NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

[Salhus]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

Just a general question: Are the sig shots in this game not just accurate, but good??

[countryboy]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

Just a general question: Are the sig shots in this game not just accurate, but good??

there are no sig shots.

[ehh]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

I'm using the skybox cam now and love it, I think I'll stick with this for a while. It's basically a zoomed out version of the classic cam.

[ehh]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

there are no sig shots.

There are, you just can't edit them and the variety isn't all that great.

[countryboy]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

There are, you just can't edit them and the variety isn't all that great.

I honestly didn't notice.

[cdj]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

Click the "crash the off. boards" option before the game starts and you'll get plenty.

Those focus points you pick before the game do not directly alter gameplay. They simply indicate what you want the Coach Feedback pop-ups to stress to you throughout the game. No ratings, gameplay, etc. are altered by your selections. The producers stated this at the NCAA Basketball Community Event.

[ehh]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

I honestly didn't notice.

LOL, exactly! Not a strong area of the game, hehe.

I just simmed my first season, interesting results. Hansbrough won POY which is cool, UConn went 16-16, not cool. Minnesota beat Ohio State to win the National Championship, that's pretty bad.

The recruit rankings and number of 5-stars is definitely out of control, four teams signed five 5-star players. I also learned the hard way that the CPU will not sign any recruits for you if you sim everything, lol.

[dbrandon]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

Well, I have missed feelings about this game after spending a few hours playing it. Let me preface what I am going to say with I am coming from 2k, so I am going to be doing a lot of comparisons between the two.

Menus: I haven't completely got the hang of the menus yet, so far, especially the menus in your dynasty, I am not a big fan. They are hard to bring up and the thing I hate the most about them is the fact that if you go into something, lets say Manage Rosters, once you exit it the game takes you all the way back to the Dynasty HQ instead of the menu that you were on.

Dynasty mode: I haven't got to mess around with it a whole lot yet. It will be a lot more fun once you have authentic schedules. It seems to have pretty decent depth which is very important to me. Another thing I like is if your team sucks and you are playing another crappy team, their isn't going to be ESPN at your game! On CH2k8, it didn't matter how bad you were, your game was on TV. It is a nice change of pace.

Gameplay: This has a lot of positives and negatives in my mind. A good word for it would be "clunky". Now I know that word means everything moves awkwardly, and the players do, but at the same time its like you can actually feel the weight of the players moving with every movement. I'm still undecided on this, I never noticed how fluid ALL of the players moved on 2k until this. I don't know which one is more realistic but both have their pluses and minuses.

Shooting: Played Buffalo as Army on All Conference. I shot 55% throwing up crazy shots because I didn't have any idea what I was doing yet. Buffalo shot 72%!!! Now, part of that has to do with the fact that I am terrible at defense right now, but still, 72%! This was with default sliders so needless to say, some adjustments are needed. As far as human shooting goes, I didn't feel like you had a lot of control over the shot. I don't know if release point matters or not but it didn't feel like it. It felt like when you shot the ball, it was either going in or it wasn't regardless of what you did.

Defense: I am very intrigued by the defense. First off, the players move a lot slower than 2k so that makes it a lot harded. Second, since you can't just hold down L2 and expect to stay in front of your man you have to actually figure out what you are doing. I am going to have to spend some more time messing with this but as of right now I am awful at! This though is probably the part of the game I am most excited about.

Pick N Roll: I haven't come anywhere close to mastering or even using this half way decent.

I will continue to add to this post as I play the game more.

LOL I got a warning for bring up 2K9 basketball.

[crques]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

LOL, exactly! Not a strong area of the game, hehe.

I just simmed my first season, interesting results. Hansbrough won POY which is cool, UConn went 16-16, not cool. Minnesota beat Ohio State to win the National Championship, that's pretty bad.

The recruit rankings and number of 5-stars is definitely out of control, four teams signed five 5-star players. I also learned the hard way that the CPU will not sign any recruits for you if you sim everything, lol.

Funny you mention that. Minnesota must be overrated on this game. A friend of mine simmed 2 seasons yesterday and Minnesota beat Michigan State for the championship in year 1, and in year 2 they beat Akron......yes I said Akron. He said that after Akron made the championship he went back to check their roster and apparently they landed landed 3 5-star recruits after the first season. Here's one of the craziest things I've ever seen in a dynasty on any game though.....in the first year UNC finished with only 15 wins and then made the Tournament with an at-large bid. If EA would work on recruiting and RPI ratings and Top 25 rankings, this game could potentially be great.

[countryboy]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

has anyone seen a blocking call yet? I've seen nothing but charging calls when two players collide.

[sportyguyfl31]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

I've seen the cpu take timeouts to stop runs and end of game situations.

I'm wondering if the CPU is actually calling TO's, but the problem is that when their is a stop in play, you arent always arent sure why it has occured because they do not always address it.

[HustlinOwl]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

In a game I played yesterday, I tried to slide over and draw a charge, but was late getting there and was called for a block

[countryboy]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

In a game I played yesterday, I tried to slide over and draw a charge, but was late getting there and was called for a block

thats good to know. Its mainly me getting called for charging calls.

[K_rob11]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

After playing a handful of games over the weekend, I can honestly say that I can see why many people here have been praising this game and why many have been bashing it. But luckily for me, the good out weighs the bad.

I'll preface by saying that I am a basketball junkie. I love playing, watching, and coaching it. No other game is in my console more than basketball games.....especially college basketball (and for the past few years especially 2k's College Hoops series). Once I usually get my hands on College Hoops, thats when I stop playing my football titles. Being on a little holiday budget this year, I had to trade in all of my games to get this title (NBA 2k9, Madden 09, and CH 2k8)....so I put alot of stock into this purchase....I was worried that it may not be worth it....

As many have already said, the floor spacing is great! It truly is. This opens the game up so much more and I definitly can see the difference after playing the hell out of CH 2k7 & 2k8. The player movement off the ball really stands out in this game and truly gives that college basketball feel. You see it with your players as well as the CPU players when they have the ball.....its pretty amazing.

I love the post game. Dynamic post play was the main feature last year iirc.......I am glad to see it back in this year. ONce you master all the post moves, it adds even more depth to the gameplay.

I love the tempo meter and it is not overdone at all. This is something I have ALWAYS done while playing CH....now it just really matters!

Love the little things like the limited time you get in timeouts. I mentioned that I liked this in MM008....since you get a minute for full TOs and you have your 30 sec timeouts, you have to really plan ahead as to what you want to do during your timeouts. I just wish they gave you more options to do things during timeouts like:

- giving us the ability to choose a play out of the playbook to run out of the timeout...

- ability to call a press with press options (after next made basket, after dead ball, always, never, etc...)

- set player to player defensive matchups/ pressure (right now, its just gives you position double team options/pressure)

- choose a point of emphasis (like in CH 2k8)

All this would be nice to have the option to do during timeouts....it would make timeout usage more important than it just being a way to rest some tired players.....but maybe next year


The graphics are GREAT! Some of the best I have seen in a sports video game on my 360 outside of Fight Night. Some of the animations are a joy to watch.....but there just aren't enough of them. 2k, i think, has really spoiled us in this department.

PLAYER NAMES DON'T APPEAR UNDER THE CPU PLAYER WHEN THEY HAVE THE BALL .....I HATE THAT.

The quick sub menu (when you press up on the d-pad during gameplay) does not include situational lineups...and you also cannot view fatigue or player fouls ....it makes it very difficult to make subs during the game. The best time to do it is during freethrows when there is no action going on....the only problem is that YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE QUICK SUB MENU DURING FREE THROWS!!

I love the ESPN College Basketball music to start the game...but i wish they did more of this type of stuff to enhance the presentation a bit. How about some ESPN graphical stat overlays? They can even have the score show like it does during an ESPN college basketball broadcast. I do like the fact that they pick out 2 key players to watch before the game (one from each team)....then after halftime they show the stats of those 2 players to see how they are stacking up against each other...nice touch there.

Presentation is lacking, but the atmosphere is great. One of the games I played over the weekend was Davidson (me) at Oklahoma. I kept hearing "boomer-sooner" and some other chants from the student section...it was great! I jumped out to an early lead and eventually completely took to crowd out of the game. The Sooners made their run and the crowd got louder and louder and it really sounded phenomenal when the Sooners hit a 3 to take their first lead of the game with like just over 2 minutes left in the game......my players never recovered ....but the atmosphere was great in that game.

The Dynasty mode does concern me a bit with the awful sim engine and the number of 5 star recruits that you seem to be able to get with ease (altough, the ratings seem to suggest that alot of these recruits should not merit a 5 star rating in the first place)......and coming from CH 2k8 where you had every single thing you could possibly want in a college basketball dynasty mode, NCAA 09 really looks bare. But I don't think it's terrible. Its not as bare-bones as Next Gen Madden 06,07....there is a little more than that....it just may seem that way coming from possibly the greatest dynasty mode of all time.

But to me the beauty of the gameplay trumps all of this for me. Bottomline for me is that this game is fun, period. Once I realized how fun it is to play this game, I stopped "looking" for flaws and reasons why not to like this game.... and I stopped trying to compare it to CH 2k8. I am very happy with this purchase and I am sure the slider and roster gurus here on this fabulous site will make this game even better for me!

[countryboy]

Re: NCAA Basketball 09 Impressions

After playing a handful of games over the weekend, I can honestly say that I can see why many people here have been praising this game and why many have been bashing it. But luckily for me, the good out weighs the bad.

I'll preface by saying that I am a basketball junkie. I love playing, watching, and coaching it. No other game is in my console more than basketball games.....especially college basketball (and for the past few years especially 2k's College Hoops series). Once I usually get my hands on College Hoops, thats when I stop playing my football titles. Being on a little holiday budget this year, I had to trade in all of my games to get this title (NBA 2k9, Madden 09, and CH 2k8)....so I put alot of stock into this purchase....I was worried that it may not be worth it....

As many have already said, the floor spacing is great! It truly is. This opens the game up so much more and I definitly can see the difference after playing the hell out of CH 2k7 & 2k8. The player movement off the ball really stands out in this game and truly gives that college basketball feel. You see it with your players as well as the CPU players when they have the ball.....its pretty amazing.

I love the post game. Dynamic post play was the main feature last year iirc.......I am glad to see it back in this year. ONce you master all the post moves, it adds even more depth to the gameplay.

I love the tempo meter and it is not overdone at all. This is something I have ALWAYS done while playing CH....now it just really matters!

Love the little things like the limited time you get in timeouts. I mentioned that I liked this in MM008....since you get a minute for full TOs and you have your 30 sec timeouts, you have to really plan ahead as to what you want to do during your timeouts. I just wish they gave you more options to do things during timeouts like:

- giving us the ability to choose a play out of the playbook to run out of the timeout...

- ability to call a press with press options (after next made basket, after dead ball, always, never, etc...)

- set player to player defensive matchups/ pressure (right now, its just gives you position double team options/pressure)

- choose a point of emphasis (like in CH 2k8)

All this would be nice to have the option to do during timeouts....it would make timeout usage more important than it just being a way to rest some tired players.....but maybe next year


The graphics are GREAT! Some of the best I have seen in a sports video game on my 360 outside of Fight Night. Some of the animations are a joy to watch.....but there just aren't enough of them. 2k, i think, has really spoiled us in this department.

PLAYER NAMES DON'T APPEAR UNDER THE CPU PLAYER WHEN THEY HAVE THE BALL .....I HATE THAT.

The quick sub menu (when you press up on the d-pad during gameplay) does not include situational lineups...and you also cannot view fatigue or player fouls ....it makes it very difficult to make subs during the game. The best time to do it is during freethrows when there is no action going on....the only problem is that YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE QUICK SUB MENU DURING FREE THROWS!!

I love the ESPN College Basketball music to start the game...but i wish they did more of this type of stuff to enhance the presentation a bit. How about some ESPN graphical stat overlays? They can even have the score show like it does during an ESPN college basketball broadcast. I do like the fact that they pick out 2 key players to watch before the game (one from each team)....then after halftime they show the stats of those 2 players to see how they are stacking up against each other...nice touch there.

Presentation is lacking, but the atmosphere is great. One of the games I played over the weekend was Davidson (me) at Oklahoma. I kept hearing "boomer-sooner" and some other chants from the student section...it was great! I jumped out to an early lead and eventually completely took to crowd out of the game. The Sooners made their run and the crowd got louder and louder and it really sounded phenomenal when the Sooners hit a 3 to take their first lead of the game with like just over 2 minutes left in the game......my players never recovered ....but the atmosphere was great in that game.

The Dynasty mode does concern me a bit with the awful sim engine and the number of 5 star recruits that you seem to be able to get with ease (altough, the ratings seem to suggest that alot of these recruits should not merit a 5 star rating in the first place)......and coming from CH 2k8 where you had every single thing you could possibly want in a college basketball dynasty mode, NCAA 09 really looks bare. But I don't think it's terrible. Its not as bare-bones as Next Gen Madden 06,07....there is a little more than that....it just may seem that way coming from possibly the greatest dynasty mode of all time.

But to me the beauty of the gameplay trumps all of this for me. Bottomline for me is that this game is fun, period. Once I realized how fun it is to play this game, I stopped "looking" for flaws and reasons why not to like this game.... and I stopped trying to compare it to CH 2k8. I am very happy with this purchase and I am sure the slider and roster gurus here on this fabulous site will make this game even better for me!

great writeup K-Rob.