Football is heading into its new season and EA Sports' Madden NFL 09 (Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, DS, PC, PS3) is looking good in its dash to its August 12th launch. Over at the game's official blog, Daniel Castorani posted a cool read on what's in store for this year's edition in terms of features. We were pleased to know that Play Call was on top of the devs' priorities.

We all know how vital calling plays is to this sport, and Castorani said they aimed at no less than the stars when it came to what they wanted for the game. Hurdling technical and creative barriers, the following objectives were met in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions:

• Make it look totally different- a Next Gen feel
  
• Use Picture-in-Picture technology to provide On-Demand Content
  
• Give hardcore players more options including Substitutions
  
• Provide simpler play calling for less experienced users
• No More Pausing! Integrate pause menu options
  
• Improve the Bluff System (hiding plays)
  
• Provide Shortcuts to commonly used functions such as Replay and "Challenge Play"
  
• Incorporate Instant Replay
  

Sounds pretty sweet to have all of that in just one aspect of the game, eh? We must say that the idea of using Picture in Picture was very nice, plus the fact that we can get our stats on the fly helps smoothen the experience out in theory. We'll have to wait and see how all of this is executed, but knowing how EA does its work on the Madden series, it looks like we might have another great year of football ahead.

Buy: [ Madden NFL 09 (Xbox 360), (PlayStation 3), (Wii) ]
Buy: [ Madden NFL 09 (PSP), (DS) ]