Madden NFL 09 (DS)

There's no denying that the DS version is the weakest of the Madden NFL 09 formats.
8/20/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

The graphics of each stadium and even the cloud-filled blue sky are impressive. But the player graphics look five years old at best. The offense and defense move like they're shuffling along, not running. And the announcer AI doesn't seem to know when it's utterly stupid to call a play. For instance, I called a passing play from a punt formation on fourth down on my 10-yard line. Neither Madden nor Al Michaels gave me a "What was he thinking?" wrap-up. Instead, Madden gave a pointer on how a passing play should proceed.

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

What you do get with the DS version is one completely challenging, sometimes maddening, mini-game called Last-Minute Miracle. The seconds have ticked away in the Fourth Quarter, and you must return a kickoff all the way down the field to win the game by tossing the play laterally to a teammate. It's a ton of fun. But they've also added the aforementioned memory game, Playbook Flash, in which you memorize the play and then draw it on the touch-screen. This is reminiscent of the oft-hated Nintendo Brain Games and is useless to me. I like casual games, but this Madden moment is just shovelware.

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 DS in are minimal. But they will happen (although I was never kicked off a game due to technical errors), and 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 09 on the DS to make online play rife with opponents of all shapes and sizes?

Franchise play is the mode that's closest to the depth of the console versions. Here, you'll spend weeks climbing the ladder of respectability in your division. It's not that different from last year's game, but you do have the boon of new rosters and stats. Yet one problem I have with all handheld sports games is that they shrink down the spectacle, the bigness, the veritable godliness of a coliseum event to a small screen. Sure, the DS has two screens, and it'd be great if, during big plays, both of them could be used to make the game feel bigger, brighter and more boisterous. But the top screen is devoted to the playbook and the bottom to the during-play graphics. EA used to have a tagline, spewed by a tough-voiced announcer: "It's in the game." But what's in the game here is just too darn small, and so 2004.