Madden NFL 09
Richard goes in for the crunch
I like American sports. What is more ridiculously American than a huddle of guys on a field in tight padded clothing and crash helmets smashing straight into each other? Consistently the most watched TV broadcast in any given year, the superbowl is a good four hours of drinking, eating, and shouting at the screen. That's what American sports are all about - that and big shoulders, and bone-crunching collisions, and square jaws, and rearranging your own crotch with one hand, and spitting, and extravagant advertisements and so on.
Madden 09 kicks off in the current orthodox EA fashion with an in-your-face multimedia introduction from the man himself - the legendary John Madden. After explaining that you're about to experience his new amazing game, John offers you the option of taking a test of your gaming skill which will calculate your gaming level in various areas and set your difficulty parameters based on your performance in those arenas. Not only that, but after running through the test and setting your difficulty, the game will then - as you play through the seasons - regularly update the difficulty depending on how well you're doing. A good thing it's there because John Madden's test seemed to wildly over-estimate my skill level.
The game is presented incredibly well. The stats bars flicking up, the referee coming on to announce and explain penalties, the action replays with break-downs from the commentators. For an observer it would appear very much like watching an actual game of American football - minus, of course, the controls flashing up and the screen where you pick your offensive and defensive plays and so on. The presentation is so good that the game has captured the very aura of American football, from the subtle movements of the players, the taunting, the shouting to the showy dancing into the end-zone.
The two most interesting modes of play are the Franchise mode and the Superstar mode. Franchise mode allows you to take control of a team as the manager. You have control over contracts, the draft, player development, tactics, and so on. You can play on for as many seasons as you choose, and the dynamic difficulty levels will adapt causing the game to continually remain a challenge.
The games themselves play very much like Madden, or indeed other American football games of the past. Menu screens allow you to choose your planned plays, and then you have a whole host of controls available for when executing them; such as getting your quarterback to shout new instructions to your other team members before the hike to create new runs and blocks, or to switch to a completely different play.
Franchise mode also includes a really nice rewind feature. You get assigned a number of rewinds per match, a figure you can decide at the start of the match kind of like another difficulty setting. Then if a play goes particularly badly, you can hit x and rewind the whole thing back to the hike. This is a really great feature when learning the game; when giving up possession again and again could get frustrating, but this feature counters that and allows new players to ease themselves on to the bike with stabiliser wheels.
Superstar mode allows you to create and play as your own superstar. You have to perform a few tests to decide your starting attributes - a surprisingly poorly implemented set of joypad waggling challenges which easily consist of the worst programmed section in the whole game. You then have to get yourself an agent and wait for a team to pick you in the draft - you have no control over this other than the ability to say you don't want to join the team, just like a real American football player.
Everything is presented from the superstar's perspective, including the games. This works incredibly well. While your superstar is on the field you have control of them just as you would in franchise mode, but you can't control anyone else. When your superstar is off the field the game is generated play-by-play and you can choose to "skip" the plays until your man is back on the field. You are rewarded "influence" points for making good plays, and deducted them for making poor moves. These points allow you to give yourself and your team-mates attribute boosts. Peculiarly EA decided not to implement their dynamic difficulty changer in the superstar mode - in fact if anything it's sorely missing, why not use such a well developed feature here?
The graphics are just what we expect. Everything is true 3D with a glossy next-gen look. The physiology of the field players is very convincing, and the in-game physics engine is truly top-notch. There are one or two oddities, as always with sports games, such as the "fireworks" at the start of the match which give the impression of a 1990's screensaver nightmare. The music is typical EA; a high budget sound-track utilising popular songs from popular artists; and the physical crunching and ball-swishing sound effects are absolutely perfect.
I've not played many of the previous Madden games, and I wouldn't call myself an American football enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination. But this game really managed to capture my attention. Its addictive; its fun, and its very easy to get sucked into. I'm actually thinking of watching the superbowl next February, this is an interest which has been purely cultivated by this game. If that's not the sign of a really good sports game, I don't know what is.
88%
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