Whether you prefer to make your moves on the field, from the sidelines or in the front office, the Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition has something for every football fan. Madden NFL 09 will feature the most immersive gameplay, the richest online offerings and the most comprehensive feature depth in the history of the franchise, while NFL Head Coach 09 has been reinvented to provide a unique new NFL experience by allowing fans to be in total control of their favorite franchises. The two games offer unique experiences and then can even interact with one another with gamers being able to import their user-designed plays from NFL Head Coach 09 and put them into Madden NFL 09 to create customized playbooks for complete control on the field.

Madden NFL 09 introduces 85 new features and enhancements, including the ability to adapt gameplay to the player’s skill level. Whether you are a veteran Madden NFL player or a newcomer to the game, everyone can have an enjoyable and competitive gaming experience. Madden NFL 09 will also feature a network-inspired broadcast presentation highlighted by the commentary team of Cris Collinsworth and Tom Hammond. The game also features online leagues, allowing players to take their rivalries online and compete in leagues with fans from around the country.

Madden NFL 09 Title Update #2

If you experienced freezing in franchise prior to the patch you will have to start over. Any that hadn’t previously had issues with freezing should be fine to continue.

• Kicking play disconnect: If two opponents play a game with two different camera angles, in any situation where a game winning or tying kick was to be made, a disconnect could occur. “ActionCam” forces the game to go into slow-motion to add drama to these late kicks, but unfortunately the Classic camera does not, thus forcing the “disconnect”. This has been fixed…all cameras can still be used as well.
• Stability issues in the play call / halftime highlights / postgame highlights screens (especially in Franchise mode after training games): This was a hard one to track down as not everyone was seeing it , we did find the issue however with some Instant Replay / cache corruption, and have a fix ready for patch 2.
• Stability issues with Madden IQ end of game popup: This has been fixed.
• “WR direct snap” exploit: Cheesers found an exploit to direct snap to a WR for easy short yardage gain. Not only are we fixing this play (i.e. we aren’t removing it), we are also going to be re-setting records for anyone with a winning record that has been found to be using this play.
• Franchise Progression / Regression (or lack thereof): The lack of higher numbers was a tuning value that I think everyone agreed was just too low. This has been juiced up so you should see more realistic progression now.
• The Edit Player Progression Bug. So now edited players and created players will progress like normal. Before, anytime you edited a player’s ratings, he would then never progress in your franchise.
• Fixed a major bug that stopped awarding progression points after the top 2-3 players at a position. So before, only 2-3 players per position were getting awarded the proper progression points. That has been fixed now, all players are now being assigned the proper progression points.
• Edited players don’t progress: Players were not progressing after their jersey number (or pretty much any other attribute). This has been fixed.
• Stability issue when exiting Madden ‘93 in CE version: This has been fixed.
• Deep ball glitch: Some enterprising gamers found a way to throw a deep ball while crossing the LOS and hit a receiver wide open at a decent rate. We addressed this by making sure the DB will no longer break on the ball when the QB crosses the line while throwing.
• CPU running out of bounds: This bug appears when the CPU tries to switch hands while running to the sidelines. This is fixed for patch 2.
• Penalty sliders ineffective: A common complaint from the hardcore community was the lack of effect from the penalty sliders. We increased these substantially for patch 2.
• Field degradation: Another common complaint was the lack of field degradation. Our effect was very subtle, which was also getting overshadowed by our lighting and post effects, so we increased this effect for the patch.
• Stability issue with the Eagles and a full ring meter: We found and fixed a rare issue where the gamer could run into stability issues while using the Eagles in mini-game with a ring meter that was completely full.
• Play call screen hitch: We found and fixed a bug that was causing a noticeable hitch when exiting the play call screen
• Prevent Defense issue: We found and fixed an issue where defenders sharing a deep zone/prevent assignment would loosen their coverage (because they thought the other guy was covering for them), which allowed the receiver to get behind them even though they were in Prevent.
• Brett Favre stats: With the late addition of Brett Favre, we were not able to get his Career and Season statistics into the game for the roster update. This has now been added for patch 2.
• Defensive Preplay Mis-cue: We found and fixed an issue where defenders would leave their man wide open in a Cover 3.
• CPU quick-snap: A very common complaint on the forums was the speed at which the CPU snapped the ball. We added a random length of time (no less than 5 seconds) for the CPU to wait and even make pre-play adjustments.
• Online playbook switch: We found and fixed an issue where playbooks were re-setting to the defaults after the playbook select popup was closed.
• Additional fixes to situations where the game would freeze.

For passionate Madden NFL fans, this year’s iteration will take authenticity and depth of gameplay to an entirely new level with more than 85 new features and enhancements, including the all-new Virtual Trainer tutorial mode. Utilizing a holographic environment, this mode teaches gamers simple concepts about playing football and how to use the controls in quick, fun and stylized drills. In Madden NFL 09, the game engine is continually assessing the player’s performance and will adapt a custom experience to every type of gamer, from newcomer to the veteran Madden NFL player.

Madden NFL 09 will also feature a network-inspired broadcast presentation. Players will benefit from the authentic football knowledge of an in-booth play-by-play and color commentary team featuring Cris Collinsworth and Tom Hammond. In addition, numerous graphical enhancements have been made, including realistic weather and grass, sleeker player models and exterior stadium views.

Madden NFL 09 gives gamers the ability to create online leagues. Avid Madden NFL fans can now take their rivalries online and compete in leagues with up to 32 teams. Online league play will feature in-depth stat tracking, player trades and a flexible scheduling option.

NFL Head Coach 09 provides the complete NFL coaching experience, offering a variety of different ways to control an NFL franchise, on and off the field, in-season and off-season. With strategic game-planning features, NFL Head Coach 09 places gamers in the coach's seat by allowing gamers to comprehensively scout the opponent, build custom playbooks, and develop a team that will adapt to the philosophy and system of an NFL franchise.

Madden NFL 09 will be available for the Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii, NDS, PSP on August 12, 2008. NFL Head Coach 09 is scheduled to ship as a part of the Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition at a suggested retail price of $89.99 for the complete package of Madden NFL 09 and NFL Head Coach 09 plus additional exclusive bonus content, will ship on the Xbox 360 and PS3. A standalone version of NFL Head Coach 09 will also be available at retail.