Madden NFL 09 hands-on report
by 
Some of what I will detail from my time with Madden 09 was covered through my live blog from the studio but I have tons more to add to it. I’ve also included a few videos throughout the write-up. As I mentioned as the blog began I have a completely different feeling about the game this year compared to how I felt last year. That is accented even more by how it is still a few months to go until release. Outside of a few bugs, which were reported to the producers and some already having been fixed by the time we left the studio, it felt like a game that was prepared for release.
Originally I didn’t want to be too enthusiastic considering how my thoughts could’ve changed as the day progressed. However I left with the same general feeling as I began with. Last year, playing the actual release copies, I quickly identified the fumbles, poor o-line blocking, and overpowered kicking as issues that would be relatively serious. However with 09 I didn’t come across any of those type of things. Instead I passed along some feedback on minor areas along the lines of reducing the camera flashes and adding return plays with a single returner deep.
The first thing you do when you start up is determine your Madden IQ. I really hadn’t thought much about this feature going in, other than it tailoring to each person’s skills and being a benefit to the more casual gamers. But it was actually quite fun to run through. I came out with All-Pro grading on run offense, pass offense, and run defense, and rookie on pass defense.
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When you start up a game there are two different settings to choose from. The first is the “Skill Level” which is the normal All-Madden, All-Pro, Pro, and Rookie. There is also a custom for setting it yourself, or “My Skill” which is based on your Madden IQ. Then there is the “Gameplay Style” which is Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Hardcore. This is where the rewinds factor in. Beginner gets 5, Intermediate 3, Advanced 1, and Hardcore 0. The “Gameplay Style” also determines the type of presentation you’ll get. The amount of rewinds can be changed if you want. So if you prefer the beginner style of presentation you can still set the number of rewinds to 0.
Compared to NCAA, the player control feels slightly more responsive. The offensive stick moves don’t seem to be quite as sharp, but you have the ability to break out of tackles better.
Something I really like is that you can get big plays out of the short passing game. It isn’t as though only the deep ball will net you an explosive play. I had a slant that ended up going the distance. I don’t think I saw any big plays out of the running game in the ones I played though. On All-Madden difficulty the running backs were contained somewhat and on average were getting about four yards a carry.
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The pass defense does a great job defending the deep ball, and more so specifically the “jump” catches. Those spectacular catches from last year and the ones where a receiver sets and jumps straight up are usually negated by the defensive back swatting the ball, picking it off, or jarring the ball loose with a hit. The DB’s get high into the air to make plays and keep good position. Despite that I was able to complete a couple deep balls over the top when the receiver had a step or two advantage. It felt very fair when a deep pass was completed and I didn’t feel cheated one way or the other. Something neat is you’ll see the QB really get into a deep throw, lean back and throw it up higher than we have been used to. Looks much more natural in getting the power behind it and requires the QB have the time to do it.
Graphically, as already seen by the screenshots and videos, it’s a big step up this year. The player models look great, as does the grass or turf, and player faces are much improved. One thing that was noticed was how dirty the jerseys can get. In some rain games they were getting really muddied up. The weather overall looks great as well, both snow and rain. When raining you’ll see water splashing up from the player’s feet and footprints in the snow.
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The presentation really enhances the experience and isn’t just thrown on the top. The replays are well integrated, things are easy to access on the play call screen, and the commentary is quite good (especially Chris Collinsworth).
Russell went into franchise mode some and has screens and video to post along with his observations. I did notice that the Super Bowl has the logo on the field and in the end zones. Also the camera flashes are even more intense.
I was able to start up a few Superstar mode examples, and have some videos to show from it later this weekend. Basically not much has changed here, except like NCAA’s Campus Legend the camera angles have been fixed so they won’t swing around at a change of possession, and activities don’t have to be loaded into as often since you can string them together such as practices. The roles/influence remains, which is frustrating. Those should have just been scrapped. I really hate having to press buttons to clear out those screens. I just want to run through all the plays. The playcalling seemed to be better, though it was a small sample I saw. I just remember always having terrible plays called for the situation, knowing they would not be successful even before the snap. However I had no complaints about the play calls that were made. There is no editing of depth charts. You can import your NCAA Campus Legend, create a new Superstar, or take control of a rookie.
Some random notes: Not only did they add FG nets, but the nets raise before the kick and you see them lowered after. There are alternate jerseys as well as classic jerseys. I’ve seen comments after the previous videos were released that the scoreboard might be bothersome in its placement. I didn’t find it got in the way of the action at all. The new camera angle takes a slight adjustment to get used to but feels pretty natural and works really well. The camera shakes on hit sticks which really adds to the effect. Halftime/Postgame will show some highlights but there isn’t a “show”. Music has been added into practice mode. Not only does Madden talk you through the IQ test but he also leads into and out of games with some audio. They added the “David Tyree Catch”. Only seen it once, so as long as it’s rare it is pretty neat to see.
A few suggestions I made:
I’d still like to see the camera flashes toned down. They look great on the opening kickoff, but it should be more limited. They shouldn’t be going off throughout the game on every play. Limit it to the opening kickoff and big moments such as kneel downs at the end of a victory at home. That would also make them have more effect on the playoff games/Super Bowl. Also the camera flashes continued during visiting team celebrations which is awkward.
There needs to be a return play that has a single returner back. You can still keep it away from someone like Devin Hester by kicking towards the other side of the field. I would also like to see squib kicks.
Kickoff power is toned down, on average full powered kicks went about 4-6 yards into the end zone. However with a little wind (12mph) at your back they would go out the back of the end zone. Luckily if that isn’t adjusted a little more there are sliders for kickoff power. Field goal kicking is still really easy also, with 50+ yarders sailing through without much concern. You can also adjust the slider for field goal power. Though without sliders being available online that won’t be of as much comfort.
It was a limited amount of time with the game, but maybe looking into opening up the run a little more at least in All-Madden. I wasn’t bothered by the production, just that there didn’t seem to be potential for a big play from a run.
Something I mentioned about NCAA Football 09 also applies to Madden. You are defaulted into Special Teams after kicking off or punting which is annoying to have to back out of.
The Seahawks playbook didn’t have any shotgun formations. They have used the shotgun fairly often over the last two seasons.
Online Play:
I was a part of a discussion (which ended up being over an hour) with Ryan Ferwerda who leads the online play aspect of Madden. I’m going to list off a few things that I got direct answers to. He’s working towards wiping out the online records and stats for a clear slate (please do!), weather is random in both ranked and unranked games, alternate uniforms are not selectable, and the depth chart will not carry from offline. With created teams in unranked games you still won’t see the names of the opposition’s teams or players (concern with user created content possibilities). Roster updates should be at least as frequent as last year (they released eight) but they are hoping for even more. You will be able to watch all the saved plays from an online game afterwards and upload clips to EA Sports World.
Two things were basically guaranteed along the way. In Madden 2010 offline depth charts will carry over and alternate uniforms will be available. Basically they would like to make everything that is an option offline available for at least unranked games in the future.
There is a new player hub online, somewhat similar to the EA Messenger of old. This should come in handy especially for PS3 players. It has more to it than the old messenger though, with some aspects interacting with the web as well.
Online leagues were talked about quite a bit, much of which was already known, but if you have questions I can probably answer most of them. They really wanted to focus and get the base right so they could expand on it over the coming years. Some other things they are working towards are spectator mode and possibly saving/reconnecting into online games that were interrupted (which would eventually grown out of the in-game saves feature they will have next year). Those might not be next year but they are things that they would like to add in down the line.
Essentially it was very apparent that they know what the community would like, and that they would like many of those same things. But it comes down to issues such as prioritizing, connection quality, conflicts with the console manufacturers and their standards, and some of these features just being very difficult to implement.
Final Thoughts:
One of the best games I played of the day was against Tiburon Community Manager Will Kinsler. He held a 21-10 lead in the fourth but I was able to come back and tie it with about a minute remaining. He got a good kick return out to near the 45. After a few plays he was in position to attempt a 52 yard FG with only seconds left and the 12mph wind going against him. I was expecting it to come up short and had Josh Cribbs back to catch it. As it sailed I still thought I was going to get a chance to run it back but it went through and he was obviously very pleased with the outcome.
Untitled from Pasta Padre on Vimeo.
Overall I had more fun playing Madden 09 than any game at a previous event I have attended. I am attempting to contain my excitement about it given the circumstances, but feel confident in saying at least that much. On Saturday evening and Sunday look for additional content to be posted including all of the overall player ratings (I already posted all the 99’s in the comments of the live blog), team ratings (worst is Dolphins at 67 and top is Patriots at 97), more videos showing gameplay, presentation, and superstar mode, and more thoughts on the game that may come to mind by then.
May 31, 2008 at 6:00 pm
[quote comment="23178"]Can you see if during the Pro bowl, they have AFC and NFC helmets? I don’t think that it would take too much effort to have the players real team helmets on during the game.[/quote]
Madden 09 does not feature team specific helmets for the Pro Bowl. Ian Cummings talks about this in the latest Q&A at Operation Sports. Apparently, it’s not a simple fix.
May 31, 2008 at 6:43 pm
[quote comment="23180"][quote comment="23178"]Can you see if during the Pro bowl, they have AFC and NFC helmets? I don’t think that it would take too much effort to have the players real team helmets on during the game.[/quote]
Madden 09 does not feature team specific helmets for the Pro Bowl. Ian Cummings talks about this in the latest Q&A at Operation Sports. Apparently, it’s not a simple fix.[/quote]
i can understand it not being a simple fix but how come they can do it in last gen???? I just do not understand
May 31, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Hey Pasta,
First of all, I hope you’re feeling better and rested.
Any screens available of the online leagues interface? Curious about the set-up.
Thanks!
May 31, 2008 at 7:33 pm
[quote comment="23181"][quote comment="23180"][quote comment="23178"]Can you see if during the Pro bowl, they have AFC and NFC helmets? I don’t think that it would take too much effort to have the players real team helmets on during the game.[/quote]
Madden 09 does not feature team specific helmets for the Pro Bowl. Ian Cummings talks about this in the latest Q&A at Operation Sports. Apparently, it’s not a simple fix.[/quote]
i can understand it not being a simple fix but how come they can do it in last gen???? I just do not understand[/quote]
WARNING – FAIRLY LON MOOS-SPECULATION / RANT TO FOLLOW…it is personal opinion formed from discussions with producers AND a marketing rep and previous years of interaction with people both inside EA and inside other large businesses outside of gaming industry. In other words, this is not necessarily TRUE, but its my perception of the situation only….(And believe me, no one at Community Day took more ribbing for vocally bashing a new “feature” more than I did for tearing into “rewind”…)
Why could some things appear in last-gen and yet still be missing from current-gen versions?
Partly because in last-gen it honestly looked like crap anyway (and would look even worse on the current systems). One thing that gets constant short thrift is the fact that because something was done in last-gen and not now, it should be easy. Just not true – for one thing, the margin of error in last-gen (the things that could be put in the game even though they did not really look all that good anyway) has shrunk considerably. Things that look bad in the past now look absolutely horrible. One case in point for this is to actually run the games of last-gen side-by-side with current-gen on HDTV monitors and observe it for yourself – if you can’t do this, then you’ll have to take my word for it, they look atrociously bad.
The other thing is the law of unintended consequences. What that means is that in a complex program it is entirely possible to fix one thing and then end up unintentionally breaking something else. This comes directly from conversations with people who work in programming and have done coding and debugging on these type of games and not from me – hell, I think EVERYTHING should be easy when making these games, but I could write a single line of code to save my life…long, pointless, ramblings rants and I’m your man…actual functioning game code and I am more likely to break the PC than create something useful.
I agree that these things which seem like they should be easy – like on-field refs, interactive sidelines, additional online options and gameplay types, accurate stadium art work, accurate uniform details, etc. – SHOULD be higher priority items, but in all honesty they are NOT sound business decisions (ie. – fixing ALL of those things would be GREAT for about 15% of the total game audience, pretty cool to another 25% and totally unnoticed by the other 60%).
From a purely marketing perspective, that math does not favor prioritizing the “minor details” at the cost of something greater like improved physics, gang tackles, player model or player animations. See THOSE things appeal to the entire audience of the game and also serve to attract new buyers as well – as much as we all like to SAY that graphics don’t matter, the truth is that in retail gaming, THAT IS JUST NOT TRUE – graphics and appearances matter a huge amount to many, many people (and probably quite a few who might SAY they don’t, but deep down it really DOES matter!)…in fact, the graphics are “buying level decisions” for a great number of people.
When you add the two things together – a lack of top priority (meaning these things are NOT addressed in the early phases of planning and making the game) AND the law of unintended consequences (meaning that when time DOES open up for tweaks and adjustments to the game it can frequently cause major problems fixing one area only to see the cure break a different part of the game) and you get a very toxic enviroonment to make all the little tweaks we hardcore gamers and simulation realists might believe are the most important things. Bottom line (literally AND figuratively) is that those of us who DO care passionately about those issues – including many of the developers and producers – do not have final say and do not sign the checks to build the game.
As much as I would like to live in a world where profits and sales and margins did not have such a primary importance in business decisions, we do not live in that world. In the real world, EA KNOWS their stuff…you do not take a game like Madden from 3 million in total sales for Madden 2003 to 7 million in total sales for Madden NFL 2008 in 5 years time – or sell a single gaming franchise for 20 nearly consecutive years – by being as dumb as many of us would like to think EA is. Fact is that resources is not as much of the problem as priority. When the priority list is changed by the marketing and business interests, then the developers and programmers and producers will have free reign to add whatever they want (or that the community informs them that THEY want – sometimes over and over and over again) to the final game.
May 31, 2008 at 8:02 pm
does madden 09 have classic team
thanks Pasta
May 31, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Once again thanks for all the work you’ve done Pasta, I am not sure if I have thanked you for the stuff you’ve done for the community in these couple days. Good job man, don’t forget the small people at SG!
May 31, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Hey Pasta, do you think you can tell me about the super bowl? on current gen they have a whole celebration after it and before it, and in next gen they haven’t done much to make it really feel like an important game, thanks
May 31, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Pasta, thanks for the updates. With online leagues, do you know if there will be external websites that hold stats etc. outside of the 360/PS3?
May 31, 2008 at 9:05 pm
[quote comment="23192"]Pasta, thanks for the updates. With online leagues, do you know if there will be external websites that hold stats etc. outside of the 360/PS3?[/quote]
I don’t believe so this year.
[quote comment="23187"]Hey Pasta, do you think you can tell me about the super bowl? on current gen they have a whole celebration after it and before it, and in next gen they haven’t done much to make it really feel like an important game, thanks[/quote]
I didn’t get to see the end of the game, but there was some SB specific commentary, the camera flashes were more intense, and the field looked good with the logo (though not the team names in the end zone, instead the SB logo). There is more they can do to increase playoff/SB atmosphere for sure, but from what I saw it is at least a little better.
[quote comment="23141"]Pasta can you answer these from playing the game:
1. Are formation specific audibles back in this version?
2. Do QB’s lead the receiver better on deep balls especially when the WR gets a step on the DB. (last year it seemed many of them were always slightly underthrown and caused the receiver to slow down to catch them)
3. Does defensive playcalling have a bit more time this year to call their play after the offense calls theirs?
4. Last one. Have they changed the way the run/pass commit is activated? Too many times in last versions when controlling a LBer or Safety when activating the right stick to do the run/pass commit it would cause the defender to enter the hit stick animation and be out of position when the play began. Why not implement a button press to accomplish this before the ball is snapped? Or why not allow the awareness attribute to handle this. My blitzers really should not worry about play action on 3rd and 17!!![/quote]
1- At the play call screen you can make quick formation subs. Really easy to do.
2- Yes actually. I completed a couple deep balls over the top when my receiver had a step on the defender. It was pretty balanced though, not easy to complete but possible. And the ball lofts more this year.
3- For online? I believe it was mentioned to be 12 seconds instead of the 7 that we got last year.
4- Sorry, I didn’t even think of looking into the commit.
May 31, 2008 at 9:34 pm
hey pasta, thanx for the write up. what is the difference in presentation between hardcore and the other 3 modes?
May 31, 2008 at 9:38 pm
[quote comment="23192"]Pasta, thanks for the updates. With online leagues, do you know if there will be external websites that hold stats etc. outside of the 360/PS3?[/quote]
I thought they said that EA Sports World would do this? Maybe I got it wrong and was thinking of online Dynasty…
May 31, 2008 at 9:48 pm
[quote comment="23242"][quote comment="23192"]Pasta, thanks for the updates. With online leagues, do you know if there will be external websites that hold stats etc. outside of the 360/PS3?[/quote]
I thought they said that EA Sports World would do this? Maybe I got it wrong and was thinking of online Dynasty…[/quote]
Yeah, I think its just the online dynasty. Maybe we can get that clarified though.
[quote comment="23236"]hey pasta, thanx for the write up. what is the difference in presentation between hardcore and the other 3 modes?[/quote]
Things like the playcalling screen are displayed differently, more icons displayed on the lower ones, celebration squares of light on the lower ones but not hardcore, and more cut scenes in the beginner setting. Those are just a few things I remember.
May 31, 2008 at 9:49 pm
thanks alot for all the details doing a great job, do you know if you can save during a game? i know its a little thing but it was really good to have.
May 31, 2008 at 9:55 pm
[quote comment="23252"]thanks alot for all the details doing a great job, do you know if you can save during a game? i know its a little thing but it was really good to have.[/quote]
Not this year, but next year they’ll have in-game saves.
May 31, 2008 at 10:02 pm
damn okay thanks Pasta, its great to see how responsive you are, last question than i’m going to bed, is there any changes to the off season, like the rookie draft or free agents signing, etc.., thanks
May 31, 2008 at 10:13 pm
[quote comment="23260"]damn okay thanks Pasta, its great to see how responsive you are, last question than i’m going to bed, is there any changes to the off season, like the rookie draft or free agents signing, etc.., thanks[/quote]
I didn’t really look into that while I was there. I don’t think there have been any major changes to those things but in the blog EA is putting out about franchise mode coming up I’d expect them to detail all the improvements that were made that we may not be aware of.
June 1, 2008 at 12:54 am
[quote comment="23183"][quote comment="23181"][quote comment="23180"][quote comment="23178"]Can you see if during the Pro bowl, they have AFC and NFC helmets? I don’t think that it would take too much effort to have the players real team helmets on during the game.[/quote]
Madden 09 does not feature team specific helmets for the Pro Bowl. Ian Cummings talks about this in the latest Q&A at Operation Sports. Apparently, it’s not a simple fix.[/quote]
i can understand it not being a simple fix but how come they can do it in last gen???? I just do not understand[/quote]
WARNING – FAIRLY LON MOOS-SPECULATION / RANT TO FOLLOW…it is personal opinion formed from discussions with producers AND a marketing rep and previous years of interaction with people both inside EA and inside other large businesses outside of gaming industry. In other words, this is not necessarily TRUE, but its my perception of the situation only….(And believe me, no one at Community Day took more ribbing for vocally bashing a new “feature” more than I did for tearing into “rewind”…)
Why could some things appear in last-gen and yet still be missing from current-gen versions?
Partly because in last-gen it honestly looked like crap anyway (and would look even worse on the current systems). One thing that gets constant short thrift is the fact that because something was done in last-gen and not now, it should be easy. Just not true – for one thing, the margin of error in last-gen (the things that could be put in the game even though they did not really look all that good anyway) has shrunk considerably. Things that look bad in the past now look absolutely horrible. One case in point for this is to actually run the games of last-gen side-by-side with current-gen on HDTV monitors and observe it for yourself – if you can’t do this, then you’ll have to take my word for it, they look atrociously bad.
The other thing is the law of unintended consequences. What that means is that in a complex program it is entirely possible to fix one thing and then end up unintentionally breaking something else. This comes directly from conversations with people who work in programming and have done coding and debugging on these type of games and not from me – hell, I think EVERYTHING should be easy when making these games, but I could write a single line of code to save my life…long, pointless, ramblings rants and I’m your man…actual functioning game code and I am more likely to break the PC than create something useful.
I agree that these things which seem like they should be easy – like on-field refs, interactive sidelines, additional online options and gameplay types, accurate stadium art work, accurate uniform details, etc. – SHOULD be higher priority items, but in all honesty they are NOT sound business decisions (ie. – fixing ALL of those things would be GREAT for about 15% of the total game audience, pretty cool to another 25% and totally unnoticed by the other 60%).
From a purely marketing perspective, that math does not favor prioritizing the “minor details” at the cost of something greater like improved physics, gang tackles, player model or player animations. See THOSE things appeal to the entire audience of the game and also serve to attract new buyers as well – as much as we all like to SAY that graphics don’t matter, the truth is that in retail gaming, THAT IS JUST NOT TRUE – graphics and appearances matter a huge amount to many, many people (and probably quite a few who might SAY they don’t, but deep down it really DOES matter!)…in fact, the graphics are “buying level decisions” for a great number of people.
When you add the two things together – a lack of top priority (meaning these things are NOT addressed in the early phases of planning and making the game) AND the law of unintended consequences (meaning that when time DOES open up for tweaks and adjustments to the game it can frequently cause major problems fixing one area only to see the cure break a different part of the game) and you get a very toxic enviroonment to make all the little tweaks we hardcore gamers and simulation realists might believe are the most important things. Bottom line (literally AND figuratively) is that those of us who DO care passionately about those issues – including many of the developers and producers – do not have final say and do not sign the checks to build the game.
As much as I would like to live in a world where profits and sales and margins did not have such a primary importance in business decisions, we do not live in that world. In the real world, EA KNOWS their stuff…you do not take a game like Madden from 3 million in total sales for Madden 2003 to 7 million in total sales for Madden NFL 2008 in 5 years time – or sell a single gaming franchise for 20 nearly consecutive years – by being as dumb as many of us would like to think EA is. Fact is that resources is not as much of the problem as priority. When the priority list is changed by the marketing and business interests, then the developers and programmers and producers will have free reign to add whatever they want (or that the community informs them that THEY want – sometimes over and over and over again) to the final game.[/quote]
couldn’t have said it better myself…
June 1, 2008 at 1:07 am
Thanks for all the Info Pasta what about the defensive line this year can you actually run a realistic 3-4 defense with the nt creating double teams so the linebackers can make plays and has the offensive line play Improved?
June 1, 2008 at 1:38 am
Thanks for all your hard work Pastapadre. Hopefully if you find this quesiton can you tell me how the defenders react to balls when they are thrown? Immediately when the ball is thrown do they break to it or is there a short delay? Is there a noticeable difference between the reaction of times of good players and mediocre players?
Also, how often did you see d-linemen get pancked or for the most part did they stay on their feet even if they couldn’t get pass the o-linemen.
June 1, 2008 at 3:00 am
Agrees with Jonathon.
June 1, 2008 at 8:06 am
Hey Pasta is there a beginning to madden 09? like last year had brian dawkins pumping up his teammates, and also can u have full customization of players, like can u edit there names, attributes, postions, etc thanks for all the info
June 1, 2008 at 6:03 pm
With the new no pause replays are we going to be able to view replays in the same way online?
June 1, 2008 at 6:47 pm
[quote comment="23467"]With the new no pause replays are we going to be able to view replays in the same way online?[/quote]
You mean in the window? I believe it was stated that playing online looks just like playing a single player game offline. So that should be a yes. When it comes to uploading videos to EA Sports World the game saves every play and you can go back and find them after the game is over to save and upload.
[quote comment="23340"]Hey Pasta is there a beginning to madden 09? like last year had brian dawkins pumping up his teammates, and also can u have full customization of players, like can u edit there names, attributes, postions, etc thanks for all the info[/quote]
Sorry, I think I skipped whatever it loads into. All I remember is opening with the holographic Madden welcoming, but there may be something before that if you let it play through.
[quote comment="23299"]Thanks for all the Info Pasta what about the defensive line this year can you actually run a realistic 3-4 defense with the nt creating double teams so the linebackers can make plays and has the offensive line play Improved?[/quote]
Playing a 3-4 seemed effective, but I can’t speak to how the interaction was.
[quote comment="23304"]Thanks for all your hard work Pastapadre. Hopefully if you find this quesiton can you tell me how the defenders react to balls when they are thrown? Immediately when the ball is thrown do they break to it or is there a short delay? Is there a noticeable difference between the reaction of times of good players and mediocre players?
Also, how often did you see d-linemen get pancked or for the most part did they stay on their feet even if they couldn’t get pass the o-linemen.[/quote]
Tough for me to say at this point. I know the defense converges really well, so if you lob the ball up the safety may get over in time to get in on the play. I would say that ratings make a bigger difference this year, but as to reaction time I’m not sure.
June 1, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Hey Pasta, are there any changes to the Vision Cone this year? I don’t see one mention of it in your write-up and thought that was kinda odd…
Thanks!
June 2, 2008 at 1:13 am
Hey Pasta, i was wondering if they were going to come out with a blog on Campus legend/superstar mode? Also what things did college 09 do to fix and make better on campus legend? Does your QB still throw 6 ints a game while ur playing as a rb/wr etc..?
June 2, 2008 at 8:44 am
Hi Pasta, thanks for taking the time to do all this.
This year, are there alt and throwback unis for home and away, or just home like last year?
June 2, 2008 at 10:50 am
Can you still lateral the ball?
June 2, 2008 at 11:04 am
[quote comment="23613"]Can you still lateral the ball?[/quote]
Yes
[quote comment="23605"]Hi Pasta, thanks for taking the time to do all this.
This year, are there alt and throwback unis for home and away, or just home like last year?[/quote]
Not sure how it was structured. I think the home team basically gets to choose what they wear.
[quote comment="23525"]Hey Pasta, are there any changes to the Vision Cone this year? I don’t see one mention of it in your write-up and thought that was kinda odd…
Thanks![/quote]
Not sure, I don’t think anyone there used it.
June 2, 2008 at 2:02 pm
[quote]Pasta Padre wrote:
Not sure how it was structured. I think the home team basically gets to choose what they wear.[/quote]
Thanks for answering so quickly.
If it’s not too late in their development cycle, could you ask them to include the ability to choose the unis that both teams wear? It would be nice if, for example, we could set it up so that the Broncos could wear their home throwback against the Rams wearing their away throwback.
Thanks
June 2, 2008 at 6:29 pm
good stuff
June 3, 2008 at 12:28 am
Great Work Pasta. I came across your site today and Now I am Super Hype!!!!!
Thanks
Phat Kev
June 3, 2008 at 1:51 am
BTW, Corey Webster is missing from the Giants. Do you know what his rating is?
Thanks
June 4, 2008 at 10:45 am
Pasta, is there a visible difference between turf and grass, also does Gillete Stadium have the turf that was added 2 YEARS AGO!!!
June 4, 2008 at 11:29 am
Hey Pasta is there any new settings adding such as accelerated clock or more sliders….maybe a way to change the speed of the game?
June 4, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Pasta, did you notice anything different on kickoff return? Can someone actually return the ball further than the 30 yard line? (maybe I just suck lol)
June 4, 2008 at 9:37 pm
ADDED ON
I’ve never seen someone in all the online games I’ve played return a Kickoff for a TD. Not like it should happen often, but there should be a slightly higher chance.
June 12, 2008 at 12:47 am
Hey Pasta. Did you get to notice if they still have the HOF players this year? And did they add any new ones? thanks alot man.
June 12, 2008 at 9:57 am
Does the Online League portion have divisions or are all teams just clumped in one grouping a la 2k’s online leagues?
June 13, 2008 at 8:01 am
When you make the individual player subs so the changes stay when you go into the next play. So if I sub one of my fourth string recivers into a play will he stay in there when i use the same formation on later plays? Or do you have to resub them in every time.
June 13, 2008 at 9:31 am
Madden 09 is an unfinished product. So don’t believe all the hype that Pasta is giving you. He probably on EA payroll. That’s how EA rolls. Skip 09 and we’ll have a finished product in 2010.
June 18, 2008 at 7:02 am
hey mr. pasta,
i think what will be the deciding factor is which one has better gameplay. it seems that madden has the presentation but i love the college teams. which game plays better do u think? is there a big difference?
June 18, 2008 at 7:22 am
also pasta,
is there create a team? i doubt it tho. im dying to make my future high school team.
o yea,
is the post game kinda like all pro 2k8 with the highlights of the game? or is there just one highlight? i actually played 2k8 more than ncaa 08 cuz of the presentation.
June 21, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I noticed in the third video (CLE v DAL with DAL kicking off) that the offensive line play looks just as bad as last year.
In the first play after the kickoff the left side of the Browns line does nothing to stop the DE, who gets the sack.
wtf. how hard is it to fix that kind of stuff.
Pasta, did u notice the ‘08 o-line play in the ‘09 build u played?
Also, do they have Cleveland wearing white facemasks and not grey?
June 26, 2008 at 11:15 am
pasta u r a g man, thanks for all the info
one question were they still biased towards the bills this year?
and were the gloves updated?
July 16, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Does Madden 08 have new face masks like the one Tim Tebow has or Dennis Dixon had at Oregon?
August 20, 2008 at 2:29 pm
this game is awesome, i have the ps3 version, but how do i run the 40 yard dash in practice it looks like i keep tripping over my feet?