NCAA Football 09 Demo Available: Discuss Here

[Sigma4Life]

The thing I like most about the demo is that big hits finally matter. In my 2 games most big hits resulted in fumbles or injuries.

[Critical Kills]

Quote: Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy

Is that why Ohio State has a LB at fullback? And also it seems they stuck Pryor in as the backup QB as well.

Dunno about the LB @ FB but Pryor is that way because he will be swapped in and out with Boeckman quite frequently this year in real life so it makes sense to have him as the alternate QB even though he's not the real #2.

[Solidice]

Quote: Originally Posted by bkfount

how is the play calling screen? I absolutely hate how it shows which one you pick in both 07 and 08. I prefer the ps2 style screen, where you scroll through and can pick from 4 plays with the 4 face buttons. It really ruins playing with friends when they can see which damn play you are picking. I'm sure there's a way to hide it, but still..it shouldn't be this way.

you can either highlight the play you want and hit "A" or choose "A", "RB", "X", or "Y" to select the play, which show up on each square.

[VWarrior]

Quote: Originally Posted by Moostache

If you think THIS game looks beautiful (which it DOES), just wait until you see Madden NFL 2009 in action live on a good HDTV...it actually does make NCAA look tame by comparison... I have not had a chance to play the demo yet (that whole job problem cutting into my gaming time again) but I am curious to see if this is the same as the build we played last month at the Community Event or if it is closer to the one from earlier...it is gonna be hard for me to personally tell since I never played below Heisman level at the CD, but maybe someone like Pasta will be able to tell since he played both the NYC build and the Orlando build... I am glad to see that just about everyone is in agreement with the two biggest themes from the Community Day event - 1) that the game controls are much improved and 2) that the game is really a lot of 'fun' to play...who know how long that will last (hell, even the mega-hyped GTA4 got 'boring' to a lot of people pretty fast), but its good to see that the community at large is seeing pretty much exactly the same thing that was reported from the Community Day events as far as initial impressions....

HA! I don't have the game yet but I do remember the week it came out, just about all my Xbox Live friends who were on were playing it..for about a week. After that, and even up to now, I haven't caught anyone playing it. Most of them are back to Halo 3. Yeah, I can wait for a price drop.

[Critical Kills]

Quote: Originally Posted by bkfount

how is the play calling screen? I absolutely hate how it shows which one you pick in both 07 and 08. I prefer the ps2 style screen, where you scroll through and can pick from 4 plays with the 4 face buttons. It really ruins playing with friends when they can see which damn play you are picking. I'm sure there's a way to hide it, but still..it shouldn't be this way.

You pick using the four face buttons now.

[rspencer86]

Has anyone seen the CPU throw a deep pass yet? Just curious, as this was a big issue last year.

Can't wait to get home from work and try this demo out.

[Critical Kills]

Quote: Originally Posted by rspencer86

Has anyone seen the CPU throw a deep pass yet? Just curious, as this was a big issue last year. Can't wait to get home from work and try this demo out.

I only played one game but they never threw deep on me.

[spankdatazz22]

I'm not a big college football fan though I'm a big fan of NCAA '04 & '06 on the PS2. So take any observations w/a grain of salt:

Pros:

- really like the player models/proportions. strafing felt good

- control isn't as twitch/ultra-precise as I thought it would be, so it's not like you can do whatever you please from a control standpoint (good thing). Players do plant at times when there's a significant directional change from what I could see

- Passing wasn't precise; had appropriate amount of incompletions I thought

- Receivers showed nice sideline awareness; saw a nice mid-air animation where the receiver jumped for the ball and was hit by the defender low. He dropped the ball as he was coming down which looked nice and wasn't over the top

- Defensive pressure was evident

- Some movement by defense pre-snap; looks cool

Cons:

- lack of sense of momentum, weight, physics. There's some sense of each, just not enough to make me feel things weren't occurring randomly. I guess the "run into someone for tackle" mechanic takes some getting used to. Didn't feel like I was really tackling because there's no sense of back and forth struggle. Saw defensive ends getting flipped into the air way too often. Lots of tackle variety, but it felt scripted in a sense - wondered why players got a bit more or less yardage after contact. Without momentum factoring more into the gameplay, the cool analog jukes available don't factor as much into the overall gameplay (imo). Players are sort of moving at angles instead of having to round corners. Didn't feel the combination sense of acceleration/speed that I've felt with the older NCAA's

- hate the QB animations. Improved over last year's game though

- OL/DL play; overall player interaction. So much with the OL/DL just seems random - lineman getting shoved down easily (or flipped). Not much player interaction overall (players reacting to contact with another player, same or different team)