ESPN NFL 2K5 has a lot of capital letters in its title, which makes it look like it's shouting. That is OK. The game is full of shouting fans and shouting players and shouting announcers, so a little caffeine on the cover is frankly a good idea, if nothing else for the sake of fair warning.

Every year at this time football and video game fanatics go all giddy and soft in the head while they await the release of the latest editions of all their favourite football games. And, also every year at this time, smarter and more frugal fans head out into the used video game shops, where they buy up previously-enjoyed copies of the previous year's titles at a deep discount.

"Who cares if the rosters aren't quite up to date," the smart-but-cheap ones ask, "if buying the used one saves me $40? It's still football, right?"

Right. At least most of the time. But this year, the good publishers at Sega have brought their game to market at an even deeper discount than the wait-a-year crowd is used to. Yes, the brand-new, factory-sealed, Eli-Manning-including ESPN NFL 2K5 can be yours for just $30.

This is a top-drawer game, remember. It has a huge development budget. Its masters have enough ready cash that they can afford to pay Terrell Owens to pose for the cover photo. So either Sega is getting desperate about its market share, or...

Actually, there is no "or." This is clearly an act of desperation. But the underlying facts remain: ESPN NFL 2K5 is a totally wicked great football game. 30 bucks is 30 bucks. Instant gratification is smiling on us all.

Now, the game. As its hollering title suggests, ESPN NFL 2K5 is presented as if it were a TV broadcast on ESPN, the American cable sports network you Canadians never get to see, unless you have a grey-market DIRECT-TV dish. Most of you are honest and law abiding, and those commercials showing the creepy guy "stealing a satellite signal" make you uncomfortable, so you will need a little introduction.

ESPN is like the sports networks we have in Canada, only much, much better. Its production values are impeccable, its highlight shows are funny and timely and plain old good to watch, and its anchors are mostly un-annoying. So the ESPN brand lends considerable goodwill to this game. Even if you have only watched SportsCenter occasionally, and only in U.S. hotel rooms, the slick broadcast-style presentation here will bring a smile of happy recognition to your face.

Once you actually see the players running on the field, you will break into a wide toothy grin. For this is the first football game to really and truly look like TV. That floaty feet-not-quite-touching-the-ground vibe is gone and banished. The players' arms and bodies have visible weight. The thrown ball traces such a perfect arc that you really and truly believe it is feeling gravity's pull. All this is a matter of plain old hard grinding work in the animation studio, true, but here the execution transcends mere craft. These pictures -- these beautifully lifelike passes and tackles and jukes and spins and stiff-arms -- they are the work of artists.

So it is good for the eyes. It is also good for the thumbs. Like all football games (and like football itself) it has a ridiculous learning curve. You will play six or seven full games before you get the hang of playing defence, mostly because it is hard to remember which button does what. You will score a few touchdowns in the early going, but you will only really learn play-calling as a repeatable skill after much sweat and cursing.

That is OK. Along the way, as you struggle through that hazy button-pounding period of controller apprenticeship, you will learn lessons that are tough to put into words, but important nonetheless. You will learn that timing is important. You will learn when to push a button before you learn which button to push. And somehow the process will feel satisfying, even though it's still frustrating as hell. That, too, is the work of artists.