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My personl thoughts on the game (and I'm real with mine)
This aint one of those bash EA threads or a kiss EA's butt session either but I wanna give my Impressions after 3 ranked online games, and a little screwing around in play now! Take it how you want it but its just my opinion, not the gospel (you cant find those in Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John lol).
Now I havent touched the roster issue because basically I dont want my game freezing up and such. You really never know what kind of damage you may cause so before I have to sue EA for a new PS3, I'll leave it be until I hear further details, but:
Remember fellas, we've been deemed by EA as the "NCAA Community" but lets not forget that before we are some gaming community, we are consumers! We bought these games well before we joined message boards and forums. And that while we all love college football and the NCAA series we still have the right to make gripes and complain when the product purchased is not up to par, and crashing our $600 systems. Lets not lose sight of our power to consume this product and power to boycott it if we want to (not that Im suggesting either). EA is a decent company and have been nice enough to put their dev team on the boards across the net to give us answers and ask for feedback into this game. But I encourage you to realize that someone has not done their job very well in NCAA 09. If we go and buy a car from Ford Motor Company and the wheels fall off, we would take that car back and raise some hell. Well whats the difference with this situation? EA has put out a game with a number of flaws that just dont show up in other games and then say "there is no way we could have found out in testing?"
Are you frickin serious??? You mean to tell me, you spend a ton of money on making a game but you cant test it thoroughly to see if it suits public use??? That makes no sense to me. I believe that food companies test their meat before they send it to the grocery store, car companies test their cars before they put them on the lot, and even microsoft tests Windowns before they release the new versions. Bottom line is that if EA says they dont have the budget or manpower to test these games and features the would they should, then they need to dig in those pockets and make more of an investment into the product or else stop making it, if you arent gonna do your best, dont do it at all.
Whoever is responsible for the edit player feature needs to be talked to by his/her supervisor. They need to get on these boards and tell us what the hell is going on. Maybe they need to be suspended or fined, or maybe they should be released and EA should hire someone who can get the job done, "hell, it happens in sports all the time, lets keep it real." If you go to work and screw up your companies product, your head would be on the chopping block also. Whoever is responsible for the "Wide Open Gameplay" should be receive a serious talking to.
We all love offense but damn. Can my LB please just run to his man and cover him. Why is a TE with 65 spd pulling away from my SS with 92 spd. It makes no sense. That person or persons should be repimanded for this crap. Its wrong to drop all of these videos and screens and stuff and then feed us a game that highlights offense and then totally ignores defense. I like 09 because of the graphics, atmosphere, and the fact I can score and keep myself in the game but I wanna be able to see my guys make a solid defensive play before the score is 42-42 at halftime.
Actual Gameplay issues (my opinion)
This is what EA has done with 09:
1st they market this whole new "wide open gameplay" feature. Well this sounds sweet as we see the vids of jaw dropping jukes and new animations showing off big plays and awesome offensive highlights.
The problem: They've turned the defense into complete morons. I have the game and played 3 games online ranked last night and I can honestly say that I've never been this good on offense just 3 games into the new game. Pass defense is virtually non-existant, the DBs and LBs absolutely refuse to cover the receivers with any type of consistency.
In man defense, the WRs always run away from the DBs no matter the ratings. And in zone defense, the WRs run to their spot while the defenders play waaaaaaay off and let them catch the ball. Pass rush isnt an issue because it doesnt exist. You are better off not having a defensive line at all. I've only seen 1 sack by a d-lineman and that was on a screen pass. I have seen a few INTs but they were because they QB threw the ball really late. As long as you throw the ball in decent rythm, you wont throw a pick.
Now everyone with the game is saying its fun, and I agree it is fun, but the reason why its fun is because you can score pretty easy and if you put together nice time consuming drives then you wont notice that no one is being stopped. The final score may be 35-31 which is normal but its entirely due to just popping shorties all over the field and running a little bit. So basically the graphics and atmosphere coupled with the easy scoring makes the game fun, because you should never be out of a game. I really cant see a situation in which you shouldnt score everytime you have the ball. If you have any sense whatsoever about how to play offense, then you should have no problem scoring 5 TDs and this all comes from EA making defenders have no AI whatsoever.
Special Teams comment: Punt Return issue is waaaaaaaay overated, there is no punt return problem because teams dont have to punt. I've seen maybe 3 in 3 games. So dont worry about punt coverage because you wont have to punt. Just focus on you FG block.
Now kick returns is different, the outside men just run straight down the field, without making a move towards the ball carrier and the others get blocked fairly easily. I've even been clipped from behind and no call was made. I mean I literally beat my man and he turned around and pushed me in my back and made me fall, and no call was made.....strange, no penalty......well it aint like they actually call any other penalties besides offsides or something manual.
In closing: NCAA 09 is nothing more than NCAA 04 with better graphics, and less defense. Online dynasty is an addition but its nearly pointless without rosters. And wait....didnt EA promote this new roster sharing feature?
I rest my case. Its a fun game but are you looking for fun game or a great gaming experience like MLB The Show 08, but if you were on the fence and thinking about waiting until Madden, I would stay on the fence if you were only gonna play it for a month. But if your a diehard NCAAer then at least wait until the patch comes out unless you like shootouts every game and no rosters. I need rosters for my dynasty and without them, it feels bare again but I'll deal with it for now!
Thanks for your time!
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07-13-2008, 03:28 PM
