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 into 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 proud to have seen virtual football players evolve from stick figures on the Apple computer, to cartoon sprites on the Sega Genesis, toand much near -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 Nintendo DS version a worthy 20th anniversary gift to gamers? The quick answer is, not so much. While it's a mode-packed game seemingly full of variety, not much has changed from last year's version. In the other console versions, EA's most highly touted Madden NFL 09 accomplishment has been the idea that the game will adapt to your style of play. Yes, in the past you've had everything from Rookie to Superstar difficulty modes to help accustom you to the gridiron. But this is supposedly more intelligent altogether, and they make it sound more impressive and scientific than it really is by calling it 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 DS version. I guess it was too much code for the handheld to handle.

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 it's as if they possess more than a few of our 206 human bones and 639 muscles to move. Players seem to have a kind of personality, too, as if some of their signature plays have been added to the offering. I'd still like to hear, say, Ray Lewis' trash-talking before plays, but then Madden wouldn't be an E-rated game.

The idea of having a handheld Madden is a good one, but this one doesn't make proper use of the DS' touch-screen capabilities. If they can let you draw a play in the casual-oriented Madden All-Play, they can surely let you draw a play on the Nintendo handheld. True Madden addicts need a real Madden fix daily, on the train, bus or subway. But it looks like EA spent more time on minutia like mini-games (one memory game makes me feel like I'm back in kindergarten with flashcards) than on rethinking the button versus touch-screen concept. If you could create plays on the fly by drawing them, the game would be so much closer to being a winner.

It's not that you can't use the touch-screen. You can touch a kick meter to power your kick. For passing, you can tap the receiver icon or slide an icon near the receiver. But you can't hurry up the offense or use the defensive playmaker option. You have to revert to the old controls to do that. So it's not just a complex game, as most Maddens are; it's also a confusing game.

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.

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, though, 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 for Madden going while you're 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. On the DS, these tips could simply be text on a colored background, and wouldn't take up too much space on the disk. So why isn't it there now?

Madden NFL 09 for the DS is a disappointing game, and needs more to be a no-brainer addition to your collection on 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 30 simoleans in a time of recession, last year's Madden on the DS will serve you just fine.

This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.