Here’s what you have to look forward to when Madden ‘09 hits the shelves in August. It’s fitting that the first clips of this game feature cover boy Brett Favre on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field!

Since Favre is now retired, I questioned what gamers would need to do in order to “unlock” Favre. It’d be a shame if he’s not in there somewhere besides the cover. I didn’t have to wait long for my question to be answered. Here’s what Brett has to say about that and the Madden game in general:

Graphics

From the grainy video clip and screenshots it’s hard to really conclude how much better the graphics are from last year’s version. I did notice that the in-game scoreboard has been redesigned. I guess EA Sports figured that they would follow the trend of most sport networks (ESPN’s MNF most notably) who have done the same in recent years with their on-air broadcasts.

EA Sports’ website let us know about one graphical improvement which features improved weather graphics.

In Madden NFL 09 you’ll see deeper snow on the fields, with dramatic accumulation and realistic wear from play. Player’s footsteps will leave imprints, snow will be piled on the sidelines and the yardage lines will be shoveled, just like in a real game.

It’s a good addition to the game but none of the high stakes Madden games (similar to the NFL’s Super Bowl) are played in bad weather. Nonetheless, it’s an added degree of realism and you can never have enough of that.

Sound

I think we all wondered what happened to Madden’s voice in recent versions of the game. One in a while, Madden would chime in with his words of wisdom but it seemed like a definite step backwards when the generic monotone play-by-play commentator fully supplanted Madden last year.

There’s been rumblings of EA Sports addressing this problem. New in-game commentary is rumored to be on the way! EA Sports audio director Aubrey Hodges sheds more light on this situation.

I have to be careful about this. Although I can… We are making a change in the Madden commentators. I can’t mention who they are. We are using some of the biggest names in the business. We listened to the fans and we are making a change. And that will be more than one. It will be a fantastic year for Madden fans, I think they’re gonna be thrilled with this new direction. I don’t think I can say much more than that.

Everyone is trying to figure out who these “big names” are going to be. House money would favor Al Michaels and John Madden but conventional wisdom concludes that the Monday Night Football crew of Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski, and Tony Kornheiser (please no!) are going to be in the game.

Just recently, an ESPN article silenced all of the rumors and let us know who’s going to be calling the game.

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.

Cris Collinsworth? Are you kidding me !?! This just goes to show that everything (including Madden ‘09) has it’s flaws.

Gameplay / Multiplayer

It’d be nice if EA Sports sent us a playable copy of the game (hint hint) so we could give a firsthand account of what have to look forward to but since our copy hasn’t arrived in the mail yet all we can do is speculate.

Phil Frazier, one of the game’s lead designers, recently commented on some of the new bells and whistles that hope to make this game the best Madden yet.

Regarding new gameplay features:

There are three really big things this year that I’m really excited about. The first is actually a collection of features that we call Real Football Intelligence. That’s the theme for this year’s product. Part one of that is a feature that looks really cool and that’s a holographic training environment. In this mode, you choose to go to the holographic training center and you have a bunch of training drills for you to practice. You can do things like work on pocket presence, you can work on receiver timing, focus on defense. I believe we have a total of 12 different drills that you can try.

What about any improvements in the online play?

For the first time ever in Madden, you’ll be able to get together with 32 of your friends and participate in a league where you can play through a schedule, play through the playoffs, play your own Super Bowl. There’s draft support, there’s trade support, and we actually implemented flex scheduling in the online leagues…We wanted to set up a system where leagues would actually get used and are very user-friendly in terms of the coordination required. It’s all server based. There are no files to manage. There’s no data whatsoever being saved on your box.

Needless to say, this is very exciting news. As an admitted Madden junkie I think this is going to be a landmark addition to the game! I can’t even remember how many times we’ve sat around the Xbox while playing Madden and talked about how cool it’d be to play a “fantasy season” with Madden teams. Think about it, you could join a league in which default rosters are used and support your team (i.e. Chicago Bears) or you could do a fantasy draft in which you team is built to suit.

The penultimate fantasy league is one in which your fantasy teams performance is not only determined by how they do on gameday but also how they do in Madden! I can’t wait…