Hot Play
Slippery when wet. Madden NFL 09 adds weather component to latest edition
By Scott Gardner
Madden NFL 09
PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, DS
Everyone knows football fans can be intense, but serious gridiron gamers are in a league beyond. Consider this, pro football happens once or twice a week, for a few hours, but a gamer can run his console 24/7 (and let’s not bother with gender-neutral pronouns, either). It’s the perfect intersection of two obsessive cultures: fans can play and replay virtual seasons, trying every new strategy imaginable in a sport that is — to put it mildly — a little complex to begin with.
Since 1988, the 900-lb gorilla of football games has been Madden. Named after coach and commentator John Madden — a bit of a 900-lb gorilla himself — it’s sold 40-million copies across four generations of consoles. Every year brings new features, fresh rosters and improved play and visuals, but the game has also gotten awfully complicated for casual fans.
Madden 09, however, addresses this problem in several ways, including its Virtual Training Center, a tutorial mode to assess a player’s skills and manage (and evolve) the game’s difficulty level. Another addition is BackTrack, a replay learning tool with real-life commentator Cris Collinsworth using a telestrator to break down where and why a play went wrong. Also new: fatigue modelling, 32-player online leagues, and the fact that fumbles and footing are affected by the weather — a little touch that makes the experience really come alive. Speaking of coming alive, if you can’t tell the difference between your sofa and your obsessed gamer, here’s a tip: the sofa doesn’t keep asking for more Mountain Dew.
Release Date: August 12
Too Human
Xbox 360
As the cybernetic god Baldur, you are humanity’s last hope to defeat armies of (and this is ironic) machines, in this epic third-person adventure created by developer Silicon Knights of St. Catharines, Ont. Steeped in Norse mythology, Too Human also offers unusually deep role-playing elements, and Microsoft is so enthused it’s already planning a trilogy.
Release Date: August 19
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
PC, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360
Sometimes blowing stuff up is all you want to do, and that’s why we need Mercenaries. Like the original, you’re in a “sandbox” environment free to follow plot-driven tasks, side missions or simply wreak havoc. Why? That’s just what a soldier-of-fortune does when he’s been double-crossed by a wannabe dictator.
Release Date: August 31