Madden holds open tryout on XBL

Over the past decade, an unofficial part of the professional football preseason has become the release of the annual edition of Madden NFL on game consoles. Now, with Microsoft's Xbox Live service offering free demos of games, another pre-pigskin tradition is in place.

Today, Electronic Arts released the demo for Madden NFL 07 for the Xbox 360. The file is available in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand and takes up approximately 750MB of space. Demo time is limited to games of one-minute quarters.

This year's version of Madden NFL for the Xbox 360 adds blocker control, which lets players control the lead blocker to open holes in the defensive line, then switch control over to the running back to move the chains. Also included in the 360 version is superstar mode, which wasn't in last year's next-gen version.