Few other sports would call a 45-40 final score a "defensive struggle." But then, few sports are like Arena Football--the 20-year-old indoor football league that has been steadily growing its fan base, thanks to a fan-first approach and an all-out offensive attack on the field of play. Our first look at Arena Football for PS2 and Xbox was back in June and we recently got hands-on time with EA Sports' first foray into the game version of the 50-yard indoor war that is Arena Football.

Welcome to Arena Football, where running is passé and passing is king.

If you've never seen an AFL game on NBC, here's the short version of the sport: it's football stripped down to its core elements, with an eight-on-eight battle featuring athletes that play both sides of the ball; a 50-yard field that features padded walls instead of sidelines; a playbook that looks like something drawn up in your backyard when you were a kid; an abhorrence to the running game; and final scores that read more like college basketball games than traditional football. Translating that to a video game means focusing on making it streamlined and approachable enough for fans of arcade football (who are used to big scoring), while bringing in just the right amount of Madden-esque depth and strategy to keep hardcore football fans appeased.

When it came time to assign development resources to the game, EA Sports took an entirely fresh new team--the development house formerly known as Hypnotix (which EA purchased in July of this year). Formerly dedicated to over-the-top and raunchy Outlaw sports titles, the Hypnotix team has since been devoted to creating an authentic gaming experience from a sport that seems tailor-made to video games. The first job is acquainting folks with the sport and, thanks to a handy Arena Football 101 tutorial, as well as plenty of descriptive load screens that point out some of the finer points of the AFL, you'll have a pretty good idea of how to go about finding success on the field quickly.

It's the subtle differences that will stand out in the AFL game, after all. The sport's substitution rules are complex, as are the rules governing who can and can't blitz while playing on defense. There are two linebackers in the middle, but only one can blitz to the left or right of the center, and the other can't leave a specified rectangular area until the ball is thrown by the quarterback. This area is illuminated on the field to show you exactly how much room you have to work with, and if you move out of this box, you'll be penalized. So, it's common for that non-blitzing linebacker to act simply as a pass-blocker--and we found some success doing just that in our time with the game.

Speed is the name of the game and Arena Football will play 25 percent quicker than Madden.

Passing is king in Arena Football, and that is reflected here as well. Team playbooks are heavily stacked in favor of the aerial game, and if there's not much variance in the playbook between teams, it's for good reason. While developing the game with AFL coach Jay Gruden (head man with the Orlando Predators), Gruden told the developers that the AFL teams use practically the same playbook anyway--the main difference between success and failure, then, has to be execution. The passing game plays a lot like Madden, which means that you can still lead passes with some touch on the right analog stick. There are some key differences, however. First of all, there's no passing cone, so you won't necessarily have an idea of where the quarterback is looking. And secondly, the increased game speed (producers told us the game is around 25 percent quicker than Madden) means you'll have a lot less time to get the ball off than you might think.