While we have posted our "official" OS review, it doesn't mean everyone on staff has the same opinion. So, here is what someone else on staff thinks of NCAA Football 10.

Truly great sports games often transcend the sport they're based on, finding a way to appeal to a broad group of gamers. Games like NHL 94, Winning Eleven 6 and the original NBA Jam fall into this category. Even if you weren't a fan of the sports themselves, those games still probably appealed to you when you played them because the final products were greater than the sum of their parts.

NCAA Football 10 falls short of that transcendent status. As a longtime Madden player who has made sporadic forays into the NCAA series, I went into NCAA 10 looking to see if the game would grab me and make a fan of me. It did not.

Which isn't to say there's not a lot to like about NCAA 10, because there is. It is a game that plays to its base and makes no bones about it. In other words, college football fans will likely find that the game has many redeeming qualities. But I'm not convinced you couldn't say that about many of the previous iterations in the series. What I really wanted -- and what I didn't get -- was a game that could make a football fan like me into a college football fan.

From a gameplay perspective, NCAA 10 will be instantly familiar to anyone who spent any time playing Madden 09. This is both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, the action on the field does -- for the most part -- a commendable job re-creating the game of football. On the other hand, the game retains many of the quirks commonly associated with EA football games (an overall lack of penalties, strange animation transitions, pedestrian line play and so on). The playbooks and the quick, wide-open on-field action also have a distinct and college-like feel to them, leading to a satisfying experience, if not an entirely unique one.

Graphically the game is again solid but not spectacular. The player models and the fields look good, but the crowds and sidelines look more generic. The game is also missing little details like referees on the field during gameplay. Once again, Madden 09 players will feel right at home.

So if a game with recognizable gameplay and graphics truly wants to stand out, particularly with its pro counterpart shipping a mere four weeks later, something like immersive presentation would have gone a long way towards creating a true collegiate classic.

Unfortunately, the presentation in NCAA 10 leaves a lot to be desired. The pregame, halftime and postgame presentation falls well short of revolutionary, and really only meets the bare minimum of what we should expect these days. During the game, TV-style aspects like stat overlays and instant replays are used sparingly, and the commentary, while acceptable, is obviously recycled and occasionally buggy.

For example, while playing as the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the new TCF Bank Stadium, Brad Nessler referred to the "Metrodome crowd" as being fired up. In another game, audio clips from color guys Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso played at the same time, effectively drowning each other out.

But bursts of too much commentary are far from the game's greatest sin. The experience is truly jarring during the all-too-frequent periods where it seems like very little is happening. If you avoid skipping through the action between plays, you're treated to long stretches of emptiness, with no commentary and just the white noise of the crowd going off in the background. At first it's insignificant, but over the course of a few games it sucks the personality out of NCAA 10.

As a result, we're left with a solid college game that does little to set itself apart from last year's Madden, at least on the field. Hardcore college football fans will probably like it, but they've undoubtedly already gone out and bought it.

For people like me, NCAA Football 10 misses that transcendent mark and leaves me wondering why I wouldn't just wait for Madden 10.