Madden NFL 09 Review

[sportyguyfl31]

Good review. I was also shocked that the IGN review was pretty balanced as well.

Much better, more balanced reviews then the sycophantic NCAA reviews.

Didnt really expect much out of online leagues so that doesnt bother me. Everything else seems fairly solid.

[Behindshadows]

Nice review!!! I would have given it at least the same score to a 9. Game is good, but I guess the AI issues and sometimes the accuracy is a drawback, its not a perfect game but its the best Madden to date!

[callmetaternuts]

Pretty good (and damn thorough) review. Im holding my breath on franchise, but at lesat this year, if its not up to par, i can just play Head Coach. Funny how this year was supposed to be THE year for games (NCAA, Madden, HC) and its possible that HC, the bastard child of EA may win out........

[KBomber]

Why does it seem like the bugs get the gloss over treatment on a game where once again, significant options for customization and gameplay enhancement have disappeared?

Great that the game is prettier, but shouldn't features and gameplay provided on inferior systems be the minimum expectation for (to paraphrase...) "the greatest football game of all time"

Just a question, discuss at your leisure

Have fun...............

[Freezer Boy]

Great review, I'll be picking up my collector's edition sometime today at Gamestop.

[Ralph from Guelph]

The only thing that I'll suggest is that in reviewing (to paraphrase...) "the greatest football video game ever", the writer highlights the fact that functionality has once again been removed from this title, in this case the ability to adjust CPU sliders which allow key customization to the gameplay experience. I'm not understanding the concept of how this is acceptable, along with the broken mini-games for determining the skill level of users.

To me these would seem to be major and significant flaws/omissions

Ya think?

[MaxMan1000]

To touch on the crowd graphics that the author talked about... At 60 frames, they had to make sacrifices somewhere, so the crowds took a hit in '08 and obviously again in '09. Even though the stadiums look cooler (because of lighting) you'll notice that when a distance shot comes up, you'll see a lot of the stadium structure fogged. This was smart to do, but it shows kind of a covering up of the fact that the detail had been dropped and distributed more economically than in past seasons. Still, the result is that it actually looks better so it's weird how that worked out.

Not a huge deal, but detail drops are the consequence of going 60 frames. If there was just some way they could give gamers two frame rate options each having it's own level of detail, those would be some next level options.

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ralph from Guelph

The only thing that I'll suggest is that in reviewing (to paraphrase...) "the greatest football video game ever", the writer highlights the fact that functionality has once again been removed from this title, in this case the ability to adjust CPU sliders which allow key customization to the gameplay experience. I'm not understanding the concept of how this is acceptable, along with the broken mini-games for determining the skill level of users. To me these would seem to be major and significant flaws/omissions Ya think?

The lack of CPU sliders would in fact be a problem if the Madden IQ feature did not work as advertised. The review states that, although it's kinda wonky in the way it works (the tests in particular don't really convey the difficulty of the game properly), the feature works pretty well.