Midnight Maddeniacs rejoice, it’s grid iron time again.

We pulled into a parking slot at Wal-mart and a guy was already sitting in his car reading his Madden 2008 instruction manual. Didn’t see any Madden 2008 for the Playstation 3 boxes on the shelves yet, but the Xbox 360 was in stock. Only one other person was purchasing at the same time as us shortly after midnight. Also didn’t see the Collector’s Edition on the shelves (behind lock and key?) like last year. I’d read earlier that the frame rate was better for the 360 than the PS3 so our mind was already made up.

No, Madden 2008 is not in 1080p on the Xbox 360. Yes, you can play QB Michael Vick (Atlanta Falcons) who probably is more worried about the despicable dogfighting charges surrounding him and whether he’ll ever play in the NFL again.

One quick observation on the first played game: more in game advertising. Snickers sponsoring the coin toss, post game results sponsored by Sprint and so on. How many more versions before we’re seeing banner rotators updated through the web? Since EA has an exclusive NFL license wouldn’t it be interesting to see what that agreement says about selling ads in game? NFL isn’t exactly NASCAR.

More on the newest Madden game later today.