Death, taxes, and EA doing a Madden NFL game are the only things that are certain to happen in one’s lifetime. During my 25 years of life this will mark the twentieth time for myself to find a Madden football game on the store of my local gaming retailer. EA is celebrating twenty years of money-printing Madden with one feature-packing game that could be what football fans have been waiting for, the best Madden game to date. Unfortunately a few easily fixable flaws/bugs keep Madden NFL 09 from achieving the “best sports game ever” status while not being burdensome enough to take away from the fun that can be had with this title. Almost all of the new features that the team over at Tiburon added into the game are well-received and actually help one of the developer’s main focuses, bringing Madden to a more general audience while still keeping the hardcore fan base happy.
The single most important feature that tops the list in Madden 09 is what EA calls the “Adaptive Difficulty Engine”, which in theory is supposed to create an on-the-fly playing difficulty from a pre-made “Madden Test” (four different mini-games covering all aspects of football). In concept and on paper this idea probably works flawlessly, in the real world however it’s just not detailed enough to make much of a difference. EA could have easily just thrown in a few middle-of-the-road difficulty levels and achieved the exact same result. Some of the more specific attributes of this system are very welcome and will help the novice player a lot; the option of not having your plays picked for you, the rewind “mulligan” feature, and the easier control scheme all help bring Madden down to a more general level.
Luckily for EA the large majority of gamers who purchase will be, like me, veterans of the Madden franchise and will thus never really focus on this entire feature. I did however use the rewind feature more than once; it’s perfect for those Madden games played after a late night of drinking when losing to the computer could mean the end of mankind, as you know it. The modified controls of Madden 09 make much more of an impact on the gameplay than you might think. The running game as a whole is more enjoyable to use, as is defense, both of which used to be quite a pain in the ass in previous versions of the title. Madden’s famous “slingshot” defense is back in full force coming out of nowhere with top-notch plays and reading your playbook well before you have even chosen a formation.
After playing a couple games on each difficulty setting it was determined that EA succeeded in making a Madden game for the masses; there is a gameplay style for each and every gamer out there. Other noticeable upgrades are the collision detection and tackling system, both of which are insanely improved bringing the realistic draw of Madden 09 to an all-new high. More than once while playing did someone walk into the room, watch a few minutes of gameplay, and comment on how the difficulty telling between the video game and real life was harder than with Madden 08.
Graphically Madden NFL 09 is also leaps and bounds above the two previous next-gen renditions. Everything from the stadiums, the character models (1000s of more polygons were used this year), the particle effects (grass/turf look fantastic), and general lighting techniques are improved. One thing the EA Sports team is getting comfortable with is the graphical power of these next-gen systems, fine-tuning each tiny pixel to make Madden literally pop off the television screen. All of the other features you have come to love, or hate, from the series are back including the franchise mode, online play, and many others new and old; oddly missing once again is the inclusion of four-player gaming.
As for the aspects of Madden 09 that the developers fumbled on, they are small in comparison to the overall improvement that is this football game. Weird loading issues, random clipping effects, and sometimes off-the-wall AI are some of the more major gripes but I never once found myself taken out of the experience by any of them. Because Favre (man he's old) is no longer with the Green Bay Packers, EA has made a new 360 cover, with him in Jets attire, available by clicking here. Even though Madden NFL 09 is not perfect in any shape or form it is the best football experience available on the Xbox 360 and should be checked out by new fans of the series as well as twenty-year veterans. The new features tossed into the game give Madden 09 a bit of everything for everyone who enjoys football.
Final Recommendation: Buy
