EA Announces Madden NFL 09 Ship Date and Special Collector’s Edition

[MildlyPsycho]

What the hell? This company confuses me so much. Why release these too titles at the same time? And with that they force consumers to buy something that they might not really want.

And what is classic Madden gameplay? Is that Madden '95? That is what I want. An updated roster version of that game.

[jake44np]

EA is smoking crack if they think I am going to spend $90 on two bad games!!

[eDotd]

Quote: Originally Posted by Steve_OS

Last year’s Madden NFL 08 was honored with various awards, including the 2007 Game Critics “Best Sports Game” award at last year’s E3 Media and Business Summit, “Best Team Sports Game” from the Spike TV Video Games Awards, “Best Sports Game of the Year” by GameTrailers’ 2007 Game of the Year Awards, GameSpot’s “Best Sports Game” Reader’s Choice Award, and the “Best Sports Games” of 2007 by MSNBC. Over the past 20 years, the Madden NFL franchise has sold over 70 million* copies and has been established as one of the most revered sports video games in the industry. Since 2002, Madden NFL has been the number one selling sports game** each year in North America.

Wow, is that true? If so that's a shame.

Also the head coach play book importing sounds pretty cool.

[CPRoark]

Quote: Originally Posted by Kev5890

How about you look up some of the games features, it has a right to be a stand alone game..and EA just did us a favor

As I see it, that's the problem: Head Coach should be a stand alone game. This "deal" is only good for those who were already planning to buy Madden and who may have been interested in HC09. As it is, it's forcing those of us who were only ever interested in HC09 to either buy an extremely expensive collector's edition or not play the game.

As disappointed as I've been by "next-gen" Madden's, I'm leaning toward not buying. That or wait till Gamestop starts selling unbundled used versions at $50 a piece.

[coogrfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by MildlyPsycho

What the hell? This company confuses me so much. Why release these too titles at the same time? And with that they force consumers to buy something that they might not really want.

I'm 99.9% certain that there will be a non-collector's version of Madden as well.

Quote: Originally Posted by MildlyPsycho

And what is classic Madden gameplay? Is that Madden '95? That is what I want. An updated roster version of that game.

It's a nostalgia trip for us old-timers, it isn't like you would be paying extra for it.

[Kevin26385]

Things like this have me very excited for the presentation part of the game. That looks like Adam Shefter in Full 3D giving you his news.

I seriously cannot wait to see if they combined the NFL Network into the game, or ESPN or both.

Maybe NFL head coach is powered by the NFL Network and maybe Madden is powered by the ESPN Network.

[jake44np]

There is no way I am spending $90 on this, I couldnt stand Madden or NFL Head Coach last year.

[ewto16]

Quote: Originally Posted by Kev5890

How about you look up some of the games features, it has a right to be a stand alone game..and EA just did us a favor

Cool, I just did that. Here is what I saw and think.

Coach Clipboard - Wow, neat name for a menu system that I'll use throught the game. Color me terribly unimpressed.

Team Campuses - Probably 1 - 6 different models that all just have different skins applied to them to make them match your team. In no way will they resemble the actual campus of the team. Sounds like a graphically intense way to tell me if it is sunny, windy, raining, or snowing. Based on previous iterations of Madden, these conditions will be meaningless anyway.

Approval Rating - This is the point of the game. Get a high approval rating. Coach well and the CPO Owner will approve. Seems simple enough, though not really groundbreaking.

Career Starting Point - Again, this was in last years game. Wow, I can recreate the most recent draft. Nice feature I guess, but nothing new.

Active sideline - This sounds pretty neat. Little cutscenes for certain actions your coach will take. Only 300 though. Not a whole lot, and after seeing your kicker start to warm-up for the 10th time, you will probably skip it. Doesn't effect gameplay. Would be REALLY cool if this was just in Madden

In game Play Creator - Playbook editor that should have been in Madden already. The AI can't handle the little shifts that you make manually in the game already. I can only imagine the exploits that can be created with this.

Defining Moments - Fancy name for scoring certain parts of the game for your approval rating. Shouldn't the game do this anyway? If you always make a bonehead call with the game on the line, shouldn't your approval rating go down?

Bah, I got tired of listing all these, but you can see that most of them are just window dressing or fancy names that are a bullet point for something that should just be standard. There are a ton of off-season features (future draft pick trades, CPU Trades, Live bidding for free agents, expanded rosters, etc.)that people have been asking for in Madden for years that they included in this instead. Should have put them in Madden first.

In fact the NFLHC web site is polite enough to remind us that people have been asking for these features to be included in Madden forever, but put them here instead.

If you truly beleive that EA would rather do you a "favor" and sell you a game for $30 bucks, instead of making more money off it by selling it for $60 and offering the same integration with Madden, then you are truly the type of sucker that EA is looking to get to buy this version of the game.