Madden NFL 09 Review (PS3): A Less-Than-Stellar Game

Madden NFL 09 is a football video game released for Playstation 3 and developed by EA Tiburon.

Story : It's a Football game so there really isn't any notable story to speak of.

Graphics : The graphics have never been better for a Football game, and they are really something special in Madden 09. The players all have improved graphically, and they all have much more detail than they used to. The football field likewise looks extremely good. Perhaps the most stunning aspect of the graphics is the weather, though. They really nailed it this time and it's worth mentioning. The game is not without graphical glitches though. There are actually quite a few though I personally don't think any of them are too bad.

Sound : The sound effects are really good, and I think the most improved aspect is the crowd. They've never sounded better or more realistic. A definite improvement over previous games. The voice acting is a different story. Chris Collinsworth turns in a very good performance but Tod Hammond sounds horrible. He's extremely monotonous and really takes away from the game honestly. He really phoned in his performance and it shows. The music in this game is also really generic and worth muting, so overall I have to go more into the negative as far as sound goes.

Game play : The controls are better than ever. Really sensitive, just the perfect amount. The menus are intuitive and really good to explore. There are several different types of play, but you'll spend most of your time in the Franchise and Superstar mode. These are actually identical from the previous year's game, which is a definite negative in my opinion. There's always room for improvement. I like how the weather affects the game play now. You'll slide in the rain and visibly will be decreased in snow. Very cool. Unfortunately the game really falls apart in some aspects. The difficult is very low, but not because the computer under performs. The artificial intelligence does all sorts of silly moves that you would never seen a professional football player do. A shotgun pass to a play that's already out of bounds, for instance. Really? Come on now. If you want any kind of challenge at all, you'll have to play on the high difficulty settings, which really are quite hard. Simply put, this game has no middle ground.

Re playability : There's far too many glitches for on line play, so I simply didn't bother. If you don't like playing football games by yourself, then don't bother with this game. Perhaps they'll fix the multi-player problems, but the fact that they were there in the first place does not bode well for the game.

Overall : 7/10. The game really deserves lower but I'll be generous. The game play just isn't all that engaging.