In his latest forum posting, Madden 09 lead producer Phil Frazier notes a couple of things relating to the game including a statement that they are likely going to be able to get variable weather into online unranked games. In the course of one week it has gone from no online weather, to talking about the possibility of it, to it being a 95% certainty that it’ll be included. Hopefully that will include online league games which are in essence unranked games as well and would add to the experience that comes from playing a real season.

In speaking with Phil Frazier at the NCAA event last week I was able to express the frustration of the community around the general neglect that online play has received in the past several years. Admittedly it was somewhat of an overreaction on my part to lay it all on the lack of weather online but it came from that place of overall frustration and that it could possibly be a sign of the neglect continuing. He addressed the issue of online performance issues by mentioning that they have four engineers dedicated solely to getting the online games running well. That is a significant commitment being made. The discussion took place shortly before hearing about the inclusion of online leagues which appear to be well thought out (as long as they have playoffs). So clearly online play is getting some focus this year.

I didn’t limit it to just online weather and increasing the options in unranked games. I also brought up the desire to have stats and records tracked in them. Essentially the idea should be that unranked games offer pretty much every option there is offline to be selected (that is why they’re unranked) but at the same time they shouldn’t be treated as if they didn’t exist. It has always bothered me that I can’t look back upon what I’ve done throughout the year because the games were unranked. He seemed open and understanding of those thoughts so we’ll see where that goes in the future.

So I feel much better about the online prospects this year and encouraged that the community’s thoughts are really being heard. Hopefully at a minimum the online performance is up to par and the online leagues function as expected. Along with the focus on those areas adding in options such as variable weather is a sign of good things in the coming years.

Gametap has posted up a new preview of NCAA Football 09. In it areas such as the online dynasty, QB challenge (after interceptions), home field advantage, roster sharing, custom music, and atmosphere are discussed. You can read it in its entirety here.

“Our full stat tracking that goes in for dynasty will be in the online version,” Haumiller explains, “and we’re also working with EA Sports World to get our stats displayed on the Web as well. You’re going to be able to see your Top 25 lists, your Heisman results and so forth up on EA Sports World. We also finally have roster sharing. I can create a roster on my own, edit players, then upload the rosters for other players to download from my locker. We’ve really opened this up to the community so that if they don’t like our rosters, they can go in and change them to the way they think they should be.”

It’s good to see that some of the stats and info from your online dynasty will be displayed on EA Sports World. While the screenshots and videos are still the most fun aspect it’ll be nice to be able to view those things on the website.

Check back on Thursday night at midnight ET for part one and part two of my NCAA Football 09 hands-on report.

As I alluded to yesterday it appears that Facebreaker will be releasing for the PS3/360 earlier than originally anticipated. The dates have been moved up to the first week of September. I don’t know if that’ll stick considering NFL Head Coach 09 is releasing that same week and NHL 09 soon after but seeing the possible release move nearer does explain part of why EA has been showing so much of it so early.

There are now four additional screenshots (found in the gallery) and a new video which can be viewed by continuing on. This one focuses on the character Romeo which has been the one that’s been the most visible since the start. It’ll be interesting when to find out about some of the ones who have been seen in the trailer and this video but little is known about.

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Well I was wrong about nothing significant coming out in an effort to avoid getting swallowed up by GTA IV on its release day. IGN has the full details on Madden 09’s online leagues via an interview with two of the Madden developers which you can read in its entirety here. It focuses on the league aspect but later in the interview shifts to discussion on the Virtual Training Center. They’ve also posted up the first gameplay footage. You can watch that video by clicking here (make sure to watch in hi-res).

Flex scheduling is cool for a multitude of reasons. First off, flex scheduling is what we refer to as an ‘open schedule’ with no set order. What this means is that if you log online and ten members of your twenty member league are online, you can play any of your opponents that you have remaining games with. The nice thing about this is that it doesn’t allow for leagues to get stale or held up waiting for others to play. If the stars align, and you have all of your opponents online, you can, in theory, knock out your entire league in one day.

Leagues are always difficult to see through to the end. You need a good group of owners and a wide array of options for the commissioner. I like the idea of offering open schedules and providing the ability to have the same team controlled by different owners. Those are the type of options that are helpful and assist in making them more likely to succeed.

It sounds as though they’ve thought them through pretty well and aren’t the glorified tournaments recently touted as leagues for titles such as NBA Live 08 and NHL 08. Those didn’t even include playoffs which essentially made them worthless. I’m going to assume that playoffs are included in Madden’s leagues, although not hearing them mention it within the interview was noticeable. Hopefully there is some sort of confirmation soon that there will be playoffs in the leagues.

It goes without saying that today is GTA IV day. I doubt there will be much (if any) sports gaming news or info to be released with all the concentration around GTA. So I’ll be online playing (360) this evening and anyone who’d like to get together for some matches just leave your info in the comments. If there is anything interesting relating to the sports titles that makes its way out today I’ll be sure to get it up as usual.

• I expect the daily NCAA Football 09 screenshots to return on Thursday after taking a few days off.

• It looks like Facebreaker for the 360/PS3 (originally thought to be an early November release) may be out in early September. Four new screenshots have been added to the gallery.

• An effort is being made to possibly add online weather in Madden 09 after the community reacted unfavorably to the news that it wouldn’t be included. I’ll have some thoughts on this and more in the near future after a discussion with Phil Frazier last week.

• Make sure to vote in the poll for which NFL team had the best Madden Draft. Kansas City and Pittsburgh are the two that have separated themselves from the pack.

• Who else is excited for Iron Man coming out? This is really the kickoff to the summer movie season. Other than Cloverfield and Forgetting Sarah Marshall I haven’t felt the desire to head out to the theaters over the past several months.

Continuing with their “Madden Mondays” blog feature for the third week in a row Gamestop has posted details on the picture-in-picture play call window. You can read the posting in full here.

To keep the game moving, the Options OnDemand PIP Play-call Window will streamline the flow of important information, like player and team stats, instant replay and even Madden Tips, which suggests a feature you haven’t used yet with a video tip explaining it. Think of it as the animated paper-clip thing from Microsoft Office, except it’s MADDEN! You’ll also be able to make substitutions right from the play-call screen or challenge a call with Coach Picture-in Picture.

The less time spent in a pause menu the better. It’ll be interesting to see it in action and how natural everything fits but it sounds like a positive addition. The overall presentation and game flow seem as though they have been heavily focused on for 09.

The weekly roster update (4/28) for MLB 08: The Show is out and contains 134 player movements. The highlights of the update are listed below.

RP David Weathers moved from Reds Relief to Reds Minors.
RP Josh Fogg moved from Reds Starting to Reds Relief.
RP Keiichi Yabu moved from Giants Minors to Giants Relief.
SS Adam Everett moved from Twins Position to Twins Minors.
C Paul LoDuca moved from Nationals Position to Nationals Minors.
C Johnny Estrada moved from Nationals Bench to Nationals Position.
2B Kaz Matsui moved from Astros Minors to Astros Position.
3B Mark Loretta moved from Astros Position to Astros Bench.
SP RA Dickey moved from Mariners Starting to Mariners Minors.
CP JJ Putz moved from Mariners Minors to Mariners Closer.
DH Gabe Gross moved from Brewers Position to Rays Position.
CF Tony Gwynn Jr moved from Brewers Minors to Brewers Position.
SS Cesar Izturis moved from Cardinals Position to Cardinals Bench.
C Adam Melhuse moved from Rangers Bench to Rangers Minors.
C Jarrod Saltalamacchia moved from Rangers Minors to Rangers Bench.

SCEA has also gone ahead and listed the most significant aspects of the patch that was recently released.

Resolutions
Walk-off homerun scoring issue
Two-player bullpen issue
Random stat issues
Some stadium oriented collision issues

Enhancements
Minimized gameplay exploits for online play
More / improved player-specific stances and animations.
Minor tuning adjustment to hitting on higher difficulties
Minor tuning adjustment to pitching from the pitcher’s view or with pitch cursor off

With the 2008 NFL Draft now complete it is time to look at which teams improved their rosters the most for Madden 09. Continue on to view my breakdown of each team’s potential instant impact picks for this year. Be sure to vote in the poll at the end for which team had the best Madden Draft.

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I’ll be around throughout the first round updating on a regular basis. Keep refreshing for new things that have been added such as draft thoughts and rookie Madden screenshots coming out of EA’s Madden 09 draft page (which will include “trading cards” with the rookies). I’ll also try to respond questions posed in the comments just keep in mind I can only give my thoughts on items surrounding Madden and NCAA that are public knowledge and not hands-on specific until 5/2.

1145: If the draft goes as they’re slating it right now (Long-Long-Ryan-McFadden) where does Dorsey end up? The Chiefs already have a ton of picks but I’d imagine someone like the Bengals or Saints looking to move up to grab him.

1204: As big as Jake Long is described I didn’t think he looked that huge in person.

1211: Chris Long is the better pick than Dorsey for the Rams. Already feeling the benefit of shortening the time between picks.

1214: Last year the Madden rookie screenshots lagged behind where the draft was at and I expect that to happen again especially with less time between picks. Apparently it is a pretty time consuming process to get those done on the spot like that.

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I’ve mentioned on a few occasions that I’ll be live blogging during the draft on a number of subjects and anything else that happens to come up. From posting the Madden 09 rookie screenshots and pointing to other additions to the Madden draft site, some general thoughts on what is known so far about Madden & NCAA 09 (again I can’t speak to the hands-on time until 5/2), to draft reaction, I’ll be updating it on a regular basis throughout the day. It’ll all start up right as the draft begins at 3et/12pt and run through the first round. Be sure to leave any comments and I’ll post responses to some of them throughout the day.

Also Jon Robinson @ Gametap has posted an interview with Madden 09 producer Phil Frazier which you can check out here. It contains a good deal of new information delving deeper into some of the new features and improvements that will be found in the game this year.