NCAA Football 10 Game-Play Round Up

It’s been crazy busy here at Tiburon trying to finish the game. On top of that I had to travel a few times so I have not been around the boards much lately . Anyway the last few days have been interesting with the game-play talk and I think it’s worth pointing out the list of stuff we’ve already talked about that is in NCAA 10 (well have it all in one post).

This stuff is from blogs on insideblog.easports.com so I’m going to be short on the details:

Pass Blocking

• Branch Windows
• Steering and Manipulation

Adaptive AI

• CPU will adapt to your play calling

Catch Steering

• Catches near the sideline will try and turn you up field

WR/Defensive Back Interactions

• Route Running and Man Coverage
• WR/DB Jostling
• Press / Release

Layered Blending

• Throwing when being hit

Inaccurate Passing

• Passes miss in a more logical direction (not random)

Procedural Awareness

• Head Tracking

Pursuit Angles

• Sideline Pursuit

Then there is stuff that has not been blogged about, only talked about on some forum posts...

CPU Passing improved

• They will throw down field more often

Defensive Line will get up and tip passes

• And I mean tipped, not just knocked down

Break out of tackles

• From Madden 09 you can try and break out of tackles after they start

Intercepting Pitches

• You can actually catch a pitch if you get in-between the QB and the pitch man (instead of it just bouncing off you and hitting the ground)

Two Man Tackles

• Another one from Madden 09

Non-Catch Catches

• Players will go for a catch even when they will not catch the ball

Slips on Routes

• In bad weather players have a chance to slip when running routes

Tons of new animations (examples below):

• Tackles
• Over the Shoulder Catches
• Motion Hand-offs
• Shotgun Hand-offs

Then we still have some talking to do about the details of Game-Planning, Linked Plays, and Defensive Keys in the next few weeks...

I guess my point is to simply remind everyone that Game-Play is a huge focus for us on NCAA and it is easy to forget all the stuff we've been talking about for months

-Russ Kiniry
Designer NCAA Football 10