Lately, Madden hasn’t been stopping sports fans in their tracks. Part of that is the inevitable backlash against EA’s exclusive-NFL-license nonsense, but most of it is that the games haven’t been as good as they used to be. But for the first time since the original-Xbox years, we walked out of a recent Madden demo feeling genuinely impressed.

Largely, it’s because Madden 09 is mostly focused on getting football right, rather than simply churning out a bullet-point list of “hot new features” (though it has a few of those, too). The biggest catch-up is that EA’s finally adding online leagues: 32 players with a flexible-scheduling system so you don’t have to wait for some chumpwad who never shows up. Other it’s-about-time moments: real TV-style announcers are back (Cris Collinsworth and Tom Hammond, with non-commentary appearances by Madden), and EA claims to have conquered its problems with stats, which in the past generated superhuman performances on an absurd basis.

But the dazzling really starts with the graphics. Madden 09 is next-gen pretty for the first time, flashing excellent lighting, weather effects, and player models, and even a smart new camera that doesn’t let your receivers drift out of view. The biggest news, though, is that animations are no longer canned — they unfold dynamically, which should mean much tighter and more nimble tackles, catches, and jukes.

Our favorite addition, though, is how the game welcomes newbies without forgetting its fans. The difficulty levels are now incredibly deep — you can separately adjust difficulty for pass offense and defense, rush offense and defense, and even your playbook, which escalates from simple plays like “run left” to the inner workings of the 4-3 defense. When you do screw up, dynamically generated telestration shows you what you did wrong and how to do it right.

For the franchise’s 20th anniversary, EA’s cooked up what has to be the 360’s best collector’s edition yet. For $90, you get three games — Madden 09, NFL Head Coach 2 (which looks sharp!), and Madden 93 updated with modern-day rosters — plus a tongue-in-cheek playbook of the most popular money plays from the series’ history and the whimsical option to turn player models into last-gen polygons from EA’s Cyber Athlete days. Sold!