The Stupid Gamer

C’mon, EA! This is ridiculous. In an official press release EA Sports announced the ship date and price for Madden 2009. Here are some cuts from the release (we’ll whine after the quotes):

Madden NFL 09 will be available in retail stores in North America on August 12, including a special collector’s edition in celebration of the 20th anniversary of one of the best-selling video games franchises of all time. The Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition will be the ultimate interactive NFL experience – featuring full versions of both Madden NFL 09 and the all-new NFL Head Coach 09, exclusive classic Madden NFL gameplay, and an extensive library of bonus video content.

Additionally, gamers will be 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 will be available for the Xbox 360™ video game system from Microsoft, PlayStation®2 and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment systems, Wii™, Nintendo DS™, PSP™ (PlayStation®Portable) handheld entertainment system and is rated RP by the ESRB. At a suggested retail price of $89.99, Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition will be available for the Xbox 360™ and PLAYSTATION®3.

So let’s look at this. The standard price for a collector’s edition this generation as been $70, a price that already feels way too high…so EA feels that somehow $90 is fair. Great. Oh, sure, you’re going to get NFL Head Coach with it, but who really wants that? It’s like Madden, but somebody takes the controller away from you when the game starts.

The most disturbing, however, is that you’ll need NFL Head Coach to be able to draw up your plays. Yes, if you don’t buy this inflated and ridiculous version of the game, you’ll no longer be able to draw up your own plays in Madden and use your own playbook. I’m tired of this crap, EA. Madden has been in a constant state of degeneration ever since 2005 (the last year NFL 2k was a competitor). Unless we see a HUGE leap forward in gameplay, I’m done with this series for good. After taking so much from gamers over the years, you’d think to celebrate 20 years of strong support from the gaming community that EA could give something back, rather than just screwing over their fan base once more. Guess not.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 9:28 am and is filed under Multiconsole, Stupid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.