here’s a lot of talk amongst Madden fans about what the series used to be. The last couple years we’ve watched the franchise to see if it could climb back up to the high standard that might even be a myth for all we know. After all, we complain about Madden’s legacy issues, but the existence of that very concept (and boy, do they exist!) means that the past simply couldn’t have been as good as we remember it. It’s clear that there is not going to be any magic jump for the series – it is what it is, for better and worse.

Each game – hell, each series – plays out like a highlight reel full of exciting catches, de-cleating tackles, and big-play runs. The game plays fast, which for me ramps up the excitement an extra notch. The downside of seeing wide receivers getting creamed over the middle in a spectacular tackle by a defensive back, for instance, is that these animations are more or less pre-determined, leaving you with a loss of control before the inevitable end result. The one animation I despise is when a receiver throws up his hands for an improbable highlight catch instead of simply running his route, getting under the ball, and catching it in stride.

As a ball carrier, thankfully you have the Highlight (right analog) stick at your disposal, which offers a measure of control by letting you combo moves together to escape tackles, make directional changes, and navigate line traffic. It sounds gimmicky, but it’s well balanced. The downside is you never know what you’re going to get with the Highlight stick.

Madden nowadays ditches the complex input of button presses for a more simplified read-and-react system. Whether you agree with this direction or not, there are moments that everyone will scratch their head after seeing — linebackers going from omnipotent to clueless in the same play, dropped interceptions, wide receivers who inexplicably break off routes, ball carriers who walk out of bounds, and the iffy collisions. Gaffes like these put the lie to Madden’s continued improvement and stand in curious opposition to the great football moments that this game is capable of delivering.

While the play-to-play action has some awesome moments, the Franchise mode is stuck in a boring rut. The scouting options confer absolutely no bonuses during the draft, and the game lacks restricted free agents. I feel that progress in this portion of the game has stalled in favor of NFL Head Coach 09.

Although you may have heard that Madden has online franchises, I wouldn’t call it that. The online league structure is hamstrung by curious choices. It doesn’t break out into divisions (instead there’s one leaderboard), there are no CPU teams filling in your league like NCAA, the CPU takes over the fantasy draft, and amenities like stats are mishandled. It would have been nice if the online leagues could have filled a void where the traditional Franchise mode left off, but sadly the era of true online football franchises in Madden has yet to come.

In a yearly series like Madden, it’s easy to keep track of what’s new and what’s painfully old, and this version is no different regardless of how fond our memories may be of the old days. There’s no 16-0 Patriots-esque regular season for Madden 09. But as a fan, sometimes just being in the playoffs is the first step. Then, anything can happen.