Madden NFL 09 achievement tips

October 30, 10:01 AMTampa Video Game ExaminerTom Hall

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Hey! That's the wrong uniform!

Last night was a great night for me.  I finally conquered the last 3 achievements for Madden NFL 09 that were really giving me some trouble and completed my 1000 points worth of achievements for this game.  After the celebration, I dried the champagne from my hair and a thought occurred to me.  Maybe some of you are having trouble with the very same achievements and are just waiting for someone to lend you a hand.  I hear ya, and while it is so fresh in my mind, I thought it might be beneficial to just give you a few quick tips on the 3 achievements that plagued me: 2 TD punt returns in one game, record 12 sacks in a game, and 6 sacks with 1 player in a game.

Let's start with some things that will make this easier.  First, if you are purely going for the achievements only and do not care about the actual game, turn the difficulty all the way down and give yourself unlimited rewinds.  Also, if you are really having trouble and have some time to waste, you can edit any roster with trades and free agency to create a really easy opponent or use the create a team option to make yourself a doormat to play against.  Now that we are being cheap, let's get our gamerscore boosted. 

The easiest way to return punts for TD's sounds a little weird but I promise it works.  After catching the punt, run towards the sidelines until the defenders are almost on you.  Then start running the wrong way as far as you can and make a huge sweep around to the other sideline.  If you do this right, they will all be chasing you and won't have an angle to get you when you make the sweep.  This is where the rewinds come into play as it takes a few tries to perfect.

You can use this next technique to get both of the sack achievements.  In the team select screen, press X to bring up an option screen where you can choose how pretty you want your uniforms to look and more importantly the offense and defense you want to run.  Highlight the defense and cycle past all of the team specific defenses to get to the 46 defense.  That's the one you want.  Now when you're on defense, choose to select your play by formation and  chose the 46 Bear formation.  The play you want is called Safety Fire.  Before the snap, take control of your Strong Safety, he'll be the guy standing all the way in the back, and move him up on the line between the Left Defensive End and the Left Defensive Tackle.  If you aren't sure where that is, pull up the play art on field and move him where the line says he will be going.  When you get him there, switch to another player and do nothing but enjoy the show after the ball is snapped.  Putting the safety on the line creates all kinds of chaos that the offense can't handle and you will start racking up the sacks.  With five minute quarters, I had 19 sacks.  With all of those sacks, one of your players is almost guaranteed to be responsible for 6 of them.  For me, it was my right defensive end who wound up with 8.  

Those were the achievements that gave me grief.  Is there one you are having trouble with? Let me know, I'll help you through it.  Sports games are traditionally the easiest achievements and most of the Madden 09 ones were pretty easy.  Still, though there are always those few that dirty up your vocabulary for a while.  There is always great satisfaction when you finally overcome them.  Speaking of which, I have more celebrating to do.