Madden NFL 09 Hits Stores

By Geoff Duncan August 12, 2008

Madden NFL 09 Hits Stores

Electronic Arts‘ latest update to its football franchise, Madden NFL 09, lands at retailers today…and already the curse of sports-video-game packaging has struck the game. Madden 09 boxes were originally to feature quarterback Bret Favre in that familiar Green Bay Packers uniform. But Favre went to the New York Jets last week, meaning Madden 09 is redoing its boxes with Favre in a Jet’s uniform.

Of course, in the game, players can have Favre play for any team they like.

Madden NFL 09 sports more than 80 new features and enhancements, including a Virtual Training Center that sets up the game’s difficulty level for individual players, and an interactive tutorial mode that teaches players basic football strategy and how to use the game controls. Furthermore, the game will adapt to players’ skills as they progress through the game, adjusting the difficulty level as their “Madden IQ” develops.

The game also features a new BackTrack tool that lets players replay and take apart key game plays and figure out how they could have done better. The game also features more realistic weather and stadium models, and the ability to create online leagues with up to 32 teams—including the ability to trade players between teams.

Madden NFL 09 also represents the 20th anniversary of the football franchise: more than 70 million Madden titles have been sold to date.

Madden NFL 09 is available for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and the PlayStation Portable. It’s rated E for “Everyone” by the ESRB.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Gaming

How to pre-order Madden NFL 23: retailers, editions, and bonuses

This mid-air hit is an example of one of Madden NFL 23's new disruptive FieldSense animations.

Down, set ... hike! It's a yearly tradition for the biggest, best Madden title to drop in near the end of summer and this year is no exception. Madden NFL 23 has fans of both games and the physical sport joining together in shared excitement for this latest installment in the quintessential football simulation game. Madden NFL 23 will let you carve your own rise into the ranks of the best players of all time, go behind the scenes in the Franchise mode to scout players, facilitate trades, manage your staff, or even build an unstoppable dream team in Madden Ultimate Team.

Madden games have come a long way since the early entries on the early consoles. Madden NFL 23 is a full-on service game, with its own currency and progression to keep the game fresh and relevant all season long. While you could just grab the game after release, hardcore fans of the game who know they will be investing more than the initial asking price should check out what extras there are available for pre-ordering, as well as if the extra content included in the different editions speaks to you. Here's everything you need to know about how to pre-order Madden NFL 23.

Gaming

Madden NFL 23’s development was somber and self-aware

This mid-air hit is an example of one of Madden NFL 23's new disruptive FieldSense animations.

While EA's Madden football games often top sales charts every year, those sales haven't reflected quality. The critical consensus on the series has been on the decline in recent years, and Madden NFL 22 was riddled with bugs that hampered the experience. Thankfully, the developers are aware of Madden's flaws and trying to improve its signature gameplay with Madden NFL 23.
Madden 23 Official Reveal Trailer
Speaking to Digital Trends, Executive Producer of Gameplay Aaron McHardy painted a picture of a more somber and reflective development of Madden NFL 23 as EA Tiburon mourned rthe passing of series namesake John Madden and tried to make up for the franchise's past failures. While Digital Trends hasn't gone hands-on with the game yet, McHardy highlights that Madden NFL 23 will address many issues fans have thanks to a plethora of bug fixes and a new suite of features called FieldSENSE that touches every part of the experience.
"The investment in FieldSENSE, bug fixes, and gameplay was so big because we know FieldSENSE hits whether you're playing Franchise, Ultimate Team, The Yard, or a quick match with a friend on your couch," McHardy tells Digital Trends. "It's exciting because it hits every part of the game, every mode you're playing. We feel like anyone who plays Madden NFL 23 can really feel something new and different in the game this year."
Check out our Summer Gaming Marathon hub
Exterminating bugs
Before the team could make Madden NFL 23's gameplay better, they had to fix what was broken already. The past few Madden titles have all been riddled with bugs, and the situation got worse than ever with Madden NFL 22. The annual release schedule and pandemic had finally caught up to EA Tiburon's game quality. McHardy outlined the steps the developers are taking to ensure it (hopefully) doesn't happen again.
"We looked at how we developed the game and scoured the internet, and actually got our QA department to, within our dev tools, log every complaint that we could find to track them," McHardy explains. "Where possible, we'd go in and analyze that to figure out what the actual issue was that was causing someone to complain. If there was a video, we put it in our database, and if it was a general complaint about an area of our game, we'd gather them all together and figure out what all the issues are."
"We are hyperfocused on making the most polished game that we can."

This process was thorough, as the developers ended up with a list of "hundreds" of bugs and issues that EA Tiburon could improve. The team then fixed some issues as part of Madden NFL 22's live-service updates and took anything they couldn't fix into account when planning Madden NFL 23's development.
"In the way that we plan new features every year, we were also planning fixes for all of those bugs to make sure that we fixed them and also have time left to catch new ones we are creating," he said. "Polish was a big thing for us on the team this year, so while there are still some bugs because we aren't finished, we feel like the game is already in a better position this year than it was at this time last year. We are hyperfocused on making the most polished game that we can."
We won't know for sure whether or not this will all really pan out until the game is in our hands this August, but it seems like EA knows where it messed up and wants to do better.
Sensible changes

Gaming

The history of the Madden Curse

John Madden bursts through the cover of Madden NFL 23: All Madden Edition.

More than 20 years into the iconic franchise's history, there's almost no escaping the Madden Curse. Since Garrison Hearst broke his ankle in 1998 shortly after appearing on the cover of Madden NFL 99, most of the players who starred on the game's cover have suffered an injury the following season. Of the 22 players who have been selected to grace the cover of Madden games, 16 have had troubling or abruptly shortened seasons following their cover debut -- including several who suffered season-ending injuries shortly after their game hit shelves.

EA Sports continues to dismiss any serious talk of a curse hovering over its wildly successful franchise and attributed the rash of injuries and other negative, post-cover issues to an athlete's natural regression after a season of peak performance. They're probably right -- but Madden NFL 21 gave us another chance to test the curse. Lamar Jackson seemingly passed the test, but the injury bug plagued the Ravens backfield a season later in the form of season-ending injuries to all their running backs.