Madden NFL 09

"basically Madden NFL 2008.5"

The tag-line says at all, basically; half one and a half step in the right direction and one whole step in the wrong direction. So today I'm going to nitpick my way through a Madden NFL 2008.5 review. The reason I say one and a half step forward and a whole step back is the new ideas don't make up for the flaws that have been around since 2006 and some of the additions created new flaws, more on that later. Franchise is still broken and leaves the player hoping the draft provides good to decent players because no one, not even the rookies of this year, improve after a season or pre-season. Then the major fact that the game doesn't have a record book makes franchise about an entire waste.

Graphics: 2
Yes I have to review the graphics, and if your buying this game just for the graphics then you are either blind or like lots of polygons. Basically your team looks a lot like a glass figure running on the same fluffy green pad and the stadiums... Ok you never actually see much of the stadiums or the fans for that matter. They don't even try to make it look good.

Sound: 1
OK, so maybe the sound is a lot worse then the Graphics and this is about the time your wondering why the game got a 6 in the first place. There isn't any music save for the menus but its silence during the games save for the whistles and Al Michaels and John **** Mothering Madden and all they say is "Blah blah blah, first down" or "Looks like he had it" and "Hit him so hard he'll have to take a taxi back to the stadium"... Also the last comment is quite flawed, Willis McGahee steps out and barely even gets touched by the defender and he apparently has to take a taxi back to the stadium because the defender apparently knocked him up six ways from Sunday. I don't mind stupid commentary but this is just plain stupid, two straight incomplete passes and Madden has to say the exact same thing and then for some reason says it again when the ball gets tipped into an interception... I hate Kyle Boller :/

Gameplay: 7
So we finally get to the delicious part of the **** covered apple pie; the game-play. My first game against the Steelers started something like this; Rothlisburger, or however its spelled the game cuts his name off anyways, throws 7 perfect passes back to back for a Touchdown and my following possession is Joe Flacco throwing three incomplete passes to Todd Heap, Derrick Mason and again to Todd Heap when both players were nothing short of wide open. I don't mind if your going to add new animations to make it seem real but don't tell me two of the best receivers on the Ravens can't catch worth a damn. I tried again when I was in a 14-0 hole with Kyle Boller and he went 1/2 before I finally gave up and let McGahee run all night, didn't stop me from losing 28-21 though. All this was before I messed with the options, through testing I found even someone like Tom Brady couldn't complete a pass to someone such as Randy Moss and this is with everyone on Defense doing just about nothing. Last game, when untouched, even the worst QB's were doing at least halfway decent and I wasn't blown out in the 1st quarter. So yeah, the passing controls left alone is a pile of old turd while the running pretty much the same, although I've found the buttons sometimes don't wanna work, like when I wanna juke left/right the RB sometimes doesn't feel its needed and runs smack dab into a LB more then twice his size, but it was alright, it was only 4th and 1 and I was only losing by 7 points with a minute left in the game...

Bonus games: 5
Not really sure I like the Rec Room but it was a nice addition, taking Training camp mini games out was a horrible idea and taking out the Record Book at the last second and not updating the Manuel at the same time was nothing short of stupid. Then we have the stupid catching rate, untouched that is, and we have about the same problem Madden 08 for the PS3/Xbox360 had. Also we don't have Roster Updates so the only way we'll get Favre on the Jets is to create him, same goes with every other player they decided not to put in the game.

Game modes: 5
Having a franchise mode is great and all if this certain Franchise mode wasn't buggy and flawed. Such as the fact it still lets you know you broke records but you can't actually look them up because for some stupid rEAson they took out the Record Book option. So going 16-0 and breaking the Patriots highest points in a season and the Ravens fewest points allowed in a season doesn't count for anything. It's kinda like the NamcoBANDAI idea of saying "the best Soul Calibur EVARRR is SCIV" then taking all the good things SCII and SCIII had and throwing them in the fire keeping all the bad stuff and crapping out SCIV, don't get me wrong, I loved the game-play and that was one of two reasons I gave it an 8. Other then Franchise we have Season which takes you through one season, which is kinda pointless because you could just do that in the regular Franchise Mode but they had to make it different in some way so Season Mode has Mod Divisions tacked on while Franchise has.... Basically nothing. We also have Tournament, which is kinda pointless and we also have Situation Mode which lets you create situations and try to pull off victories.

Final score: 6
I always loved the DS version of Madden because I was never home when I actually wanted to play a football game but ever since Madden 2006 the Franchise Mode has been shoved under someones desk and forgotten for every game, Such as players not improving at all and the fact you can't play pre-season the first time you start. How hard is it to code this concept anyways? The way EA makes it seem like an impossible chore that just isn't worth their time and effort and so focus on the PSP version by porting the PS2 version. Also we have Online, I haven't played online yet because of my experience with the last game, going one quarter with 28-7 only to have someone disconnect because they use the same play over and over and can't seem to stop me from running all over them and picking them off whenever they keep using the same play over and over.

Basically, it's not for someone who thinks they are getting a downgraded graphical version of the console games. I've played the Wii version and I'm telling you now it's nothing like it's DS counterpart. If your interested then by all means I would suggest a rent before buying. Just don't go wasting your money if your expecting greatness because ever since 2006 there hasn't been much greatness in this series and I can safely say Nintendo is doing a much better job at re-releasing the same list of games over and over again then EA has ever been with Madden.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/20/08

Game Release: Madden NFL 09 (US, 08/12/08)