NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

[JAYMO76]

163.2 PASSER RATING... that needs to be toned down. Oh by the way... that's not one game, that's the entire season!

[youALREADYknow]

Just read the article... this made me laugh.

"Retrospective Review Score for Gameplay: A"

Great job undermining the legitimate complaints of the hundreds of people here in regards to the flimsy AI in this game.

[stoncold32]

Quote: Originally Posted by rudyjuly2

I agree that NCAA 09 was pretty darn good and that many people over exagerrated the problems with the game. However, the biggest problem I had with the game was the horrible cpu rushing game. It was just too weak on every difficulty level and the sliders were so watered down that it was impossible to fix. The cpu running game has traditionally been garbage on default levels but I had always been able to tweak it to something realistic until this year. That problem alone caused me to stop playing the game in December. Pick up games are still fun but I'll enjoy playing basketball and baseball games for the most part until the next release.

I gotta disagree dude. This game is borderline terrible if you've ever played the PS2/Xbox versions. You say the biggest problem is the CPU running game, but I think it's WAy more than that. What about the CPU never passing deep? I think I've counted a total of two pass plays where the ball traveled at least 30yds before the WR caught it....and both of those were in the same game.

-QB option/running is broken. I put in NCAA 2004 a couple months back and I had forgotten how good the QB's ran the option in that game. In '09, the QBs run like they are confused.

- Defense if just too slow. If a 80's speed TE get's a step on you, it's over, no matter who your DB is. Just put the controller down and get ready to go back on offense.

[Keith121212]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bumble14

Really? Don't you think this is a little overly dramatic?

Not at all. NCAA Football '09 was TERRIBLE. Beyond that arguably. How anyone can say the game has A+ anything is beyond me.

[KingVMSU]

You have got to be kidding me.

Opinions are like....well you know the rest.

This game was brutal on all level with exception to looks, it was beautiful.

[Rocky]

NCAA 2009 for the XBOX 360 featured the worst gameplay in the series....EVER

Yes.

EVER

Go back and play NCAA Football 2007 for the PS2 and you will see great gameplay crippled by terrible pursuit angles. That was the one flaw in otherwise a great game....and somehow NCAA 2009 for the 360 seemed to make them worse. And this is on top of a whole hosts of defensive problems.

The PS2 version is light years ahead of Next Gen in the gameplay department.

[sportyguyfl31]

somone else sid it earlier, the shining moment of the game is its visuals. It was artful.

Everything else just sucked on ice.

Pursuit angles, quicksand running when you tried to switch to a player to control yourself. Teams running qb keepers with clod footed pocketpassers, hitting 50+ yard FG with just about any kicker I want to...and on, and on, and on, and on.


This isnt just the worst NCAA football title ever, it is the second worst EA Football title on next gen, only beating Madden 06.

[Pared]

I haven't played NCAA much this year. Many of the same issues that plagued the game in head to head matches remained... CPU play was a "chore" and the game lacked the enthusiasm of college football.

I enjoyed '08 but with the CPU actually feeling worse this year, there wasn't much else left to do with the game.

Look at previous years; No matter how bad NCAA was, people would not move on to other games. They would overlook the issues and still play the game. Recently, other games have done a much, much better job of capturing their sport than NCAA has. People would rather play MLB, NBA NHL, and FIFA games over this. The same holds true for Madden.

It's just deep issues with the engine that seem to persist. I loved all the other stuff they added to the game, like the team celebrations and such... but they couldn't overshadow the same issues that are there year after year. And this year, with the wide open gameplay being instituted... many more were introduced.

Even with their problems I would prefer to play NCAA '04, '05 and '06.