Finding enjoyment in NCAA 09 - DJ's Blog

DJ's Blog

Finding enjoyment in NCAA 09

Posted on August 6, 2009 at 12:01 AM.

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Last week I finally got on board with the HDTV generation and picked up a 32-inch Samsung for our living room. It's the perfect-sized TV for our house; not too small and not too big where it takes over the entire living room.

After figuring out how to hook up my 360 and PS2 to the TV, I played a few games and was blown away by how great the graphics on the 360 are in HD.

In a way, that brings me to the title of this blog.

One of the games I happened to play was the NCAA 09 demo that I still had on my HDD. I have the 10 demo as well but after playing both, I found myself enjoying 09 more than 10. The graphics looked better, the camera was better and the on-field gameplay felt similar between the two versions. So, I hopped on eBay and picked up a copy of 09 for $10.

The game arrived today and I've been playing non-stop. Looking back, I regret trading in the game last year as I was having fun with the game but I think fell into the trap of reading all the negative posts on the game and started to search for flaws instead of just enjoying the game for what it is.

I'm using AuburnAlumni's Varsity sliders and have adjusted the coach aggression and the run/pass ratios for offense and defense for every team. Sure, the sliders aren't as responsive as you'd like but when it comes down to it, the game is fun to play.

Some don't like the Wide Open Gameplay concept. I dig it. Big plays are a big part of college football. Sure, the defensive pursuit angles aren't the greatest but hey, what game is perfect, right? Graphically, NCAA 09 shines. I love the textures of the colors and the player models look the best out of the 4 next-gen games, in my opinion.

With the right sliders, you can see a decent pass rush from both the User and CPU. There are a few "money" plays but all games have them. I've seen the CPU throw deep, too. Now, "deep" for some people means 50-plus yard bombs. For me, a deep ball is anything 25 yards or more. I've seen a good-number of 25-40 yard passes from the CPU so far and the CPU actually runs the ball with success.

No referees on the field, chain gangs, field goal nets and things of that nature are a little disappointing at first but once you start playing the game, you stop worrying about that and focus on the gameplay.

NCAA 09 isn't perfect but it's also not the abomination a lot of people make it out to be. I'm glad I picked the game back up and will be playing this for a long time to come.