yeah, im very tempted by this game now. And I don't even have EF27 and his mad game hype skills to blame for it this time ;)

I always find it funny that people think EA tests these games or that they actually care. Time and time again, they have proven otherwise.

I agree in a way, but then again it probably saved me $40-50 bucks on buying another EA game just for there to be a bug that blows the whole game, and having them never patch it.

true. but the beauty of PC is that in a lot of cases the community of modders can fix the bug.

As far as quick substitutions go, when you are in your playbook just before you pick your play hit the X button(360). Then you can do a quick sub.

thank you very much.

I don't know where you're seeing this in this thread. People may be talking about some little problems but overall this game appears to be solid.

I think at this point, the only chance of this being a turd is if there's some sort of long term progression problem, which makes the whole point of spending all this time on the draft useless. I don't think anybody has really made it up to this point yet.

Does this reset on the next series, or do you need to quick sub the starter back in?

I'm just concerned because with 22 positions to manage it must get pretty confusing.

I believe it keeps the sub in on the formation you subbed the starter out of. So you need to sub for each formation, and the sub again to put the starter back in. However you do have plenty of time to sub using the quick sub feature.

FWIW, face masks are similarly broken. I think clipping has a number like this as well.

Again, just the sense I'm getting after reading many of these threads over the last few years around an EA release. They seem to always follow the same progression. Right now we're still in Phase 1, with some moving to Phase 2. It will be interesting to see how the tone is in a few weeks when more people have a chance to really play it a lot.

Looks like Bill Harris is going to do a series of write-ups on Head Coach '09. The initial post heaps a lot of praise on the game. Harris usually doesn't praise a game that often, so it speaks volumes............

Dubious Quality: Head Coach: the Return of the Notebook Game (part one)

bill harris tell me how my ass taste

You're flexible enough. Take a taste for yourself so no one else has to obiterate their taste buds.

Seriously speaking, I'm enjoying the game. I took over as the coach of the Broncos and chose to start the game before free agency. For comedy value, I signed a bunch of running backs. I've got Kevan Barlow, Mewelde Moore, and Samkon Gado all on the roster with holdovers Selvin Young and Andre Hall. Then I went and drafted Johnathan Stewart out of Oregon. Then I signed undrafted free agent Xavier Omon. I've got seven halfbacks on the roster, along with Mike Bell at fullback. There's no way that there'll be enough playing time for even half these guys, so I will have to decide who to cut. I stopped playing right before my first preseason game. My early gut feeling is that I'll cut Barlow, Hall, and Omon. I have very little money tied up in those guys, so they can go. Stewart's attributes are not impressing me, but he's a draft pick. I don't want to throw him away yet.

Frankly, I'm having a lot of fun so far. I've enjoyed the scouting, the free agency, the draft, the trading, etc., etc., etc. I also coached half a game in "Coach Now" mode just to see how that worked out, and the only thing that irked me was that screen passes don't work (as mentioned earlier in this thread, I believe). I may have to create plays that are "sort of" like screen passes to replace the useless ones already in my playbook. Other than that, I like the game a lot.

Here's the workaround for the salary bug that some people have noticed. From the developer..........

daaaaaaaaaamn ice cold imo

Yep, that is exactly how I feel with head coach. I can tell you one thing. If EA would patch head coach the way Jim patches FOF or Arlie patches bowl bound it would be a no brainer to keep the game. But, I know there won't be any patches or if there is a patch it will only fix the injury bug.

Hopefully head coach will be better next year. :(

OK, so I feel a little lost during the season. Is there an online guide or is official guide worth the $20? I can't for the love of me find the round players are drafted on their card or anywhere else.. Can I find this information?

What guide is worth $20? There's good bits of info here and there in the guide, but it's mostly just a rundown of things you already know. I mainly got it because I was confused at first with play creation. The guide did not help (but it is not the fault of the guide that the play creation system is bad)

I will probably pick this up once it is released separately. I don't plan on buying Madden this year.

Good news that they're doing a patch...

Excellent news, particularly the fumble fix as this has been the worst issue from a lot of the impressions that I've read.

I've actually been pretty pleased with the game out of the box. Seeing that they'll be patching stuff is a very nice surprise. I'm impressed.

amazing attention the developers are giving this and hopefully shows that Hc is something that they can grow.

Isn't there a crazy bug where if you save the game on certain days and then load it all kinds of bad things happen? I'm surprised to see no mention of that in his post about the patch.

Dola

I'm an idiot, that's the huge salary bug.

Glad to see the Play Creator/Injury bug is going to be fixed. Everything else I could have worked around or lived with, but I really want to be able to create and add plays to my play books and evolve them over time.

GRRRRRR

I WANT THIS GAME TO BE FOR MUTHAFUCKING PC!!!!!

Going through a preseason game after a wild and wacky offseason I noticed two things:

1) The running game is indeed borked.

2) It doesn't matter if you select Calm or Emotional response, the damned thing reacts as if you made an Emotional response even when you didn't. :banghead:

#2 - from what I've seen it varies player to player, like Mcfadden likes to be calmly congratulated on a TD, while Leinart likes an emotional response on my team. While a big play Leinart likes calm, but Mcfadden likes emotional.

From what I can tell, it's suppose to make you 'get to know' your players.

As for the running game, it seems like alot of the more athletic backs try to juke and dance too much.

I know what's it for.

What I'm saying is, it doesn't matter if you select Emotional or Calm as your response.

The PS3 version popup afterwards every time is Emotional Response reaction even if you picked calm.

And as for the running game, I know it's small sample size, but Ronnie Brown in the first preseason game had a yard for his biggest gain and was tackled for loss or no gain on pretty much every time he ran the ball.

If you are good at creating plays, your plays will dominate the cpu so bad it won't be worth playing at all.

Accroding to the developers, "Emotional response" is the name of the feature and is not actually an indication that you picked "emotional" as your response. In retrospect, they said they should have done it differently as it can be very confusing. However, try watching your coaches' actual animations - from what I've read it is quite different when you select emotional vs calm.

Operation Sports review...

NFL Head Coach 09 Review (Xbox 360) - Operation Sports

Well, I've created several plays on both offense and defense and they haven't been dominating. I guess I suck at it.

Apparently, the developers are going to release a Patch for this game. According to Bill Abner's blog, here is the list of fixes:

• Here's the link: The Nut and the Feisty Weasel

If you have a fast defensive end, do some stunts and push 3 linemen to one side. Have two LB's blitz up the middle through the gap. Then have the far end rush to the outside. Works really well.

First NCAA, now Head Coach?

Wow.. I'm going to hold off until the patch is out, then restart my Rams career.

I'm tempted to write a dynasty on this with the Dolphins once the patch comes out.

I might as well considering I take notes when I play the game. :D

I am hoping the stand alone version of Head Coach due out in September will have all these problems fixed.


At $45 is there any reason to wait?

Madden NFL 2009 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition - PS3 only - $44.98 at Target
Madden NFL 2009 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition - PS3 only - $44.98 at Target B&M YMMV - SlickDeals.net Forums

That would be a no-brainer for me if they had that for the 360.

Demo is out on the PS3. I stopped by a couple of targets today, no dice at that price. Will check again tomorrow though at 8am sharp.

No kidding, considering the stand alone head coach is 49.99 at most stores.

I'd say the only disadvantage is that from what I've read and is listed in the patch notes is that there is a freezing issue with the PS3 version. I've got the 360 version, so maybe someone else can elaborate a little more.

I might have to look for that, since I just purchased a new non-BC 80 GB PS3 today. From what I read (a post on the OS forums) the stand alone version of Head Coach is the exact same version included in the Madden Collector's Edition along with all the bugs. I still can't believe it took a game like Head Coach to help persuade me to buy either an XBOX360 or a PS3. I went with the PS3 because Disgaea 3 is coming out in a few days, and that will end up being the first game I purchase for the PS3 unless I find this deal at a local Target store.

I have a 360 and have had freezes in the 2nd half of a few of my games.

I believe that post is in reference to Madden and not Head Coach

Yup. The link is to OS's Madden forum, not HC