The Potential of NCAA Basketball, EA finally doing it right - ehh's Blog

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The Potential of NCAA Basketball, EA finally doing it right

Posted on November 12, 2008 at 04:51 PM.

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So far the Autumn months have been interesting and eventful for the basketball genre. Purely from a subjective standpoint we've seen the partial resurrection of NBA Live, the partial downfall of NBA2K and one sleeper emerge in NCAA 09. Heated debates have been seen all over the forums during the last six weeks and we're sure to see more in the coming weeks after NCAA Basketball 09 hits shelves next Tuesday (well, we think that's the street date at least). Regardless of your personal feelings towards the three pro games, you can't deny that boundaries are being blurried and loyalties are being tested this Fall for the first time in a long, long time.

The demo for NCAA 09 dropped last week to the usual reaction of OSers. Some loved it, some hated it, some were lukewarm, some felt it was worse than Pong. Personally, I was very impressed with the progress made from March Maddness 08. There is no way to sugar coat it, MM08 was a terrible game. Playable, yes, but it had very little going for it. Even with Live 09's engine, there is still some hangover from MM08, but it doesn't look like enough to detract from the overall experience of the game. I don't want to get into the pro's and con's too much, you can find my in-depth thoughts in the demo impression thread.

So the question everyone is asking is, "can EA's first go-around with the 'new' NCAA Basketball series really dethrone the now-legendary College Hoops 2K8?" As a complete package, the short answer is certainly 'no', not in Year 1, but I don't believe it will be long before this series moves past College Hoops. NCAA 09 will still be behind 2K8 in several categories; animations, legacy, coach mode, multi-user legacies, names online, roster accuracy, etc. Plus all the "little things" that OSers drool over. Some of those areas are deal-breakers for OSers and they will not be playing NCAA 09 this winter because of it.

However, kudosis in order for EA's dev team. They started where they should start; with the game play. They are starting from a solid foundation and will be able to build and add all the features demanding OSers want in the future years. And I honestly believe that after the OS community has enough time with NCAA09 the gameplay will be as good as CH2K8.

The ingriguing improvements that we should see over the next few years are easy to get excited over. It's only a matter of time before online dynasties are brought over from NCAA Football, though it may be taxing since there are three-times as many teams in DI basketball than in DI-A (or whatever it's called these days, FBS?) football. The animations need improvements, the rosters need to get more accurate, improved online experience, multi-user legacies offline, etc.

But the beautiful thing is that as these features get added into NCAA '10 and beyond, we are still going to be able to rely on the strong foundation of the game play (which will also be tweaked, tuned and improved) to create a better complete product year in and year out.

When I see posts in the forums along the lines of "How can they not have ONLINE DYNASTIES?! I will never buy this trash!" give me a slight chuckle while sitting at my keyboard. Those features will come, we just need to be patient. After all, how much are you going to enjoy an online dynasty if the gameplay resembled MM08 more than Live 09? Our alternative is a college basketball series concurrent with NCAA Football. A messy, half-broken game that causes more headaches than high-fives. No thanks, I'll stick with what we have and count my blessings and know that EA does care about making quality games and finally learned to reach out to the community to help make those games better.