Ok so I decided to try go back to my very old ways and try out a football game for my new PS3. I stopped at the local video rental store and brought home Madden ‘09.

Meow, being somewhat disconnected from the console scene for a while, I haven’t had much exposure to the Madden games for a while, my last 2 were Madden ‘03 on the Gamecube (which I loved) and Madden ‘07 on the Wii (which I hated).

Game play wise, its very fun, quite realistic and almost too realistic. I found the control scheme a bit hard to get used to at first, mostly due to the combination of the right analog stick and the buttons becoming a bit overwhelming (for an older gamer like me). Offense is pretty easy to get a handle on, just x to hike the ball and look for the open receiver and hit the button.

Defense on the other hand is terribly annoying. Choosing the correct play makes all the difference as it seems terribly hard to actually chose the correct defensive player in the middle of a play. The PC seems to evade just about every tackle I throw at it so I have had to play pretty much “hands-off” while on Defense and just hope for the best. The one thing I have managed to do quite well is pick off passes with the corners, they seem to have super human jumping abilities… unfortunately they have bricks for hands for the most part.

Overall impressions are great, the gfx are amazing as expected, sounds are accurate the constant repetitive commentary from the announcers is annoying as hell and I haven’t figured out a way to turn it off which is really the only complaint I have. I may end up buying the game yet… we will have to see if my skill improves.