The gameplay itself is much better in spots but also has its share of frustrations. The animations and the ability to pull off multiple moves works like a charm. Wide outs break tackles in space, netting solid yards after catch (YAC). Running backs can plow over poor tacklers, and after you tweak some of the settings the human running game is pretty realistic. Weather finally plays a more prominent role, as well, so if you play in the snow you can expect players to lose footing or when playing in the rain the ball becomes a bit slick and running routes a bit more difficult. And, unlike NCAA 09, the pass rush feels right, the special teams play is significantly improved with teams covering punts and kicks as you’d expect, and the defensive pursuit angles aren’t a problem When Madden ‘clicks’, the game is a heck of a lot of fun,
But then you’ll see players with no sense at all where the sidelines are, running out routes five yards out of bounds. Or you’ll see a running back have daylight on the sideline and run out of bounds for no apparent reason. Or you’ll see the CPU show extremely poor clock management, passing the ball when it’s up late in the game or taking its sweet time when it should be throwing deep and looking to score. These AI gaffes don’t pop up every game but it happens often enough to be noticeable and really detracts from playing against the AI. These games need to do everything possible to preserve the drama of football in the final minutes and at times Madden fails in doing that.
One area that is significantly better is atmosphere – the play by play from Tom Hammond and Cris Collinsworth does get repetitive but it’s clearly better than the old PA announcer, which sounded like you were playing in a morgue. There’s enough banter and talk to keep things lively, and while it would be nice to have more varied speech this is a much better system. Collinsworth in particular has some spring to his voice that adds a lot to the play to play sound. The graphics are also extremely sharp. This is the best looking Madden game to date with new player models and shockingly realistic playing fields. The downside being that the fields do not degrade over the course of a game but that really is a nitpick more than a serious complaint. It’s hard to knock the game’s visual appeal.
This year Madden has finally added online league support. At E3, it was stated that the developers assumed that about 5% of the user base will even touch this feature, which makes it even odder that instead of trying to please that 5%, which you would assume would be made up of hardcore fans, EA Sports has again catered to the casual. This really isn’t an online league – it’s a Round Robin tourney mode. So if you have a 32 team league (no CPU teams are allowed) then you have to play every team – so get ready for a 31 game schedule. You don’t need to play with 32 players but regardless of the number of people, there are no divisions, conferences, or anything of that nature. You also cannot drop players from your league and replace them. So if someone quits (which always happens in online leagues) there is simply one fewer team in the league.
The schedules are not “fixed” so don’t expect to play a real NFL schedule. You play the games when you want in order to keep things moving along. It’s a truly bizarre way of setting it up and for those online league lovers who were hoping for something like what NFL 2K5 did back in the day – this isn’t it.
That said, playing the game online or against another buddy on the same machine is a much, much better experience than playing against the AI and all of its idiosyncrasies. When you take the AI out of the equation you are left with a pretty darn solid game of football. If you primarily play against friends, Madden 09 is certainly worth picking up.
