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

# 16 tswiatkowski @ May 27

If someone could explain what they are doing with madden when it comes to game speed, that would be much appreciated. I dont fully understand what they are doing besides toning down the pass speed.

# 17 Niq54 @ May 28

tswiatkowski, they have tuned the speed of all animations down, because the game has gotten progressively faster over the past few years. The game has become all about stick skills less about strategy. The Madden team wants to bring strategy back into Madden. The have created a game speed slider, so if you like the fast pace of Madden 09 you can speed Madden 2010 back up to the same speed.

# 18 Niq54 @ May 28

I'm definitely going to get NCAA 2010. Game speed doesn't concern me as much as fixing last years sliders, pass blocking animations, and robo-qb. Even post patch I never really noticed a large difference in the AI settings. Alos I hope those ridiculous Offensive line Animations are gone. I'm talking about the one where an O-lineman would flip the defender into the airby hitting him in the waist. I like that they will form a pocket but now if DEs or LBs get pressure where robo-qb still exist? I hated the fact when I was lucky enough to get a BLINDSIDE hit on the qb he would make some michael vick type scamble and throw the ball automatically without even seeing me. And even pocket qbs did this not just scrambling qbs. And I forgot to mention bring back the effectiveness of the POWERBACK. Last year only sact backs could break tackles and run effectively. Big power backs dont need to juke 5 times just to get 5 yards.

# 19 tswiatkowski @ May 28

this is so true about bigger backs. there was no way for them to be effective because of the way defenders blew up your player