which made it too easy for the defence to read and adjust to it. This also works on passing plays. Depending on the formation of the play, you are given a primary receiver where the Playmaker can be used. You can see who this is by bringing up your passing camera; the icon above the player will pulse. You can change his route before the snap. If your WR is running a slant (where he will run diagonally towards the middle of the field) and you see the defence in zone coverage formation you can press up on the stick and send him on a fly route.

You have 4 options of changing the route using Playmaker (up, down, left, right) and you still have the option of using hot route to change your other receivers. All in all giving you 10 different route assignments - 6 from hot routing and 4 from Playmaker. Playmaker is not only used before the snap, but can become a lethal weapon after the snap. On a passing play, you can change the direction of your primary receiver e.g., if your receiver runs a fly route and you can see he is in double or even triple coverage, you can flick the right analogue stick down when your receiver looks back to the QB. Your QB will point in the direction where he wants the receiver to run, the receiver will change his route on the fly and if all goes well your receiver should be free for the catch.

Another way of using Playmaker is when the ball carrier is running up the field, particularly good on punt or kick returns. If you are running up the field and see 2 defenders closing down on you, Playmaker can be used for blocking assignments. By pressing the stick in the direction of the tackler, the ball carrier will point towards the defender and the nearest blocker will cover that defender leaving you some more room to run. Using Playmaker after the snap takes a bit of practice but it won't take long before it becomes natural to your playing style.

Playmaker can also be used when you're on defence. Before the snap, you can move your safeties to zone left or right to cover receivers that are a threat on offence. You can also use it after the snap to cover for the run or the pass. Choose carefully when to use this as covering for the run will bring your safeties running towards the line of scrimmage. If the offence runs a Play action (run fake to a pass) and you fall for it, their receivers will be open in the backfield for a long pass and no safety to back you up.

Momentum plays a huge part in Madden and is the first thing you will notice if you are new to the series. Player actions are performed differently depending on the momentum of the ball carrier. A prime example here is the Running back. On a running play, if you run up the field while holding the sprint button and want to juke (sidestep) the ball carrier will perform a little juke. If you are on defence and right in front of the carrier it is quite easy to tackle him. However, if the same juke move is used without sprinting the ball carrier will stop and make a jumping side step, or a big juke and if the timing is right (and there is only 1 defender left in front of you), the defender is left helpless as you run the length of the field. All of this also depends on the player attributes. If your running back has a high break tackle rating, then he will break a lot of tackles when running with the ball. The defence can still stop him, but it may take 2 of them to do this - or a very strong player. Depending on the defenders position, there is usually 2 ways to stop a strong RB. First defender lays a hit that slows the RB enough for the second defender to put him on the ground. Secondly the defenders that come in at an angle from both sides, if the RB tries to run between them the most likely outcome will be a gang tackle where both defenders are wrapped around the RB pushing him back (the animations for the various gang tackles are awesome to watch).

Defensive play has been improved a lot in Madden 2004. In last year's game the defensive backs just weren't responsive to what was happening on the field. It didn't matter how good your corner back was rated, he still looked like a rookie when playing in his defensive position. Madden 2004 has changed all of this and now makes playing defence just as fun as playing the offensive game. Player ratings actually mean something this year and if you have a good cornerback covering a poor wide receiver, the cornerback will usually come out on top by intercepting the pass or knocking it out of the air.

If you ever get bored of playing against the computer, you can go online and connect to EASO. The online interface is built into the game but requires Internet Explorer 6 before you can go online. Once you are connected to the server, you can chat and play against other players looking for a good game of football. Unfortunately there are no servers in Australasia so you connect directly to the servers in the US. Fortunately the net coding has been improved and is even playable on dial up (we tested the game via both DSL and dial up). Our ping on DSL was averaging about 200-300. Although this may seem high you won't get that much lag when you're actually playing the game. Dial up varies between 340-500. Again the actual gameplay is not very laggy and we've enjoyed many games on dial up. This year you only get 14 days free, compared to 60 days last year. EASO charge around $6 USD a month for this service so if you want to go longer than 14 days, have your credit card ready.

Graphically Madden 2004 looks beautiful. It supports most graphics cards from the Geforce 2 to the Radeon 9800. We ran the game on a Geforce 4 MX440 with most settings on high and the game ran very smoothly. You really have to see the game to appreciate how much work has gone into it. Most of the players resemble their real life counterparts with facial hair, tattoos and long hair - we can finally see Ricky William's dreadlocks!

Commentary has been expanded to include more of John and Al, as well as the lovely Melissa Stark. John and Al are responsible for the on field commentary, while Melissa gives reports on injured players. This is basically the same as last year with a bit more interaction between Al and John but overall could do with some improvement.

EA have given PC (and Xbox users) the ability to change the game music. You can change the music directory to point to your MP3 folder or have the game look for any MP3 files. So if you're like us you can rebuild your stadium to the tune of 50 cent's 'In da Club', or have the 21-gun salute playing while cutting players from your team...