NCAA Football 10 vs. Madden NFL 10 - adembroski's Blog

adembroski's Blog

NCAA Football 10 vs. Madden NFL 10

Posted on May 25, 2009 at 01:27 PM.

(21)

Versus... I hate having to put that in there. It should be NCAA Football 10 and Madden NFL 10.

For many years, to me, they've been one and the same. Going back to the PS1 versions of the game, I was just as excited, if not more so, for NCAA as I was for Madden. At heart, I'm a college guy. I love the variety in the game, I love seeing an option team take on a spread team. I love the myriad of defensive formations. I love how colorful the game is. I love how Michigan vs. Notre Dame has the atmosphere of the Superbowl even when both teams are terrible. Sans the idiocy known as the BCS and the absurdity of the champion selection, College football is simply more entertaining than the NFL.

But this year, I have a sinking feeling, I'll be playing Madden almost exclusively. Oh, I'll buy NCAA, as Team Builder has me very excited, but I can't imagine, once Madden drops, NCAA will get much rotation beyond a change of pace.

Its the first year I've ever considered not buying NCAA, and honestly, without Team Builder, I wouldn't. We've been over all the improvements that are applying to both games- improved pursuit, pass blocking, branching animations coming over the NCAA, WR/DB interaction, and I'm very happy about all of this, but the two big ones; game speed (including pass velocity) and Pro-Tak are not.

Now, I could live without Pro-Tak in NCAA this year. It's a huge game change in Madden, but it's some complex tech and I wouldn't want NCAA to ship without it tuned properly. However, the change of game speed in Madden is the single biggest upgrade in the game, in my opinion, and NCAA would have benefited even more from it.

Have you ever honestly read the defensive tackle's gap post-stance to decide whether you would give it the ball to the FB on the triple option? If you have, you've got better reflexes than I do, because I'm forced to just limit the FB handoffs to when the right guard is in a bubble. It's just too fast, I don't have the reflexes to identify the tackle's movement and get my hand off the button in time to prevent the handoff.

Then there's pass speed... NCAA's will apparently be the same supercharged rocket as last year, and that is where the entire passing game breaks down. Timing is of little importance when the pass is moving near the sound barrier.

This coming off-season, it's time for Peter Moore and EA Sports to make the change that should have been made years ago, the change that is the most logical, intelligent, and obvious change Tiburon could make; Stop with having two teams with shared resources, and create an EA Football Creative Lead. One team, two halves. Differences should be deliberate and only exist to accentuate the differences between the NFL and college football.

If NCAA team leadership was wise, they'd have followed Ian Cummings lead. Perhaps the Great Experiment on the Madden team will be carried over to NCAA next season, in which case, great. Either way, there should be one over-seer with the kind of vision for Tiburon football that Ian Cummings has brought to Madden NFL 10.

Comments

# 1 jsquigg @ May 25

You are too smart for ea.

# 2 rudyjuly2 @ May 25

I'm worried over NCAA as well. Are you sure the pass speeds on NCAA haven't been toned down? I thought the new passing logic stuff was in both games.

# 3 Dfiant1 @ May 25

Great Blog. I couldn't agree with you more.

# 4 jWILL253 @ May 25

Yeah, I don't know why NCAA keeps featuring improvements that were already Madden the year before. They are just now adding the tackle-breaking system that was in Madden already...

# 5 thudias @ May 25

makes perfect sense to me!

# 6 marcoyk @ May 25

Nicely done. I agree.

# 7 droopizzle34 @ May 26

hey broski,u sure NCAA doesn't have Pro-Tak?I coulda sworn Tebow got gang tackled on the season showdown clip on gametrailers.

# 8 droopizzle34 @ May 26

p.s great blog

# 9 Hova57 @ May 26

as usual adem great blog. teambuilder will make ncaa playable i think there will be a big gap in sales between ncca and madden because of the sheer improvement of madden.

# 10 KG @ May 26

Really good post. It's hard to judge 2 games that haven't even come out yet but perception is what it is. It just appears that the Madden devs are running a go route towards a "sim" experience where the NCAA devs are running a curl route and heading towards the LOS (arcadish).

Like you said, it's time that EA focused their efforts on making NCAA & Madden different on-the-field.

# 11 BroMontana82 @ May 26

hard not to agree with that. glad someone came out and said it with high visibility. all of these features and presentation improvements are great and all, but when it comes down to it, you need to fix the core gameplay and issues that are important to the people who buy the game. NCAA doesn't seem to have done that this year and there's going to be a huge lag behind madden's gameplay innovation. the lack of very detailed blogs and skirting around specific questions such as formation subs doesn't help with sentiment either. i was excited for NCAA since i love college football, but i'm not too excited anymore with all the madden anticipation.

# 12 AC IS ART @ May 26

Nice.

# 13 bigtimegeek @ May 27

great post, and i agree with what you are saying...it just seems the madden team is more community friendly, and willing to listen to the sim gamers...

# 14 TreyIM2 @ May 27

TheCreep - In terms of speed, usually NCAA is faster. Madden 09 was faster than usual and I should know. Been playing both games for years now and never have I had difficulty adjusting to the speed of Madden like last year. The demo alone was tough. As for Pro-Tak, nah, it was not there in Madden 09 nor is it in this upcoming NCAA. What they ARE doing with NCAA is giving it, finally, two man tackling that Madden already has had. 2 man tackling is not even close to what Pro-Tak is.

adembroski - I feel u. I actually used to buy NCAA for years, even though I don't really get into college football that much, just to have it end up collecting dust when Madden came out but I stopped buying them after NCAA 05, which I still have. What I would do is just rent them there after and even the last 2, I just played the demos on my PS3. Ironically, though, I'm going the opposite, this year. I'm actually gunna shell out $60 for this NCAA even though I KNOW Madden is going to get an insane amount of burn on my PS3, this year. Hell, Madden 09 has gotten the most burn out of any Madden I have ever purchased, even with all the glitches. The game is just much more fun than ever to me, with the ability to break tackles and such. Plus it looks pretty damn good. I actually returned Madden 08 for my PS3 to RE-PURCHASE the PS2 version I had originally bought on release day but traded in with my PS2 for my PS3. Madden 08 was garbage.
Anyway, I think Madden 10 will most likely get the most burn for anyone who purchases both Madden 10 and NCAA 10 because of the proposed dramatic "overhaul" of sorts Madden 10 will have. Either way, let's enjoy both for what they have to offer. Peas

# 15 tswiatkowski @ May 27

Lol i was one of the first who came up with the WR/DB interaction idea on the message board, and I really am glad it is in both games. That being said, I dont understand what is so hard about getting PROTAK in NCAA. Dont they work for the same company?

Another idea I came up with, which I will outline in a later "2011 Wish List" thread, is the idea of dynamic penalties and two new ratings, "Composure" and "Discipline"

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