Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition
Madden NFL 2009 Collector’s Edition includes both Madden NFL 2009 – With the best gameplay, deepest online experience and most features ever – and NFL Head 2009, offering absolute control of your favorite franchise plus the ability to create custom playbooks for Madden. Madden NFL 09 delivers its most complete NFL football package ever. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or picking up the game for the first time, players of all skill levels will enjoy a unique, yet challenging experience with the innovative Adaptive Difficulty Engine, which tailors the game to match your playing style. Instantly improve your game with the all-new virtual Training Center or incorporate feedback with EA SPORTS BackTrack, allowing you to learn from your mistakes on the fly. With a new broadcast presentation and online leagues, plus more than 85 new features and enhancements, Madden NFL 09 is the most authentic and adaptable game in sports video game history. An all-new Adaptive Difficulty Engine assesses your proficiency in the core skills areas of football. An innovative, Virtual Training Center allows you to fine-tune your game in a holographic environment, while EA SPORTS BackTrack provides customized feedback, giving you a chance to learn from your mistakes. Take what you’ve learned and run the play again with EA SPORTS Rewind. Set your sights on the Vince Lombardi Trophy in an all-new network-television-style broadcast as Cris Collinsworth and Tom Hammond call the action from the booth. A more immersive and visually stunning presentation package also includes a new Options OnDemand Picture-in-Picture playcall window giving you access to a wealth of stats, customized tips, and in-game options–all at your fingertips without having to pause the game. Make a run for the post-season for the first time online. Featuring trades and statistical tracking for Online Leagues, up to 32 teams can battle it out using all-new flex scheduling. Wi Two decades ago Madden NFL exploded onto the scene with staggeringly authentic football action and a strategic, by-the-playbook approach to the game previously absent in sports video games. With Madden NFL 09, 20 years of innovation culminate in a new apex in the series’ groundbreaking realism. Savor the pulse-pounding excitement as Madden NFL 09 delivers an intense, real-world pro football experience like only legendary coach John Madden can. The action of the gridiron comes alive with stunning graphics, innovative plays and multiplayer competition that thrusts you into the center of the game with no nonsense and no mercy.
Rating:  List Price: $ 49.99 Price: $ 24.75 |
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(out of 350 reviews)
Review by Ivan K. Samuelson for Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition
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This is the ultimate football game for the Wii, hands down. EA got this one right. If you’ve played 07 and 08, then it’s basically the same game control-wise, but don’t let that fool you. On the surface, it may seem to be the same, but when you launch the game, there is so much more there.
First off, All-Play. What is it? It allows the novice to get into the game and start playing without having to worry about learning all the different control moves to play the game. You can have Madden suggest all the plays for you, you can use a simplified playbook with common plays or else, you can use the team’s playbook and have at your disposal an arsenal of plays to beat down your opponent with. You can switch between the different playbook options easily while in the game.
Whether you are a rookie or an All-Pro player, everyone can compete against each other with their own style, at home and online! Oh, and no Friend codes are necessary to play online! Great move, EA!
Control-wise, you can just hike the ball, run it with a few moves (jukes, spins, etc) and pass it to the open receiver all with minimal controller moves and/or button presses. When passing, look for the receiver whose icon turns green and swing the Wiimote forward to pass it to that receiver. You don’t have to select him to do it. As you get better at the game, you can then move up to the more complex controls from last year’s game.
The all-new Call Your Shots is the hot route option on steroids! In this case, you select your receiver whose route you wish to modify and then using the Wiimote, you draw your own route for him to run! This option is NOT available on any other console. It is specific to the Wii and it’s easy and it works great. You can still use the old hot-route option if you want to, but why would you?
When you score a TD or a big hit, jump up and start dancing as hard as you can, waving your nunchuck and Wiimote around using different gestures. The more you do it, the more you boost that player’s gameplay rating and it gets the crowd into the game.
5 on 5 mode is akin to playing backyard football. You start at midfield and have 4 plays to score a TD. It’s over the top and fun. Unfortunately, it can’t be played online.
The graphics, while still PS2-ish, have been upgraded on the Wii and look better than previous versions on the Wii. Heck, it definitely looks better than the 2008 PC version. It’s not next-gen but what really makes this game shine is the ability for novices, intermediate and hard-core Madden-ites to be able to play this game. I’ve never had more fun with Madden than I have had with this version and I’m in no way an expert on this game. I can barely play on All-Pro and All-Madden is just nuts for me, so now I can hang pretty tough and learn what to look for as Madden gives me tips.
And finally, the passing bug of years past is gone! They fixed this and refined the way it registers your movements so that it seems much more natural. Also, players getting stuck seems to have been removed as well. I haven’t experienced it yet, though, but I’ve read accounts of others seeing it once in a great while, but nothing like in the previous versions.
Now, why 4 out of 5 for the game overall? First off, the Miis. The refs are Miis. Madden is a Mii (that is scary!) and you cannot turn this option off. I believe it’s Nintendo’s way of trying to make the game appeal to the family crowd and it probably works. I didn’t find it too bad, but I wish it could have been an option to turn on or off. But, it definitely plays into the way Nintendo wants to market the Wii which is it’s a family/group system that encourages people to play together, so it’s not all bad.
I’m having problems when receiving a pass manually. You must raise both the nunchuck and the Wiimote up at the same time to make your player reach/jump for a pass. I’ve practiced this as much as I can and I just can’t seem to get it to work consistently. In fact, one time I swung both controls up so fast that the cord from the nunchuck to the Wiimote came up and smacked me in the face. OUCH! I guess I just need to keep practicing this one, but all the other motion controls work great.
Finally, 5 on 5 not being online brings the score down a bit as well.
Overall, this game is worth it and is deserving of the 5-star fun factor rating. It’s the best Madden yet for Wii and it shows EA listened to the gripes from people about last year’s version.
Review by Brent Hatley for Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition
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It truly is a sad day for NFL video game fans. Way back in the day we used to have options. Tecmo and Super Tecmo Bowl for a quick and fun arcade experience, and games like Madden on the Sega Genesis for a more realistic approach.
With Madden 09 the only licensed NFL game in the world, you no longer have those options. For someone looking for a realistic and fun experience, over the years Madden has mostly satisfied that itch.
The problem is, in 09 EA focused almost exclusively in it’s new animation system (that started w/ FIFA). The producers and developers will often be seen online congratulating themselves on how amazing their animation system works.
While it is true that the animations are better than ever, the problem is how this affects gameplay. This “branching animation system” means that players are no longer “cylinders” that you move around on the field with animations attached to them. In the words of EA, now when you press a direction on the controller you input a command to the player and the dynamic animation will decide what happens next in order to be more natural looking and have less of that “floating” feel of the former maddens.
They are correct, it does indeed look more natural. Unfortunately all players share the same system. This will result in Peyton Manning shucking players to the ground in the same fashion that Lawrence Maroney stiff arms. (Despite Manning having a stiff arm rating that is 70 points lower than Maroney)
The problem is another player comes in to tackle, you press the stiff arm button, the new animation system decides on the fly which stiff arm animation is suitable for the interaction, and boom. Peyton Manning is doing hip throws like Reggie White tossing around weak offensive lineman.
This problem affects not just stiff arms but every animation in the game, tackling, passing, running. Every player animates the same way, negating their stats and turning Brett Farve into the next Marshall Faulk.
Inside linebackers will leap 42″ into the air and intercept passes with their backs turned.
Essentially the only stat that matters is as usual the speed rating. To make matters worse there are dozens of freezing issues, crash bugs, franchise bugs, clipping issues etc…
Once I had to watch a replay 10x over because I was amazed that the football had literally passed right through the chest of my TE to appear on the other side, and get intercepted. A condescending Chris Collinsworth can not wait to do an “EA BACTRAX” on that play and explain what I did wrong.
The problem is I didn’t do anything wrong, the football phased through the TE like Martian Manhunter.
Clearly EA recognized that the game is cheap and broken, so they included the ability to “rewind” and erase any play. You can of course turn this feature off but you have to wonder why would they make a feature that allows you to reverse time in a realistic sports game?
Clearly the answer is people realized that Madden 09 is no longer a fun game, its frustrating and cheap. The Offensive line can not block the CPU pass rush and even an All Pro Left Tackle will get beat for 3+ sacks per game on All pro or All madden.
There is nothing you can do about it either. If you hold in running backs or TEs to block, they will simply miss the blocking assignment about 60% of the time.
in the real NFL if you miss a blocking assignment even 2 times a game, chances are you will get cut. In madden 09 the best blocking RBs in the game will miss 2x PER DRIVE!
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Update one of the main producers of Madden has left the series. The new producers have OWNED UP to the myriad of flaws in the animation system and admitted that the reason it’s broken is because they would speed up or slow down specific animations like the full back hand off, and after time everything became out of sync.
FB hand off became an exploit because it was so fast the defensive lineman would still be getting out of their stance and the FB would be 2 yards into his run. That is just one of the examples, QB drop back was broken as well, the Olineman did not have enough time to start a pocket.
So at least EA has admitted they had a broken pile of code that they had to throw away and start over with. Even tho 09 sold MILLIONS
Review by Greg for Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition
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I’m reviewing this game knowing that they’ve been making Madden for 20 years. With that about of time and experience, some of what is on display here is inexcusable.
Graphics: I’m not sure what everyone’s talking about, but this is the same engine we’ve seen for the last several years.
(A)The new weather effects are decent but nothing spectacular. You will not see field degredation beyond footprints, and the snow still seems fake to me.
(B) The grass is much different. On replays, though, it doesn’t look nearly as good as it does from the default isometric angle. But if you buy games based on grass improvements, by all means spring for this one. It’s certainly better looking than its competition like NFL blitz or All-pro 2k8.
Audio:
(A) The commentary is almost as awful as it has ever been in Madden in the last 10 years. Hammond, the play by play guy, sounds so fake it is hilarious. You will laugh at his comments, especially when he feigns emotion at a big tackle or says WHAT A HIT. Collinsworth, god bless him, tries his heart out to be natural, and he definitely puts in a great performance. The problem is that the designers didn’t properly do the commentary system. Here, Collinsworth’s comments — I think every single one of them, actually — is removed from the specifics of your game. He issues way too many general comments, such as, “That’s really why the d-line is important” or whatever. It SOUNDS natural but it’s so hollow and disconnected from your game. Also, there are prolonged periods (like 20 seconds) where Collinsworth won’t say anything. He’ll miss entire plays. The commentators will even not notice if you’ve kicked a dramatic OT winning field goal. They will simply say “The kick is up and good. And that’s the end of our game.” They then send you to John Madden to literally say “Well that was close! Thanks for joining us!”This kind of commentary does not belong in a next gen game with 20 years of experience.
(B) The backtrack feature, where Collinsworth uses a telestrator to point out play problems, is a bit broken. Sometimes on the PS3 it simply does not work (Collinsworth says nothing). Other times, he will recommend you do something worse than you did [e.g. throw into quadruple coverage instead of double coverage??]. However, usually, he’s spot on. The most common backtracks will involve showing a defensive mismatch (e.g. playing the run when the offense is in passing formation) or showing a mistake by the QB in the event of sack or interception (involves pointing out an open receiver that should have been thrown to). I wish he could do more, but generally most backtracks will involve one of these two things. Still very cool.
Gameplay:
(A)Glaring issues: Why exactly do play actions still not work against the PC? Why are QB sneaks still money yards? Why is bootlegging so effective? Why are slant patterns so effective? Playing against another human makes most of these non issues and is a lot more fun.
(B) At least tackling is more fluid. Fewer canned animations. More freedom.
(C)Replay challenges are broken. Sometimes you cannot challenge plays. Sometimes the booth or you will review something, clearly it will be incomplete, but they will rule it a catch. It is remarkable, considering NFL 2k5 did this right three years ago on a smaller budget with less than 20 years of experience.
(D) No changes to superstar or franchise. $60 gets you new grass but no improvement to these critical modes?
(E) The much vaunted game that adapts to you is fundamentally a bad idea. People don’t play games so that all their games are always close and hard to win. This is why Oblivion failed — the player loses incentive to get better if all it does is make the AI cheat more to counter him.
Problem #1 – Madden test is broken. Pass defense drill is much harder than the others, which are very very easy.
Problem #2 – you can’t use sliders to adjust the difficulty with it. Big problem for those who like to customize the difficulty.
Problem #3 – the game just cheats to ‘adapt.’ If you pass well, expect your wide outs to just drop balls for no reason. If you run well, expect your all star back to suddenly fumble a ton. It’s not a feature, it’s a problem, and it’s comical that EA is advertising it as a big improvement.
(F) Online leagues are not good. It’s more like an online round robin, not organized well at all. And there’s even some lag to boot.
(G) Madden moments lets you relive key moments from last season…with 2008-2009 rosters and no special presentation. Snore.
(H) In multiplayer, on the couch, when you’re trash talking and having fun, you can still have a really, really good time. But then again, you can do that with Madden 08. Or 07. Or 06. Or 05. I’d say pass on this one unless you’re gunning for multiplayer, in which case you’ll enjoy it — but realize this is nowhere near as good as it should be.
Review by Guy L. Gonzalez for Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition
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I was among the many disappointed football fans when EA snagged the exclusive NFL license and killed Take-Two’s superior ESPN series, just as it had surpassed the always fun but overrated Madden series with NFL 2K5. It’s been a few years now and, though I’ve moved on from the XBox and am fully addicted to the Wii, I still pull out 2K5 for a quick game every now and then when I need a football fix. After a few intense games getting a feel for Madden NFL 09 All-Play this weekend, though, that nostalgia bug may finally be dead.
For me, the two most important features of a good football game are realistic passing and logical controls and All-Play delivers both in spades. The motion controls are pretty intutitive, most involving movements I often made anyway with a traditional controller — think old-school pinball — but now actually having an affect on the gameplay. Power moves, jukes, interceptions, even celebrations are easier than ever to pull off and are believable in translation. And the passing game — still a bit too arcade-like for my tastes — is much smoother with everything from hiking the ball to tossing a lob or a bullet controlled by intuitive motions.
While the All Play features definitely make the game more accessible (and are optional; hard-core tradionalists can still use standard controls), it doesn’t quite acheive the literal “All Play” as the inherent learning curve of any decent football sim remains rather steep. I certainly won’t be playing against my 7-year old any time soon.
The best feature, though, is “Call Your Shots”, the ability to customize an audible by using the WiiMote to reroute any or all of your receivers after the play is called, telestrator-style, in any direction, cut or curl you can imagine. It works flawlessly and elevates Madden 09 to a new level that almost justifies the exclusive license.
Review by Corey for Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition
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There are an incredible number of options to make this game as simple or as complex as you’d like. That’s very refreshing considering how complex football games, especially Madden, became over the past decade.
First, the “All Play” option simplifies the game to the lowest common denominator. There are just a few motion controls for offense and a few for defense. Passes automatically go to the first open receiver yet you retain the basic option to throw left, right, or down the middle. Defense is even simpler. Wiggle the wiimote just before a hit to land a “Big Hit” to try and force a fumble. Basic running moves include sprints, spins, and jukes.
Next, there are 3 playbooks to choose from. Madden’s recommendation, the Basic Play Book, and an Advanced Playbook. Choosing the Basic Playbook gives you about a dozen plays on offense and defense. No more scrolling through screen after screen of baffling formations, routes, and coverages. Also by default in “All Play” mode there is no play clock, which means you can take your time selecting your play.
The motion controls add an element to the game that is very fun, especially for the quarterback. A quick snap of the wrist throws a bullet, while a large sweeping motion lobs a bomb. It’s a great feeling to drop back and lob a pass to a wide open receiver for an 80 yard touchdown. The motion-control passing controls are very satisfying in this regard.
If this is all too simple for you, you can disable “All Play” and play with all the Advanced Options that hardcore gamers are used to, including setting men in motion, formation changes, audibles, stiff arms, and on and on and on. Of course you can adjust just about every element of game play including quarter length, injuries, penalties, fatigue, and so on.
The game naturally allows you to advance at your own pace. After you’ve mastered “All Play” with the Basic Playbook, start using the Advanced Playbook. Mastered that? Turn off “All Play” and enable the Rookie difficulty mode. Mastered that? Move on to Pro. Then All Pro. Then All Madden!
Outside of an ordinary football game, you can play a 5-on-5 game, play in Franchise mode, play in Superstar mode, play trivia in Party Mode — it just goes on and on.
Years ago many of these football video games just became too complex for the casual gamer. Madden All Play finally changes that and allows the game to be legitimately casual, fun, and enjoyable. Yet, you can slowly adapt the game to become more and more complex, if you want.
Hardcore gamers should still find everything they’re used to just by disabling “All Play” and choosing an appropiate difficulty level.
The best football game on the best platform. Highly recommended.