FROM Ian Cummings, Madden Producer

Two Weeks of Madden NFL 09

Well it’s been two weeks since Madden officially launched and it sure has been a busy time for us. I truly hope everyone is enjoying the game, and I wanted to drop an update on some things we’ve been working on for our 2nd patch. We feel that without a doubt this encapsulates the top issues we’re hearing from the forums and community leaders, and hope that this list truly makes Madden NFL 09 the ultimate sports game for you.

1.       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.
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I look at the Madden season as being comprised of two pretty distinct stages. First, there is the initial learning phase. This comes right when the game comes out. Players have to learn the new features and nuances of the game.

They have to check out what works from last year, and what doesn’t. We often find that players have become dependent on certain tactics (the strafe catch for example) and struggle at the game. Gradually the players get past this learning curve, go back to their fundamental X’s and O’s and begin to master the game.

Our Virtual Playbook found at:

http://www.maddentips.com/madden09.html

is geared towards helping experienced players get over this curve quickly. For new players, it helps them achieve the same solid base that long time competitive players have.

Phase 2 of the game begins when players really begin to explore the game in earnest. New go-to tactics develop and begin to be put into action online and in tournament play. The game of Madden evolves. If you are a serious Madden player and don’t want to be left behind, then you have to spend some serious time in the Lab practicing the game and looking for new schemes.

If you are like most people, then you don’t have 20 hours a week to devote to finding new stuff and learning to counter glitches and money schemes that have hit you online. That’s where the Virtual Filmroom steps in.

Madden Virtual Filmroom

Each week my staff prepares a minimum of 5 Strategy breakdowns to keep you on the cutting edge of the competitive Madden world. These breakdowns plus videos will help you continue to grow as a player and keep you up to date on the latest techniques that are being used at the highest levels of competitive play.

We’ve given the Filmroom a completely new look this year and have added a ton of new features to really take it to the next level. With our new Virtual Filmroom 2.0, you’ll be able to interact with our staff like never before. You’ll be able to post questions/comments on each article, and you’ll get answers straight from the writers themselves.

You’ll have access to powerful tools like our Playfinder, and be able to take advantage of new features like our Weekly Group Lab Session. To find out more about how you can get your hands on the Virtual Filmroom 2.0 and skyrocket your gaming abilities, visit: http://www.maddenfilmroom.com

The Madden patch that’s now live on XBOX 360 and PS3 addresses the following areas:

1. Changed default quarter length of online leagues to 5 minutes.
2. Solved a very rare stability issue that occured when using a couple of playbooks.
3. Eliminated a button mashing glitch during high latency online games.
4. Eliminated a stability issue that sometimes occured while viewing the player HUB in online leagues.
5. Fixed a tricky disc eject glitch that occured at specific points of online games.
6. Kick Return Tuning - made improvements to help reduce frequent long kick returns.
7. Safety Tuning - eliminated issue where safeties in deep zone coverage would sometimes not react to a run to their side.
8. The game skill slider for interceptions was tuned to amplify it’s affect.

So, one of the new feature’s of NFL Head Coach in the ability to create a play and export it into Madden 09. If you have the Collector’s Edition, you can try this now. Otherwise you’ll have to wait until the Stand-A-Lone release of Head Coach.

This process isn’t super intuitive, but is not difficult.  I’ve included a short video below showing this process in action.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

There are a couple of things that you will want to be aware of:

1) I couldn’t find an option to create a Corner route, just Post Corner.  Will have to look further at that. 

2) When you import the play into Madden, you can find it in your playbook under a formation called “Head Coach”

3) You have to put the player in motion yourself, it is not an automotion situation. However, I think where you drew up the motion defines where he actually goes in Madden, but I haven’t tested this to be sure.

4) I was unable to Hot Route my motion player, but I could Hot Route other receivers.

As you all know one of the most important decisions that must be made each year is which playbook you are going to run. With so many choices in the game, it can take a while to sift though everything to find the one that you want.

We’ve done what we can to make it easy for you by putting together all of the team playbooks with diagrams in one easy-to-read Ebook file. And best of all, it’s available for free. You can download it now at

http://www.maddentips.com/playbooks

Thanks & Enjoy! 

If your opponents cannot score, you will not lose. Much emphasis is put on having an explosive offense by many ballers. The top flight players, however, are not only prolific point scorers, but very solid defenders. In the majority of cases with evenly matched teams/players, most football games are not “won”, but are lost by the players making the most mistakes.

When on defense, you have four major objectives that would be beneficial to always keep in mind:

Your first objective is to prevent a score. Big hits are great, sacks are great, but if you keep your opponent out of the end zone, you will win games. Don’t get hung up on stats. If your opponent throws for 400 yards and never gets in the end zone, you will beat him easily.

Prevent your opponent from breaking off long sustained drives. This will tire out your defense and you will get beat up in the fourth quarter. Limit your opponent to only minimal gains on 1st & 2nd down, forcing them to constantly be in 3rd and long situations. Play field position ball, force them to take possession deep in their half of the field so that they have a long way to go for the score.

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The I-Form is a basic set that many have used when playing Madden. This is because it’s a set that allows you to run and pass. When you have West Coast-like personnel on your team, you can use sets like this to move the ball extremely well.

Over time, the I-Form has been changed to other sets that perform the same as the basic-I Form, but the players are set up differently. In the screenshot, this is the Strong I-Form. The same personnel, but a different set-up.

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Roster Update # 1 – Release Day (Through 8/4)

Transactions

HB Cedric Benson – Released to Free Agents

HB Kevin Jones – Signs with Bears

CB Blue Adams – Released by Bengals (Removed)

HB Kenny Irons – Released by Bengals

HB DeDe Dorsey – Added to Bengals

LT Demetrius Bell – Released to Free Agents

LB Donnie Spragan – Signs with Bills

HB Mike Bell – Released by Broncos

DT Carlton Powell – Released to Free Agents (IR)

DT Kenny Peterson – Added to Broncos

FB Peyton Hillis – Added to Broncos

FS John Lynch – Released by Broncos

C LeCharles Bentley – Released by Browns

QB Ken Dorsey – Released to Free Agents

C Marvin Philip – Added to Browns

WR Kevin Kasper – Added to Browns

LB Ryan Nece – Added to Bucs

TE Troy Bienemann – Released by Cardinals

RT Kelly Butler – Signs with Cardinals

LG Jasper Harvey – Added to Cardinals

LG Scott Peters – Removed (IR)

HB Marcel Shipp – Released by Cardinals

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You need to be able to disguise your pass coverage if you plan on having a successful attack against your opponent’s offense. We don’t want the offense to be able to pre-read our defensive coverage and determine if we are in man or zone. We also need to be able to hide if we are in press coverage or not. This year in Madden 09, we can call defenses that have our men in press coverage without having to call press. This is like an auto delay bump-n-run. We will take a look at disguising coverage in general by going over some things we noticed that defensive players do when in man or zone coverage, and finding ways to use those tells to confuse our opponent’s pre-read. 

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The best way to expose four man fronts is by working the outside. You have way too many people in the middle to work that hard. You can pound with the FB Dive, but you need an outside run game to help open up FB running plays.

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