EA Sports made the announcement that video game and football fans have been waiting for since the Super Bowl.  This year, for the first time ever, a Madden NFL game will have two players on the cover.  Starring on the cover will be safety Troy Polamalu of the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald of the NFC champion Arizona Cardinals.

The theme for this year’s game is “Fight for every yard.”  I don’t really know what that means and EA hasn’t given much as to what that means.  There appears to be a renewed focus on realism and simulation in this edition of Madden.  EA and their developers Tiburon are adding the Wildcat formation, an adaptive AI system (where the computer changes how it plays based on your playing patterns), a head tracking system (where non-player controlled athletes will turn their head to look at and follow the ball), and Depth of Field visuals (the whole field will not be in sharp focus but rather the ball carrier while the rest is slightly blurred depending on distance from the ball carrier).

I haven’t bought a Madden game in 7 years (an embarassing admission for… well, anyone but I didn’t want to deal with all that QB Vision cone BS), but I think I may just pick this one up.