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Alright world, today we’re talking football, not just any football mind you, but we will be discussing THE name in digital football entertainment, Madden ’09, the 20th anniversary of the madden franchise and still the number one name in the pigskin world. That’s right web-savvy gamers; it’s that time of the year again when EA sports spits out another rendition of the NFL complete with new additions, tweaked features and a cursed cover. This year’s potentially cursed NFL star is none other than Brett Favre in the controversial Green Bay Packer uniform. Released August 12th in North America on the Nintendo DS, Wii, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, PSP, Xbox 360 and yes, even the original Xbox – EA Sports is making sure anyone that wants to play Madden will be able to. For the sake of my own humanity, I settled on reviewing the Xbox 360 version.
To begin with, for those who have never played a Madden game before, a few things to know: It’s a football game (American football for those international readers out there), it’s been around for 20 years constantly updating not only their roster but also graphics, controls, AI, features, options and anything else that could be improved upon, it also uses its own proprietary engine. This review will pretty much just discuss what’s new in this annual title, if you’re looking for basic info on the Madden franchise, check out EA’s website. Now onto the nitty gritty.
For the past few years Madden has been getting deeper and more complex to suit the football fans out there, while they were satisfied with all these changes, those new to the game and wanting to be eased into it were left out in the cold. This year EA Sports is ensuring that anyone and everyone can play by easing new fans into the game with the help of John Madden himself, a virtual trainer mode, and MY Skills. When you start the game, you will be taken right into a level testing program where your Madden IQ will be decided after a few game tests such as passing and blocking. Based on these tests, your initial difficulty settings will be chosen for you, as you progress, your Madden IQ may increase or decrease based on your performance and thus the difficulty level will vary as well. This concept really helped me get back into the Madden world and I love the concept of the game tailoring itself to my needs making every game challenging but not impossible. As well if you need to brush up on a few fundamentals, you can enter the virtual trainer and practice 12 new drills.
Some other new features included in this year’s Madden include Backtrack, Backtrack is basically a replay feature that shows you what you did wrong and why it happened when a pass is intercepted or a play failed, with the help of Chris Collinsworth (one of the colour commentators in Madden 09) you will be educated as to why you failed so the next time you will be wiser. Along with this EA Rewind gives players a chance to redo their last play incase the outcome isn’t too your likings (limited number of EA Rewinds are available in game). Another feature I wanted to briefly mention (my favourite feature in the game) are the in-game button hints, with the excitement of a risky play I tend to get flustered and forget what button to push in the heat of the moment, with button hints, I can always know what button to push to use a power move or finesse move at the right time.
Graphically Madden 09 looks amazing, the menu design while getting the job done, doesn’t really do it for me and I often find myself clicking on the wrong tab, I guess with as many options and features as Madden has, the fact that I can find what I’m looking for in the first place means it’s designed well enough. The stadiums and environments look amazing, from the introductions to the stadiums themselves (complete with CG traffic outside the arenas) to the initial coin flip and shadows cascading from the stadium wall to the grassy turf, by far does it look like the most advanced graphics in the sporting world today. The camera angles in this Madden rendition were also overhauled, more with modern gaming philosophies, this new camera (the first major camera change in Madden in over 10 years) focuses more on where the action is and less on a static QB stance, while this took some getting used to, overall it makes the game feel more action packed and I support John’s new view. Finally the player models, while the players themselves look amazingly detailed and their shadows more realistic than my own, I still feel like the movement of these players are a huge issue for me. When they’re actually playing it seems like real life, totally natural, however; when the players are just walking around in between plays and before games, it just looks like a grown man walking for the first time, slow and awkward.
The sound is what really does it for me in this game, realistic cheering, grunts, and yells make the game feel as realistic as watching it in real life with and the music selection is as good as usual with EA titles. The real treat was the colour commentary from Chris Collinsworth and Tom Hammond, considering the last football game I played was NFL Tour, which came with maybe 10-20 comments repeated over and over again in a generic type of fashion, I was thrilled with the precise, detailed and useful commentary Collinsworth and Hammond gave me before each game and after each play. After 6 games, all minigames and an online game I have yet to hear a repeated comment or a bad sound byte.
As with any past Madden title, the controls grow a little year to year, luckily with the Madden IQ, My skill and button hints, it’s easier than ever to get into the game and with a little practice; those daunting controls seem less and less flustering as your skill increases thanks to the ever changing challenge. With each button doing something different and a long list of plays to choose from, EA tries to make it easier by asking John Madden what type of plays to run and if you ever get too frustrated to continue but still want to finish the game, if you select your play, hike the ball and touch nothing else, a computer character will take over and run the play for you like any other AI you have on your team. This may be a small feature that was around for a while, but is still one of my favourite options in the game.
Speaking of options, like all past EA Sports titles, Madden has its fair share to keep players busy. Besides changing any rule you like there are many other things to do with the Madden title this time around, trailers for future EA sport titles. A new fantasy football mode is introduced where fans can import their fantasy football teams from their PCs and act as commissioners when playing their fantasy leagues. In the My Madden option, players can watch past highlight reels of their plays, check out rosters, set their strategies and customize nearly anything they would like to (here is where players can customize their menu soundtrack as well). Other game modes include Franchise mode where you take all roles in the football world and play season to season managing the team, setting strategies and playing the game (if you wanted to). Superstar mode allows fans to create custom football players or import NCAA legends from NCAA 09, you can then use these players within your games if you trade them to the team you wish to play as. Madden Moments allow players to relive and replay famous games portions in past NFL lore, from the Dolphins vs. Ravens December 16th 2007 (their first win during overtime) to last years New York upset super bowl. Six mini games including bench pressing and a practice mode round out the extra options EA Sports’ Madden 09 has to offer.
You didn’t really think that a next gen sports title wouldn’t have an online mode, did you? With Madden 09, once you sign in to EA Live, your greeted with the most recent of news, from here you access the Live menu and can play a quick ranked or unranked match against anyone anywhere in the world, play minigames, check your email, sports news, check your stats, leader boards and more. The biggest feature online to me at least, is the online league mode, where you can play in a league with up to 32 other players, have a set amount of wins needed to win the league and play when you and your friends want to play.
It’s true, EA Sports upped the features Madden has to offer, and while they made it easier than ever for a new fan to join in the fun, I still feel like all these added features take away from the importance of why people buy this game in the first place. To play football, sure the minigames and stats are fun, but if you spend all your time doing things other than actually playing football, then what’s the point? Either way, we have the choice to play straight up football, or tinker with all the details if we want, so if you’re a fan of football, or the general idea of football, you should do yourself the favor of picking this game up for whatever system you want, after all, 20 years of Madden can’t be wrong.
Graphics: 4.5 / 5.0
Gameplay 4.5 / 5.0
Sound 4.5 / 5.0
Replay value 5.0 / 5.0
