NCAA Football 10

A notorious issue that has surrounded sports games in the past (particularly ones developed by EA Sports) has been that they don't offer much new, they're just basically a roster update. NCAA 10 does a better job then older games, but for somebody who bought last year's version it still might not feel like there's enough new here to justify shelling out another $60.

 

So let's discuss what is new in NCAA 10. Season Showdown allows players to choose one school to represent and each time they use this team online or off they will be earning points for this team. The teams follow the real life schedule, each week they face a different team and the users who have declared their loyalty will earn credits for that squad by doing things like winning games, answering trivia questions, and demonstrating sportsmanship. At the end of the season the top 32 teams will compete in a tournament to crown a champion. This is an excellent addition and it can be addicting to try and push your team to the top, and it gives reason to keep playing. My only disappointment is that there has been no word on if Season Showdown will be supported once the season ends, so this feature is limited.

 

Another mode being touted by EA is TeamBuilder which allows you to hop on your PC and create a school to use in game. You design everything from the uniforms, to logos, to the field you'll play on, and basically anything you could want to make this team your own. This is a welcomed feature to all sports games, it's great if someone wants to make a college not included in the game or even if you want to bring your high school into NCAA 10, but to be honest it doesn't feel like it will get a lot of use because most fans will want to be playing as the traditional NCAA schools.

 

Road to Glory is the next new game mode...but wait, it's not really new. If you've played a recent NCAA Football game this will look familiar to you. Road to Glory is really just Campus Legend mode disguised under a new name. The only thing new about it is that Erin Andrews is featured, covering your career from an up-and-coming High School prospect to a College Legend and compiling highlights. But the initial gameplay is the same. You create a player a control nobody but that player through the whole career. It can be fun but it suffers from the same thing it always has: there's only a few positions that are actually any fun to play.

 

Dynasty mode is also basically the same. You can control a team and work your way through seasons either on or offline. Recruiting is still fundamentally the same which means it's still very tedious. It becomes such a pain to have to stop every week and click through menu screens, begging the top recruits to come to your school only to see they've signed with somebody else. Even though there's hardly any change, Dynasty still offers a great amount of enjoyment and is where you'll be spending the majority of your time, whether you're trying to build the next big college program or you just want to take your favorite team to a BCS bowl game. Having an online Dynasty makes the game that much stronger, because it can be a blast if you manage to find an active league to join and have live people to compete against, adding to the challenge of being the best team in the nation.

 

One thing that makes a college game so special is having that college atmosphere, and EA does a faithful job at portraying the feeling of packed stadium on Saturday. Fans interact realistically with how the game is flowing, all of the team mascots are on the sidelines along with cheerleaders, and the horns are blaring as your college band is performing your fight song. The same commentary line-up of Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Brad Nessler is still here, as well as most of their dialouge from past games, and they are accompanied by Erin Andrews on the sideline to give updates on injuries. The commentary does a great job of giving the games personality. The issue is the same lines are repeated and a lot of times the comments are either irrelevant or late. For example, a DB had his hands on the ball but ended up dropping it, and once the play was finished Nessler chimed in "And it's intercep!!--No he dropped it" rather than saying this as the play actually happened.

 

While not a terrible thing, you're going to be looking at the same game you were last year. Player models and stadiums are well detailed and look as good as any sports title out there, but the other issues with visuals are back from 09. The crowd still looks like something out of a game two generations ago, and lighting effects are sub-par at best. Players have as many as four shadows coming off of them at once and the field will occaisonally look choppy due to poorly lit stadiums. Player animations look very smooth, but that's something I'll get more into in just a little bit.

 

Keeping up with the theme, gameplay hasn't undergone any substantial modifications. However this isn't necessarily a bad thing, because the minor tweaks they've made make the game feel better than ever.A few new additions have been made to gameplay, play calling in particular. You now have the option of choosing to play conservative, aggressive, or a balance between the two. It's good in thought but it doesn't seem to have a very big impact on how games are played out and most players end up ignoring its existence. Also in play calling is the ability to attempt setup plays. To do this you perform a mix of linked run or play action plays and each time you succesfully complete a play the percentage of the counter play goes up. The higher it is the more likely the defense is to bite on a play action or hesitate on a run pattern. Unfortunately this suffers in the same way the aggressive/conservative feature does. Lastly is the option to lock onto a player so that you play from only their perspective for one play, giving you the same camera angle that you would have if you played that position in Road to Glory. The problem is the camera for this sometimes feels awkward so you might just be better off to stick to playing each play regularly. But enough with the nearly useless features, let's move on to the enhancements to core gameplay.

 

First up is the offensive side of the ball. Quarterbacks control almost exactly like last year, though it is worth mentioning that it was a bit more challenging, but in a good way. The defense forces you to be smarter with play calling, you can't just go for bombs or call for slant routes every play, you have to mix it up with a variation of receiving routes. Scrambling has also become a little more difficult, and they finally have fixed the exploit of a QB sneak being an automatic 2 yards every time. Another fixed bug is that interceptions have been toned down, thankfully. The rushing game 10' feels superb. It has been balanced out to be not to easy to run for a huge gain, and not so hard that you're constantly being stuffed in the backfield. A new system for breaking tackles has been implemented to make it so slipping away from defenders isn't as easy so you rely more on your footwork. It just feels a lot smoother this time around and it seems like EA Sports finally has it down pat.

 

The old saying tells us that defense wins championships, so it's important that NCAA Football 10 works well, right? I'm happy to say that defending feels better than it ever has. Tackling animations are wonderful. Rather than a generic wrap-up each time, defenders respond differently to the way they go about taking the opposing player to the ground which both looks good and feels good. If you time the hit stick well you'll be able to lay out a vicious hit on some poor freshman. Defending feels fantastic for the most part, but that's not to say it's without some flaws. Once a defensive lineman makes contact with an offensive lineman he basically becomes stuck to him and can't do anything more. except shift from side to side. This often gives the QB way to much free time in the backfield and it's just frustrating to not be able to penetrate the line. Another complaint, albeit a small one, I had was it takes a while to get used to timing deflections this year, but with some games of experience this can be cured so it's nothing to worry about.

 

We still don't have the perfect college football sim, but NCAA Football 10 is still a damn good game. It doesn't take any huge leaps from last year and if you purchased 09 it may be a little disappointing to spend another hard earned $60 for this year's game. But EA has delivered a smoother experience and a game that will be enjoyed by many football fans across the nation.

 

Score: 8.0/10