Madden NFL 09

The American Professional Football Association began in 1920, and changed its name to the National Football League (NFL) two years later. However, as any stat geek will to tell you, the game of football has changed constantly over the last 91 years. The players, rules, and strategies – they all evolve. And publisher Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL football series continues to evolve as well – only not always in the ways we’d like. So, as the Super Bowl looms, we’ve written down a laundry list of complaints, requests that we’d love to see show up in next season’s version. Here’s hoping a few of these become reality...

Every August, a new Madden NFL hits store shelves. And every August, people moan and wail about how similar this year’s Madden is to its previous incarnations (hey, we’re guilty of it too). But we shouldn’t, really. The truth is that the gang at EA has tried lots of innovations over the 20-plus years they’ve been making the game. We love them for it, and plenty of the added features have been great. But we’ve also seen our share of failed experiments – especially in the PS3/360 generation. This is a countdown of those “innovations” we wish would’ve stayed on the bench...

Our Scott Pilgrim obsession climaxes, Mikel's friend sits in, and we're uncharacteristically READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL! Plus, the first episode of TalkRadar partially recorded LIVE in a public bathroom...

Life on the gridiron before Madden killed the competition...

Where are the flying cars? For years, our science fiction promised us that in the 21st century, we’d all be zipping around the country with speed and style in shiny hovering vehicles. Sadly, we all know how that turned out. It sure seems like we were made the same kinds of promises about our “next generation” of sports games too.