NCAA Football 09 Launch: Community Impressions

Feature Article

Submitted on: 07/12/2008 by Chris Sanner

Operation Sports and it's network sites are extremely busy tonight with many gamers scoring their copies of NCAA Football 09 early. Instead of having to read through several pages of impressions, I have included some highlights from Operation Sports and MaddenMania members for your enjoyment.

First and foremost, many NCAA gamers are worried about how NCAA freezes when trying to edit rosters, making the whole process very difficult, if not impossible. Adam Thompson, lead gameplay designer for NCAA responded to user's concerns, "CDJ linked me a video. This is a soft crash (one or two doesn't matter to us if we have video... that was just to determine based on text)."

"This is a nasty bug, and I promise on Monday I will make sure it is known. Hopefully we can figure out what happened and get it patched."

Fairdale Kings, a popular roster editor on the 360 platform confirmed the problem happens across both platforms, as he is now stuck on his thirteenth team and cannot proceed because the game crashed on him thirteen times in a row.

X-Box 360 owners still have rosters to look forward to thanks to PastaPadre having a set available in his locker which gamers can download. As for PS3 users, there is a possibility they may not get rosters until after the game is patched.

General Impressions

The general consensus thus far on how NCAA Football 09 plays is that the game plays very close to how the demo played, except maybe a bit smoother.

Forum user JTDribbles25 commented on how smooth the game played, "The game feels slightly tighter than the demo, especially running. While I was playing the demo I noticed alot of the stuttering after the play and haven't seen it in the retail version."

Several users have remarked about how much better the game controls compared to last year. Some even went on to say it was one of the best controlling football games they have ever played.

"I feel like I have so much more control when I'm running and trying to wait for my blockers," OneTonMartin said. "Slowing down and juking to get into the open is very satisfying."

"You have a lot more control over your passes from last year. It's a lot of fun to try and zip one between defenders or throw a lob to a reciever over a defender. I threw a beautiful fade route to my TE and couldn't wait to lightly tap his icon when he got open. I was almost like I was showing off.""

JTDribbles25 also comented on how each team seems to play a bit different game. "Teams definitely have different styles. Seem to play to there strengths alot. The differential from the good teams to the middle of the road is huge!! Speed absolutely kills."

Also, an important note for PS3 users who like to play in HD. NJPapi reports the game only supports 720p, so if you're HDTV only supports 1080p or 480p, you will be forced to play with the lesser resolution.

Lack of a Pass Rush?

Several forum users have posted their stats for their games they have been playing. From this writers perspective, most users are reporting games with 5-6 sacks combined for each team, which is not too far off from what a real NCAA Football game would offer. This may not mean the pass rush is as good as it could be, but it may not be as bad as we once thought.

Stay tuned to Operation Sports as we provide more updates on the NCAA Football 09 Launch.

NCAA Football 09 Videos

Member Comments

# 41 SemperVictoria @ 07/14/08 03:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaynny


	damn, im so hype for the 15th...but honestly, after seeing those highlights and seeing how unrealistic it was kinda got me second guessing the game.. it almost made me sad watching those videos...does this mean that all superstar players can not be stopped and will be doing crazy ***, stupid, unreal moves?....NNNOOOOOOO!!!

Those videos remind me of the one of Bo Jackson on Tecmo Bowl. Simply ridiculous.

EA�s hype machine has once again done an excellent job�kudos to them. But for those wanting a realistic playing game, well folks, that ain�t gonna happen for the foreseeable future will EA at the helm.

# 42 prscorpio2681 @ 07/14/08 05:03 AM

maybe internet hate was to much but the second someone has something negative look at what starts.......its easy to downgrade the hype for a game.....halo 3 isnt that great ...........and yet they go out and bought...i figure te best judge will be a review after launch or just getting it myself.

# 43 tom7jaguar @ 07/14/08 11:49 AM

The reason those runs look ridiculous..
1) Im guessing he has all the sliders in his favor
2) Being a PSU fan and watching the video of him running through PSU's defense, that fool has taken out all the starters, also i think he might have even put non defensive players in the gamer...

The reason why some of these posts are Pro EA
- Companies pay interns to post on message boards to promote their products, my roomate does this for movies. He and his co-workers will promote a movie under a few different UID's, which have been around for a while to give the UID street cred, and just talk non stop about how good something is.

# 44 skipwondah33 @ 07/14/08 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom7jaguar


	The reason those runs look ridiculous.. 1) Im guessing he has all the sliders in his favor 2) Being a PSU fan and watching the video of him running through PSU's defense, that fool has taken out all the starters, also i think he might have even put non defensive players in the gamer... The reason why some of these posts are Pro EA - Companies pay interns to post on message boards to promote their products, my roomate does this for movies. He and his co-workers will promote a movie under a few different UID's, which have been around for a while to give the UID street cred, and just talk non stop about how good something is.

Couple of things
1.The sliders were not touched, if it gets to easy just play heisman

2.That was my second game to test the game out on AA

3.Was not penn state for the upteenth time, it was FCS East and I was playing campus legend...it says it on the highlight info.

4.And I had no control over what the defense did. You guys are hilarious though, by the way I love the game you can get your copy too at midnight.

# 45 gijoe211 @ 07/14/08 01:28 PM

Ok folks man I see people on here get crasy when it comes to these games lol. I have had the game since Friday morning and I have been observing the game to find any glitches in it. First lets start with the good things. They finnaly got the jerseys right, they have the Florida st. all black Georgia black tops, Louisville all black jerseys South Carolina all black jerseys, and Clemsons all purple that alone is a plus for me from last year. Finnaly you can watch the cpu vs cpu like old times believe it or not you can observe alot of things by watching it in that fashion. Things that I noticed right off the back was the vaccuum effect when you try to stiff arm it seems like the runners legs kind of slide instead of running smooth. I like the passing better this year but the running kind of rub me the wrong way. I noticed that the D-line play is not as good as previous years I remembr before you could se the lineman and do the swim move or spinmove, I have been trying it and it does not work like before. I do like the way the receivers go up for the ball much more realistic than in previous versions. Now the editing this crap really pissed me off this weekend, I downloaded pastapadre rosters and let me tell you who ever helped him on these rosters did a damn good job, because he has freshmen on here that normally don't get on the game until version 3 or 4 lol big kudows to him. Anyways like I was saying I started editing all of the teams helmets etc and I saved it and it worked, now the problem was when I went back in to try to fix the rest of the teams and thats when the game freezes. So I'm like damn I just wasted like 2 hours what the hell, so I figured ok you have to do all of the rosters all at once so I started over and completed all the teams helmets etc. Daaaammmmnnn I start the game and these *******s are invisible it took me hours to do this man I was hot because I had not read any post on this site yet. Overall people have to look at things like we look at life nothing is not perfect not this game or my life, I love college football and I can't wait for this time of year. Stop being so objective look at it like you look at women, you can get that pretty girl who can't do absolutley nothing, cant boil water for gods sake. Or you get the girl who is not the finnest woman in the world but she is a good mother she can cook and she can drive lol she can do a little bit of everything not perfect but acceptable, that's what I want. Now I am not defending Ea but I love football and they are all we have right now and I will look past no matter how hard it is to find the good in something and quit complaning and just be grateful.

# 46 BlyGilmore @ 07/14/08 02:10 PM

I for one take things like "no pass rush" and "too many interceptions" with a grain of salt.

for one I think a lot of folks don't know whats realistic and are going off of perceptions not necessarily based in reality.

a big culprit is playing on Heisman. Heisman is not a realistic difficulty mode - the game and ratings are changed to make it more difficult for the user, not to provide realistic gameplay.

# 47 skipwondah33 @ 07/14/08 07:04 PM

Thank you Bly and GiJoe...my goodness some common sense finally. Gi you playing on PS3 or 360?

# 48 nousername @ 07/15/08 01:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trobinson97


	Bingo, that's my point (and was about to get to it before this thread was for some reason closed and now all of a sudden it's back open....). Look, I realize those MM dudes are pretty much company guys or what have you, but if you are going to post an article the least you could do is kind of pretend to be objective. I'm no journalism major, but it doesn't take one to see the slant. The fact of the matter is, even without the major bug (which this "article" almost practically glossed over) that causes the game to crash and teams to disappear, the impressions were shaky at best. There were a lot more negative impressions than positives and the majority of the positives came from people who are either easily pleased or seem to be clearly defending EA no matter what. I'll put it like this, the people that are defending EA are people I've come to do so all the time, call them what you will. The ones that are being objective about it are surprising me because I just knew they were in that same category. As for this Jwil guy's comments, you take that as you will. He claims that people playing the game and giving [negative]impressions with video and screenshots of their claims don't know what they are talking about. Now tell me, what videos have you seen posted by this guy to back up his claims? I am not calling him a liar but I'd check his gamertag if I could. AuburnAlumni is about as staunch a supporter of this game as anyone and he posted vids showing how dumbed down the AI is and talked about the other game play issues that may not even get patched. You're gonna tell me this guy is more credible than AA? Now you have people telling you, "Spend the money, try it yourself." Well, sure that's one idea, but the purpose of impressions is to give you the consumer a good idea of just what it is you are getting into. Of course, it's ultimately up to you to decide how to spend your money, but it'd probably be in your best interest to try to be informed. Once you've spent the money, your opinion on the game is pretty much null and void, believe whatever you want about their devs being on this board. Your dollars tell EA what is acceptable and what is not. If half a million people decideto spend 60 bucks on something that has up to now has been reported to have a plethora of issues with it just because they want to "try it for themselves", they just told EA that "We will give you our money no matter what crap you give us." Impressions are pretty much the same thing as reviews, you use them to help you make better purchasing decisions for yourself. The same people who say, "If this year EA messes up I won't buy again next year" will be the same people getting taken for chumps the next year. All EA has to do is just provide you with a little bit of hope for next year. You can see it already in this forum, just read a little. They will give you the shiny little features that make you say "Wow" on a marketing video, give vague little comments about how something will possibly be fixed next year and you eat it up. "This year is the year." Right? When is this year going to be the year that you finally get it? Honestly, this is not an "I hate EA" post. I do not "hate" EA. I have bought and enjoyed my share of EA games (*and I wish one in particular was reviewed well enough to warrant my purchase of it on Tuesday*). But they are a multi-billion dollar company who I have no reason to trust. I know you guys say "You should be happy they have their devs here to listen to us" but I say you guys should realize that for what it is; a public relations ploy to get you to believe they care what you are talking about. They didn't get to be a multi-billion company by listening to you complain on messageboards. They got their by your dollars going into their pockets every year. They don't have to change a thing with their business model, it works. Listening to you is not in the cards. The only thing that you could possibly do to get their attention is to stop giving them your money for sub par products.

I don't think I could've said it any better. Every year it's the same thing...people keep saying to themselves, "I hope EA gets it right this time."...and they keep buying it.

I have never bought an NCAA game, and Madden 08 was my first Madden in years. I give my opinions on what's wrong with these games, but I also back it up by not purchasing anything from EA. I usually hit the forums this time of year to see what's new with football gaming, and it's always EA and it's super marketing tactics...they put more effort into marketing than they do the games it seems like. So, this year, it's a new marketing tactic...send out representatives to interact with the gamers to make it seem like they "care".

I'm not as dense as alot of people though, and see right through that. EA's bag of gimmicks and tricks are running thin and they had to come up with another strategy to take their games over the top this year...but every year more and more people start waking up, Madden had a significant drop in sales last year.

I don't care how many reps EA sends to forums asking questions and putting certain features "on the list for next year"...notice how that's a very popular answer. Some people just want to pop in a football game and play...which is fine, but most people want a great game. I always get impressions from several people and play at somebody else's house before I buy anything from EA...why don't I do this with other developers?

Like you said, EA DOES NOT LISTEN TO YOUR GRIPES...the only thing they listen to is money...if that stops talking you will see MAJOR changes in these games. Features that they lie about and say can't be fixed or implemented until "next year" will show up all of a sudden...there won't be a "we didn't have time"...no post-game patches. There's no doubt in my mind that all of the features, no matter how big or small, could've been implemented in this year's game...they just string you along because they can. Every year for since next-gen gaming has been here, people have requested small things such as refs on the field, chain gangs, etc...these are so small, why haven't they been implemented on a game that's suppose to be "next-gen"? Man, this is just too easy, too obvious to me...but to each his own. EA will have to do more than what they are now in order for me to buy any football game from them.

# 49 no504 @ 07/15/08 05:35 AM

I bought the game and I cant play because of the freezing, im calling ea in the morning to see about getting my money back, it freezes in the offline dynasty in the online lobby and whatever else and I didnt edit my roster at all it froze up the first time in the system

# 50 erivera7 @ 07/15/08 05:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlyGilmore


	I for one take things like "no pass rush" and "too many interceptions" with a grain of salt. for one I think a lot of folks don't know whats realistic and are going off of perceptions not necessarily based in reality. a big culprit is playing on Heisman. Heisman is not a realistic difficulty mode - the game and ratings are changed to make it more difficult for the user, not to provide realistic gameplay.

Grain of salt? Not trying to be mean or anything, but Ian himself admitted it was a problem. I don't see how that issue can be taken with a grain of salt.

As for too many interceptions, I don't have that problem so we're on the same page there at least. However, I feel the problem is completely reversed where I feel QB's are simply too good. Again, something that Ian himself admitted with QB completion %'s being too high (which plays into the absurd QB TD/INT ratios in dynasty).

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