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 1 of 3

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.