NFL Head Coach 09 First Look
We head to Indy for a look at the revived football-management sim from EA Sports.
INDIANAPOLIS--NFL player ratings shouldn't be an absolute value. Instead, an NFL player's worth to his team is directly affected by the kind of philosophy that team applies on the field of play. An undersized, speedy lineman might be useless to a team that values size and strength, but for a team that puts speed above everything else, those quirks might make him a hot prospect. That's just one of the philosophies behind EA Tiburon's upcoming football-management sim, NFL Head Coach 09, a game that is trying a number of different things to update and improve on the original, released back in 2006. While in Indianapolis for the 2008 NFL Combine, EA showed off a work-in-progress build of the game, which is due for release this fall.
Realistically, NFL Head Coach 09 is a sequel in name only. Quick to admit to the original game's problems--a frustrating interface, sloppy artificial intelligence, ridiculous assistant coaches--the developers on hand in Indianapolis have said that with the exception of the Madden engine that will power the actual on-field games you will coach, everything in NFL Head Coach is entirely new.
One of the essential phrases you hear when producers talk about NFL Head Coach 09 is the idea of "bringing the game to you." That manifests itself most clearly in the coach's clipboard, an all-in-one-menu system that will give you information in one place on practically everything you need to be aware of in the game. Furthermore, beyond using the menu to check your player roster, depth chart, and salary-cap numbers, you can perform the majority of your preseason actions as a coach here.
The game progresses in real time (though you can speed up or slow down the progression at will) and, as you go, various actions will pop up on your screen, which you can choose to act on or ignore. These actions include everything from scouting activities, to making trades, contract negotiations, and much more.
Unlike attending useless meetings in the original NFL Head Coach, the goal is to keep the player always active during the off-season. One of the first steps to doing that will be in deciding what kind of coach you want to be in the game. When you first fire up Head Coach 09's career mode, you'll choose whether you play as an existing head coach or create a coach of your own. Once you've created your coach, you can decide whether you want to play the preseason activities such as the combine and the NFL Draft, or go straight to the regular season and start calling plays. For our Head Coach 09 demo, we went only to the former aspects of the game, with more information to follow on regular season activities.
Each actual NFL coach has a number of attributes associated with him, including roster talent, overall skill, GM skill, personality, and offensive and defensive coordinator. EA didn't spend much time talking about the personality rating and how it will affect the team, but we did note several different personality types while they scrolled through the menus, including stoic, promoter, guru, anchor, and strong.
Although we don't know all of the details yet, apparently the top-tier triumvirate in an NFL team--head coach, general manager, and owner--will play a role in how the game operates. This will be felt most obviously in the game's difficulty; if you take over a team with a weak GM, such as the Detroit Lions, your road to success will be that much more difficult. According to producers, it is possible to get your GM fired, and that decision is at least partially based on the relationship between the owner and you as a coach. Unfortunately, we don't yet know any of the specifics of how those interactions will work.
What we do know is that, as a coach, you can lose your job as well. An overall approval rating is always onscreen to give you a constantly updated look at how the fans, players, media, staff, and management are reacting to the choices you make. The difficulty level in the game will be tied to the real-life NFL teams, from the "pick up and play" New England Patriots, who are loaded on both sides of the ball, to the "insane-level difficulty" (our words, not EA's) Miami Dolphins. Though you can get canned in NFL Head Coach, the game will try to help you along if your approval rating plummets too low, whether by throwing a good player your way, or by helping a current player have a breakthrough in his potential.
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- GameSpot Score7.0good
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NFL Head Coach 09 Review
NFL Head Coach 09 delivers a deep and immersive coaching experience, provided you can overlook the outdated gameplay engine and lackluster presentation.
- Sep 2, 2008
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- Electronic Arts
- EA Tiburon
- Football Management
- Release: Sep 3, 2008
- ESRB: Teen
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