Twenty years of Madden? Twenty years since Trip Hawkins and John Madden hammered out the idea on a train to Oakland, and Electronic Arts made skinny fans feel like a little bit like self-confident, football-playing Masters of the Universe? Once Madden was released, we were all Paper Lions, just like George Plimpton.

A damn score of years, two long decades. How old does that make you feel? It makes me feel utterly ancient, yeah, but somehow inwardly proud to have seen virtual football players evolve from stick figures on the Apple computer, to cartoon sprites on the Sega Genesis, then nearer to reality in Madden NFL 09. As anthropologist Ashley Montagu wryly spewed, "I want to die young at a ripe old age," and playing Madden, when it's good, is one of the gaming joys that keep me young.


But is the PSP version a worthy 20th anniversary gift to gamers? The quick answer is, not quite. While it's a serviceable game, not much has changed from last year's version. In the console version, the biggest spin from the EA folks regarding Madden NFL 09 is the idea that the game will adapt to your style of play using what they call the Adaptive Difficulty Engine. It involves carefully testing your abilities before you start the season and taking your results into the season.

But that prime feature is not present in the PSP version. I guess it was too much code for the handheld to handle. Yet you will find that the graphics are steps up from last year's version.

While the movements of players in John Madden's game have become more natural over the years, they still have been somewhat robotic and alien-like. This year, the movements are more like the complex human engine that we are. As they run the field, they're not completely lifelike, but they appear to possess more than a few of our 206 human bones and 639 muscles to move. While the players don't seem to have seem to have the personality they have in the in the console iteration, console-quality artificial intelligence just can't be placed in a handheld game. There's not enough space on that UMD.

The idea of having a handheld Madden is a good one, and certainly this is better than the Nintendo DS game. True Madden addicts are loyal fans who have to have a Madden fix daily, on the train, bus or the subway. Hey, as long as they use the headphones so I don't have to hear middling, grade D-celebrity-dating bands like Good Charlotte on the Madden soundtrack, I'm totally down with the obsession.

It's no news to you that there's a huge push at game companies to make more intense and intelligent games playable for new gamers and casual gamers. This trend appears in Madden NFL 09 on the PSP in the form Rookie mode that's quite a breeze to play. If you're a hardcore gamer, you won't mind that new folks are getting into the landmark football game through a mode that's technologically a no-brainer to play. Here, the X button rules the roost, and it'll get a newbie playing Madden quicker than Chad Pennington was made a second-string quarterback once Brett Favre stormed into the Jets' training camp.

You just might like the player indicators that pop up as you try to throw the ball, especially because you're playing on a small screen with small players. Here, the button icons show you who's free from defensive stalkers and who's covered tight like a pickle in a jar. It's a nice touch all around. On defense, there's a camera that's supposed to make you feel like you're a behind-the-line killer after the ball's snapped. The camera rotates 180 degrees. It doesn't add so much to the defensive experience, however, which is much weaker in the Sony handheld than in the console.

One of the things I don't like is that each year, there's less and less of Madden in the game. Some have said this is a good thing, indicating that Madden is too old, even that he's going senile. In my mind, the game isn't complete without the folksy, knowledgeable persona that John Madden has so carefully crafted and honed over the years. (Right, I know. He uses the "F" word in off-camera conversation a lot. But in the game, he's Big Daddy Football and that's how I want it to stay.)

In the console version, there's this time travel thing called BackTrack. On the surface, it's pretty intense. You go back prior to the play to discover, via Cris Collingsworth, what went wrong with your coaching, passing, catching and the like. Then you re-do the play. It's supposed to level the playing field between veteran players and the novices. There's no BackTrack or rewind feature in the PSP version. Part of me is glad about this -- the part of me that's a true football aficionado who knows there are few second chances on the field. But another part of me -- the part that wants a real deal for consumers who have to spend their hard-earned coin -- wants new idea upon new idea.

What you do get with this version are completely challenging, sometimes maddening, Superstar Challenges. You could think of these as mini-games, but that would be demeaning, considering how the term "mini-games" has come to be equated with some of the shovelware that hits the Wii every month. Imagine being put into some of the most heart-pounding, treacherous gameplay moments of the 2007 season. Imagine feeling the tension, the fear, the focus of playing in the game of your life. At its best, that's what Superstar Challenge gives you.

I always struggle to understand other reviewers who say online play is seamless when they review a game. Look, with any online game, you're going to have glitches and frame-rate drops, especially if you play for, say, an hour or longer. The glitches in Madden NFL '09 for the PSP in are minimal. But they will happen when playing over the Web (although I was never kicked off a game due to technical errors). Also online, I did have to wait a few minutes to find someone to play against. And that's the Super Bowl-winning question: Are enough people buying Madden NFL 09on the PSP to make online play an endeavor that's rife with opponents of all shapes and sizes?

Franchise play is the mode that's closest to the depth of the console version. Here, you'll spend weeks climbing the ladder of respectability in your division. It's not that different from last year's game, though you do have the boon of new rosters and stats. One of problems I have with all sports games on a handheld is shrinking down the spectacle, the bigness, the veritable godliness of a coliseum event to a small screen. Sure, the PSP disk will beat the DS cartridge any day. But it's still small. Even if you can attach it to your PlayStation 3 to play on a larger screen, you can't do that on the road. EA does try to ameliorate this with close-ups and cut scenes, along with jarring sounds from the gridiron. But sometimes, the teeny screen gets to me.

And having Brett Favre on the cover in his no-longer-valid Green Bay Packer uniform does make the game seem somehow dated even on its first day of launch. Favre, after all, is now a New York Jet. (You can download a new cover, but who wants to take the time to do that? And then what do you do? Scotch tape the Jet's Gang Green goods over the Green Bay uniform? I still wonder why EA didn't choose New York Giant and Super Bowl winner Eli Manning for their cover athlete. Favre is the past, albeit an amazing Super Bowl winner, but Manning is the future, not to mention the game's demographic.) If you can forget about the cover, inside the box is a game that'll keep your jones going on the road, but it just doesn't have the extra-feature oomph to make it an immediate buy.

Finally, someone needs to add a proper football primer to the game, one that clearly explains the plays in layman's English. For instance, when exactly should I play the Nickel, the Dime or the Dollar defense and what are the pros and cons of each? A good designer or writer could strip each play down to a clear, focused sentence or two. In the PSP version, these tips could simply be text on a colored background so they wouldn't take up too much space on the disk. So why isn't it there now?

Madden NFL 09 for the PSP is a worthy game, but it needs more to make it a no-brainer addition to your collection on this, the 20th anniversary of the most important sports game ever made. Remember, these are troubled economic times. If you're not a stat and trade junkie or if you don't have those extra 40 simoleans in a time of recession, last year's Madden on the PSP will serve you just fine.