NCAA Football 2009

SM,

I would have already run CRN’s boys out a few times on the ol’ PS3 if I didn’t have the bar staring me in the face. As soon as the monster is done and over with, I’ll be getting myself a copy to see how they rated us. Hopefully some other people will post their impressions before I get it to see if it’ll be worth the $60 or if I should wait until 2010.

it’s a solid game. The fixed a lot of the things that bugged me from last year and this is the first football game that really takes advantage of all the features the next-gen systems offer. The graphics are unreal and the gameplay is much improved. Players move more fluidly and the options to audible, hot route and change the options for each individual player is a huge plus. I considering putting all the stadium sounds in, but it just wasn’t important enough to me. I decided that I’d rather spend that time playing the game.

I’ve just been busy with work, school, and wrapping year one my dynasty on NCAA 09…#1 in the nation (haha…but I play on All-American). I think that this year’s upcoming batch of games will have maybe 70% of the features that the last-gen games did in their final year (i.e. Madden and NCAA 06, 07); I’m pleased with audibles in formation, as well as the dynamic movement for the players. Perhaps the biggest thing (just for me) is the improved presentation…they finally have a ref animation for penalties….OMG. Haha…but yes, I should have a post up by or during the weekend concerning the game, analysis on our team and the Pac-10 (and the rest of our schedule, played through on dynasty), so sit tight.

On another note, if anyone has the game for PS3 and is interested in setting up an online dynasty, do tell. I’m looking to explore that part of the game.

Lack of Marcus Everett

I just finished writing a post on CRN and Cheety Peety’s agreement to revive the home-and-home uniform tradition for our rivalry game and why the NCAA’s rule against it made no sense, and it reminded me of the video game and a feature I’d like to see.

I can’t recall which version (perhaps NCAA Football 05 for PS2), but there was a version where you were able to play with both teams in colored uniforms. Once you selected the home and away team, you were sent to the controller select page (where you moved your controller icon to the team you were going to play with), and once you did that, it brought up uniform selection.

I seem to recall there was a version where when you selected one team’s home uniform, it didn’t force the other team to go to it’s away uniform.

Anyway, it’d be nice to see EA Sports stop being the NCAA’s lackey in this regard and give you free reign in the uniform selection. Who cares if you can’t tell who is who when you play as, say Michigan, against, say Cal? You paid $60 for the game. You should be able to do that.

And it’d be kind of nice for them to have alternate third uniforms. I want to kick Cal’s ass with CRN’s boys while Tedford’s goons wear their highlighter yellow uniforms.

Maybe they were actually trying to be accurate by having the refs make some bad calls, but some of the calls are ridiculous.

If a player catches a ball and then falls forward, the ball is sometimes spotted where the player’s feet were. When I review the play, they confirm the bad call, even though every replay shows that it was a bad spot. Yet somehow when the CPU catches a ball out of bounds it’s good. The game definitely has some bugs.