Madden NFL 09: A Video Game Review

Madden is back once again for its twentieth year of existence. The question in the minds of gamers is if this game is interesting enough or improved over last year's version. The short answer is yes; the glitches are minimal, and different tweaks in game play create the most enjoyable and realistic football experience to date. The additions to the game might not be immediately obvious to the casual gamer, but the hardcore Madden gamer will know the differences and appreciate them.

The first time you boot Madden NFL 09, you are greeted with the Madden Test that will test your Madden IQ in four separate drills. The results will produce your My Skill difficulty level, a feature new to this year's Madden version that will adjust the game's difficulty according to your individual skill. This feature does its job for the most part but makes it incredibly difficult to have an MVP like season from any of your star players since each game they perform extremely well, the game will become more and more difficult. Never fear though, there are multiple sliders that will allow you to customize the difficulty level if you find the game getting to challenging for you.

Also new to this year's version of Madden is Play styles. The easiest level puts the AI in charge of absolutely everything in the game except for hiking, running, and throwing the pigskin. The hardest level puts all aspects of the game in the player's hand for the most realistic football experience available. This new addition, unlike My Skills, is nearly perfect and performs its job very well.

These skills are fine and dandy for the newcomer or casual gamer who does not play Madden frequently. Hardcore gamers however, will be disappointed in the lack of enhancements made to the core game play of Madden. Defensive and Offensive strategies remain largely the same as last year's version. True fans of the series however will be impressed by EA Sports keen eye for detail. Receiving animations have been kicked up a notch and now feature less annoying balls being bounced of your receiver's helmet when his hands were a few inches away from the ball. The running and juking animations have also been enhanced and give the user much more control over the respective actions. Also, the ability to break out of a tackle is not nearly as random anymore and allows the player to tap a button to try to break free from the grasps of opposing defenders.

Madden NFL 09, while hands down the best football experience available on the market, still has its flaws. Animations during kickoff seem to progress at an inhumanly fast rate and the AI still finds itself running players out of bounds on occasion even on the hardest of difficulties. These technicalities do not take away from the overall experience whatsoever.

Presentation wise, this year's version is the added voice talent of Cris Collinsworth and Tom Hammond. Both of them are usually spot on with their commentary and add to the game's overall lasting appeal and presentation. The grass has also been redesigned and it shows. It is clearly the greenest and most realistic grass to ever appear on a Madden game. The added camera angles are also a bonus as they add a whole new dimension to the game play, and for the most part, they function very well. One thing that was pretty annoying was the new Rewind feature. It allows a player to replay their last play that could potentially offset a touchdown or a good first down run during offline matches. Thank goodness you can't use this feature online but we are betting this gets scratched for the next version depending on how users take to it.

The game as always features multiple game modes including the classic Superstar, Exhibition, and Franchise modes. All of these remain unchanged from the previous version. There are however two new modes for gamers to partake on, Madden Moments and Online Leagues. Madden Moments selects one memorable moment from a game played last season and allows you to recreate it. Online Leagues are a heavily anticipated and long overdue feature that allows thirty-two players to hop online and partake in a real NFL season. The system, although a good start, seems too much like a last minute toss in and needs some improvement before it is taken too seriously.

Overall, while the core of the game remains pretty much intact, the new additions and the enhanced animations make this game the most realistic American football experience available to date.