May 21, 2008 - It's been said that people should learn to appreciate the little things in life. The same is also true for Madden football. Madden 09 does not redefine videogame football. It doesn't take the classic Madden formula and turn it upside down. What it does do is it takes so many of the little things from last year's game and improves on them exponentially. They aren't details that can be seen by watching a short gameplay clip or looking at screenshots. They're the things that you don't realize about the game until you pick it up and play it for yourself, something that I was lucky enough to do recently at EA Sports' Tiburon studio. I played several games with a bunch of different teams on a handful of fields and can say with confidence that Madden 09 improves on last year's impressive effort.
The first thing you'll see when you boot up Madden 09 is the man himself, John Madden. He's been removed more and more from the Madden football presentation and gameplay over the past few years, but now he's back delivering introductions to the new Virtual Trainer feature that players can use to acclimate themselves to the flow of this year's gameplay. There are four challenges that you have the option of completing that will set the mark for your Madden IQ and thus your custom difficulty level (click here to read more about Madden IQ and the Virtual Trainer). There's rushing defense, rushing offense, passing defense and passing offense.
The rushing offense challenge, which happened to be the first in the set, was also my favorite. It's essentially a constant stream of defenders with a couple of blockers leading the way. It teaches you how to follow your blockers and the button prompts over the head of your running back help you get a feel for when special moves need to be executed. The difficulty continued to ramp up on me until it felt almost like I was in a fighting game and had to combo moves together. It was all very fluid and would have looked very natural if not for the Tron-like overlay that coats all of the Virtual Trainer action.
Moving the ball through the air still needed some tuning in the Virtual Trainer as some of the AI chosen routes were streaks to the back of the endzone. Anyone who has played Madden knows that the chance of completing a long bomb is much less than an out or even a fade route. The developer watching me play said that the team was aware of the bug and it would be fixed in time for release.
At the end of the Trainer John pops back up on the screen along with a nifty graphical overlay that gauges your skill level in each of the four areas. That is your My Skill difficulty level. You can use it if you want or you can revert back to the four classic options. At the end of each game you play the same overlay pops up and it will adjust your skill level accordingly. You can then hop into the VT and practice any of the four categories if you so desire. The goal behind the My Skill difficulty is to allow for the player to never mess with the settings manually. No more messing with sliders, no more tuning things to your liking. If the My Skill setting works out, this should all be automated. Note the word "should."
Did I feel that playing through the Virtual Trainer and listening to Madden give his speeches was a waste of time? Surprisingly, no. I was among the skeptics when I first read the news of a cheesy-sounding training simulation, but the introductory style approach when you first start up Madden 09 is a nice change. The challenges are short and fun for the most part and there's still plenty of time to tune the experience before August.
But you're not reading this preview for impressions on the gameplay in the training simulator of Madden 09. You want to know about the on-the-field gameplay -- what it's like to run around in front of 70,000 drunken Monday morning quarterbacks. Like I said in the beginning, there are numerous small details that flesh out the presentation beyond anything that we've seen from the series prior.
The kickoff, for instance, now features a dramatic camera swoop that heightens the excitement just that much more. Flash bulbs are going off in the crowd, which has a nice, hazy depth-of-field effect cast over it that, along with a newly designed dynamic camera system, helps give a greater sense of size to the environment. Before the kicker's foot makes contact with the ball you'll notice – if you're the type to check for the most minute of details – players on the receiving team are no longer in a robotic ready position.
They're now moving around, stretching and quite simply just behaving more like true-to-life football players than they have before. There are camera crews on the sideline (we don't mean just one, we mean several camera guys including the annoying crane-operated one that always gets in my way when I'm at a game), and an abundance of player models and coaches on the sideline that bring even more authenticity into the experience. There's a new score presentation; every game begins with an elegant external shot of the home stadium followed by an overhead blimp cam of the firework-filled introductions for the teams; and there's the new duo of Cris Collinsworth and Tom Hammond.
Count up all of the new little details I just rattled off and then realize that the ball is still sitting on its tee.
One of my first kickoff experiences saw me foolishly reposition the kick returner before actually receiving the ball. Knowing that in past games the AI had trouble with receiving punts and kicks when not in perfect position, my heart began to sink a bit. As the ball made its way downward my player began to jog up to the target zone. Movement and catching kickoffs do not mix as it typically results in a ball to the head, chest or shoulder and a frustrating fumble followed promptly by me hurling my controller across the room and implanting it into the wall. Not so in Madden 09.
Tiburon is implementing technology called inverse kinematics that works on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Offensively, and this applies to kickoffs and punts too, receivers' hands are no longer handcuffed to the body's animation. If the receiver starts his reception animation and his hands would have been on his left shoulder with the old system, but the ball comes in at his right hip because of a slightly late throw, your guys will now be able to adjust effectively. This is exactly what saved my ass on the aforementioned kickoff as my return man was able to raise his hands up and create an admittedly awkward, but still effective, over-the-head catch that would have been impossible in Madden 08.
The breakaway animations that were introduced in last year's game have been improved too. Now, even if you are wrapped up, you can see your player at least attempt to get out of the tackle with a chosen move. You might not break out of the move every time, but seeing your player struggle and fail with a spin or juke while being dragged down is undeniably cool. The only thing better is when you string together a few juke moves and evade the outstretched hands of a few defenders on a single play. One move seamlessly blends into the next even better than it did last year.
The graphical presentation of the players, field and stadium have also been improved. Player models, while they didn't strike us as unathletic or blocky last year, clearly were in comparison to what's in Madden 09. Players now look like the world-class athletes that they are. It's not a huge change, but with a new art director sculpting the look of this year's game, it's clear that he's making his presence felt. There are also dynamic reflections on the player's helmets that show the stadium and field warping around their shiny domes realistically as they move around the field.
And the grass that we've talked about before -- yeah, it's better. Don't ask how they've made blades of grass look better, but they have. Now let's move on. Clear and colored visors for certain players are back, and after-the-play actions like jumping on a ball that the AI thinks is a fumble. It's these tiny little touches that add that layer of reality that was previously missing.
The in-game presentation values are also upped by the fact that Madden 09 is the first football game to attempt to offer actual analysis by its commentators. Cris Collinsworth uses the telestrater to highlight open men that you should have hit in the new Backtrack feature that's in the game. While there were a few bugs that needed to be worked out – things like him calling out receivers that were actually covered happened rarely. After his analysis you can then use the Rewind (mulligan) system to try the play again if you have that feature turned on. Keep in mind that it's not available in online games and can be turned off or set to 1, 3, 5 or unlimited uses in single-player games.
EA Sports has also redone the passing camera that used to cause undue frustration. Remember when scrambling to the right or left totally cut off the opposite side of the field? Well that doesn't happen anymore. All of your receivers on are on the screen at all times, no matter where their route takes them. The camera dynamically moves to keep them in the frame without being obtrusive to the flow of gameplay.
Aside from the retooled passing camera, there are two new kinds of camera techniques that are used during specific instances in a game. First, as seen in UEFA and FIFA, is the breakaway cam. Basically when a player is on a breakaway, all by himself towards the endzone, the camera switches to a third-person camera and shakes in a way that is reminiscent of the roadie-run from Gears of War. I'd actually like to see them expand this to some running plays, but this first effort worked well when we were able to activate it.
The next dramatic use for the in-game camera is the new big hit movement. No, you won't see the camera zoom in or the action slow down (it's been done to death, people) but you will see the camera shake, almost like it just got punched in the mouth at the moment of impact. Again, like other additions, it's small but has impact.
The franchise mode, while not discussed in full detail during our demo, is also getting its share of the attention. In the real NFL, rivalry games are not about records and there are no favorites. Teams just play their hearts and rely on emotion to carry them through. Now in Madden 09, if you're playing as the last place Colts and the first place Jaguars come into town, the Colts are going to get a bit of an adrenaline boost and play a bit better than they would have in a normal matchup. Collinsworth and Hammond also recorded unique commentary for rivalry matchups so there will hopefully be a bit of a heightened sense of importance for those games.
Custom celebrations, something that UEFA Euro 2008 employed to moderate success, is making its first appearance in Madden and it's a much better fit for the American football world than the European alternative. TO has 12 or 13 unique celebrations that are reserved only for his use, many of which you'll recognize from the highlight reel. There's the Lambeau Leap, the Pom Pom Dance, and many others that we'll save for you to discover on your own.
The one caveat I want to convey to people reading this with regard to all of the new gameplay touches, tweaks and additions that have been made to Madden 09 is that we haven't played enough of it to determine if they get stale or become recycled over time. It's a reasonable assumption that we'll start to see some of these new animations make consecutive appearances after awhile, we're just hoping that doesn't happen for some time. We'll have a more detailed report when we get an in-office build to put through its full paces.
There are team specific playbooks that have been designed for every squad in the league for both offense and defense. There's also a new stat simulation system that will hopefully ensure the validity of statistics for those fantasy junkies who just want to assemble squads and sim their way through a season. We're hoping that means no more multi-2,000-yard rushers.
There are other additions to the aforementioned difficulty settings that change the complexities with regard to button mapping and play calling (the A-button can become a catch-all action button and the AI can control your play calling just as they do in Superstar mode) but we'll save those for another preview piece. For now we'll just let you absorb all of the new little features that have been tossed into the Madden machine. It may not be the massive overhaul that Madden haters clamor for, but it should be plenty to please even the most relaxed of football fans.
Madden 09 releases on August 12 on every game machine known to man. Yes, that includes the original Xbox.
Let's get this party started.
Chilly
Punch it in for six.
Look for the open man.
It's Tron football!!
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