NCAA 09 (360)

By: bdunn13

Review Date: July 27, 2008)

 

College football is not a game to some but more of a way of life. If you walk down the street in Columbus, Ohio you will see men, women and children wearing Buckeye gear. Travel a few hundred miles down south to Augusta, Georgia and you will likely see a bunch of people wearing Bulldog gear as well as others sporting Clemson orange or the newest “Cock and Fire” t-shirt. Passion is the consistent factor throughout the country when it comes to college football. The only variable is the team of choice.

These same emotions also carry over to the digital video game world. Winning a virtual championship is the only title most schools will ever have a chance to win in college football.  Is it worth trying to lead your alma mater to a championship in NCAA 09? Do the emotion, gameplay, and total experience deserve your virtual passion? Read on to find out.

Sound:

Sound has been pretty consistent over the years in the NCAA series.  You can be assured the fight songs of your school are in the game barring any rare licensing issue. Get a first down as the home team in Athens, Georgia and you will surely hear Glory Glory. Do the same thing while playing as Florida State in Tallahassee and be ready for the War Chant. 

Another consistency in regards to sound is in the booth. Kirk Herbstreit, Brad Nessler and Lee Corso are back once again. Some of their dialogue present in NCAA 09 has been in the series for years.  However, there is nothing wrong with this if new, fresh scripts are added. This seems to be the case. After a few games I remember hearing things I have heard for years while occasionally hearing dialogue that was new for this year’s rendition of NCAA. Although the commentary is not always original and can be cheesy at times, the NCAA series has always been one of the better commentated sports video games. NCAA 09 in this regard is no different. However, there are a few issues with the commentary. On occasion, you will hear some commentary that’s out of sync with the actual game. For instance, say you just kicked a game winning field goal, the announcers may say, “Why is he getting so excited, he still has to kickoff?” The only problem with this is there is not any time left on the clock.

A good sign that something is done right is the fact that you don’t even notice it. A good umpire in baseball for example goes unnoticed.  The late Eric Gregg might stand out to some baseball fans as he called a really bad game with Livan Hernandez on the mound a few years back against the Atlanta Braves. That being said, I did not notice anything in particular with the stadium ambient sounds. That’s not to say the crowd cheered and booed at the correct time all the time, but nothing in general stands out.

Visuals:

Lighting in this year’s game seems to be completely redone.  When the camera pans around a stadium, you often see a fog like light effect. I am not sure what the intent of this was on the part of EA but it does not look bad. Player models are rather nice too. No longer do all players have the same basic frame. Offensive linemen in the game now have weight and a gut where it is fitting. The stadiums are very nicely done too. In last year’s game, the camera would pan around the stadium between and after plays. This was okay at first, but even as a Georgia fan, I got tired of seeing the Uga statue in Sanford Stadium. Luckily, this aspect of the game is gone and the visuals between plays are much more appealing. 

If you want to nitpick at the visuals, you can. For example, there is a lack of polish when it comes to the football spinning during a pass. The stadiums seem too full at times for mediocre teams with losing records. Likewise, I have not seen an official on the field during a play. They only make their appearance in order to call a penalty.

 

Online Dynasty:

If heaven were ever in a little rectangular game box, then this is it.  It’s a rare occurrence that a large game maker gets something right on the first try. However, the Online Dynasty mode in NCAA 09 is done correctly.  Do you want to import your named rosters then play a friend in California? Well, you can do all of that online in this year’s game. In the past, you would have to mail memory cards back and forth to the person you wanted to play with or copy files to your computer and email them on a weekly basis.

In Online Dynasty, each person has certain tasks that need to be completed before the commissioner advances the week. These tasks include preseason tasks like redshirting players and weekly in season tasks like recruiting and playing their game.  Once a person is done with their tasks, they can mark them complete. The commissioner of the league can then see this and advance to the next week.

The biggest problem with online leagues is the fact many people are slow at playing their games or they commit to a league then don’t follow up on their promise. This is no longer an issue with Online Dynasties in NCAA 09. If someone is not playing their games or is taking too long, you can skip their steps and let the CPU perform them for the week. If someone completely stops communicating about a dynasty they are in, then they can be kicked out of the dynasty and replaced by the CPU or another human player.

If two players play each other in a season, then they have a few options. One option is just a normal game over Xbox-Live. Another option is they can spawn the game and play head to head in the same room.  There are other options for head to head games that I have not explored yet and don’t fully understand. However, I believe one of the options is to simulate the game or have one person play the game against the CPU.  I have not tried this as of yet so I cannot be certain.

You have invested a few hours playing a season with a friend and August rolls around. You want to play Madden for a while but want to be able to import your NCAA Dynasty draft class. Don’t worry, as you don’t have to start an offline dynasty to do this. When playing an Online Dynasty you still have the option to export your draft class in order to use it in Madden 09.

Online Dynasties are done even better than the online leagues were in NFL 2k5. I am already in season two of my Online Dynasty and it’s a blast. I have inadvertently (I try to avoid the negative posts of others about games) read some things about Dynasty save files getting out of sync. This might be the case, but I have fortunately not had any issues with my Online Dynasty.

Online Play:

Up until now NCAA 2004 on the Playstation 2 was the best online experience I have had playing a college football game online. The Playstation Network was not always the most reliable but the gameplay was lag free and smooth.  The same could not be said for other versions of NCAA for the Xbox (or Xbox 360). NCAA 09 for the Xbox 360 changes all of that. After a few games, I can say this gameplay is as good if not better online than the older Playstation version in regards to lag and delay. In the past the Xbox version of the game had a bad delay online. This delay was sometimes slight but very noticeable to anyone who enjoys playing defense as much as I do. This delay is now gone.  Even the games I played on launch day (when the servers are overly taxed) were lag free even when playing with someone on the West Coast (I live on the East Coast).

If you want to play a friend in a ranked game, the way to do that is to meet them in a lobby room. At this time I am unaware of another way to send an invite to a friend for a ranked game. Just be careful if you don’t play random games as when you go into a lobby, you will likely get a few game requests. I for one avoid the cheese by only playing a close group of friends. Cheese is therefore not a factor for me.

Additional Game Modes:

The traditional game modes are in the game like Play Now where you choose two teams and just play. Mascot games are also back this year whether you like it or not. I have not played a mascot game yet but I would expect they are the same as they were during “last gen.”  Option Dash is also back in this year’s game.

A game mode that is new to NCAA 09 is “Pig.” In “Pig or Horse” you place the ball on the field and then kick a field goal from that spot. If you make it then your opponent has to kick it from that spot. If they miss, then they get a letter. The first one to spell out either Pit or Horse loses. The rules are just like the basketball version of the game except you kick a field goal.

Campus Legend is also back for another year. In this mode, you just control your one player. You start out in high school and try to get recruited. You can pick what school you want to go to. However, you might not be a starter right away if you go to a big school like Georgia, USC or Ohio State unless you are just a “phenom blue-chipper.”  Your ultimate goal in this mode is to win the Heisman and make it to the NFL.  It’s a fantastic gameplay mode that rivals RTTS in “The Show.”

Gameplay:

The most important aspect of any sports game is the gameplay. Without good and solid gameplay, everything else is meaningless. Fortunately, things have improved in this category in NCAA 09. There are some issues with special teams play and coverage in the game.  However, those issues could easily be tweaked with sliders (I have not tried as of yet).

In previous versions of NCAA on the Xbox 360, there were super linebackers. If you tried to throw a crossing route (or anything over the middle) between the linebackers and the safety, you could be assured the linebackers would either tip or intercept the pass. This year, NCAA 09 has added a novel (sarcasm) throwing concept called “touch.” I have still thrown a few interceptions over the middle as I keep forgetting to loft the ball slightly to get over the linebackers’ heads.

Quarterbacks are no longer as accurate in NCAA 09 as they were in past renditions of the game. Playing with Syracuse (in my Online Dynasty) I saw my quarterback throw a pass right to a safety when my flanker was wide open. I was not happy at the time but I still believe this is a great addition to NCAA 09. In the past, drops were somewhat prevalent in the game. This was to help lower the quarterback’s completion percentage. This year, drops are still there (like they should be) but quarterbacks throw some bad balls too.

On the topic of drops, I had a wide receiver get some separation on a cornerback with no safety help over the top. My wide receiver was running a fly pattern so I threw the ball up there hoping he would run under it. Unfortunately, he has hands like Terrell Owens and he dropped the ball.  I needed the play at the time but I was pretty happy by what I had just seen. I even stopped the game for a minute or two in order to take a look at the replay. The animation was one of the coolest I have seen in a football game.

Receivers have other nice animations in the game as well. If you throw a pass near the sideline, better receivers will keep their toes in bounds while catching the ball. The lower rated players will either try to drag their toes too far from the sideline or they will go out of bounds doing so.

Penalties are an area of the game where there could be some improvement. When a defensive tackle tries to jump the snap (in previous versions of the game), you can try to draw him offsides with a good cadence.  Your offensive linemen might also jump as well (and get a false start). However, there are not a lot of other penalties called. I have seen a holding call, and a clipping call. I have yet to see any pass interference penalties or personal fouls called.  There are sliders for this, but I have not explored them as of yet.

There seems to be a big disparity this year between the haves and have nots.  My first game I played (in an offline dynasty) was with Georgia against Georgia Southern (or equivalent).  The final scored was 112-7.  At the start of the third quarter I put in my second string (with mass-subs).  The game was not as easy with my second string in, but I still handled Southern with ease.  Luckily, the game gets more difficult when playing closer matched teams.

The play calling screen is a very important aspect of the gameplay in a football game. Over half of your time will be spent picking a play rather than running a play. One thing I do not like about the play calling is quite often “ask Corso” will come up on fourth down.  The game also at times tries to “think” what you will do and put you in an area of the most appropriate play. I would much prefer the game to keep me in the area I was in previously.

The good part about the play calling in NCAA 09 is the fact you can pick your plays many different ways. You can “ask Corso” as previously mentioned. You can also pick your play by key player, formation and play type. Picking a play by play type is quite useful say when you have ran the ball 6 times in a row and you know you want to go play-action. You can then just pick passing play, then play-action and every play-action play in your play book is now on the screen (over multiple-pages).

Summary:

NCAA 09 for the Xbox 360 is a joy to play. Like any game, there are some issues (a patch is also in the works). However, these issues can easily be overlooked due to the good parts of the game. The gameplay might be the best the best this series has ever seen. The visuals are a thing of beauty and the gameplay is great. The game is worthy of a purchase just for the online experience and Campus Legend mode. If you are a college football fan, forget the negative things you have read about this game and give it a shot. You won’t regret your decision.

8/10

bdunn13