NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

[Hammerhunker]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

Bottomline for me was that I had to end up playing the PS2 version to have a football experience this season. Laying down $60 bucks for the next gen version and having it go to waste is unacceptable.

The next gen need more than tweaks. The only thing it has going for itself is how it looks, but the second the movement starts, it all goes down hill from there.

I was very sad and disappointed with the next gen version. At least I had the old gen version.

[KingVMSU]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

PS2 is pretty sweet but it is a drastic "looks" shocker.

Bottom line, EA is mass appeal and there are way more idiots and cheesers than us hardcore sim folks.

Best we can hope for is sliders like NHL 09 that drastically effect gameplay and can deliver anything from arcade to hardcore sim based on tweaks. But as far as the actual engine changing out of the box? forget it, EA has al but staed they dont give a damn.

"working as intended" was what was given at the community day when these very issues were discussed and pointed out....from what I've heard.

[JAYMO76]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

Bangpow, the cpu INT problems in NCAA '08 were just too much to bear. I personally felt NCAA '09 was a lot better. The wide open gameplay still didn't feature any deep passes so I don't even think the gameplay was that wide open. For my skill level, the sliders made the game very good and not wide open. My biggest problem was the terrible cpu running game.

I will take the wide open gameplay of 09. Never again do I want to play intercept fest 08 again. What a terrible game!!!

[Bama83]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

"Wide Open Gameplay" translates into arcady finger twitch fests and cheesy gameplay geared towards appeasing "gamers" rather than "sports guys".

Say what you will about the scores this year, a good defense remedies this situation almost every time. Bama held Florida down for the most part (24 pts until a late garbage time score), Florida held Oklahoma down (14 points), so on and so forth. Great defenses stifle great offenses almost every time. The problem is - there are a lot of poor defenses out there.

Please put defense BACK in the game. That doesn't mean interceptions or leaping linebackers. It means corners that cover and make wiser decisions. Breaking the pass up or jarring the ball loose. Linebackers that read the offense and make plays based on that rather than some preprogrammed AI script. A defensive front that gets pressure on the QB and forces him to throw the ball early or in the dirt or to a receiver that is covered so it's easily broken up. Make getting outside the tackles and throwing the ball away when there is pressure something that actually is a good move.

Make the defense have a big advantage in fourth down situations. These are rare and when people online go for it in ridiculous situations, they should be punished. OR make punting in punt situations a mandatory selection.

[Bumble14]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

"Wide Open Gameplay" translates into arcady finger twitch fests and cheesy gameplay geared towards appeasing "gamers" rather than "sports guys".

Say what you will about the scores this year, a good defense remedies this situation almost every time. Bama held Florida down for the most part (24 pts until a late garbage time score), Florida held Oklahoma down (14 points), so on and so forth. Great defenses stifle great offenses almost every time. The problem is - there are a lot of poor defenses out there.

Please put defense BACK in the game. That doesn't mean interceptions or leaping linebackers. It means corners that cover and make wiser decisions. Breaking the pass up or jarring the ball loose. Linebackers that read the offense and make plays based on that rather than some preprogrammed AI script. A defensive front that gets pressure on the QB and forces him to throw the ball early or in the dirt or to a receiver that is covered so it's easily broken up. Make getting outside the tackles and throwing the ball away when there is pressure something that actually is a good move.

Make the defense have a big advantage in fourth down situations. These are rare and when people online go for it in ridiculous situations, they should be punished. OR make punting in punt situations a mandatory selection.

I agree with you 100% on this post. I really had fun with 09, but the defensive changes you note would make the game even better.

My fear is that better defense will equate to more interceptions, leaping linebackers, etc.

I'd love to see the offensive explosiveness of 09 meet the defensive pursuit, smarts of 04.

[J.R. Locke]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

The limited playbooks and horrible CPU playcalling made this game relatively unplayable for me.

NCAA continues to be the most disappointing game I rent every year. I love the variety in college football from a coaching standpoint but unfortunately NCAA 2009 continued the trend of neglecting the idea of a coaching program. Stuck with waterdowned playbooks and no way to dictate coaching philosophies for the CPU NCAA is a very boring game.

I guess it is an online game....and that I guess is something they did right...

[JAYMO76]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

I enjoy the game BUT..... I still can't get over all of the missing features:

formation subs
endzone art
FCS
CAS
Bowl atmosphere
all alternates
uniform editor
playbook creator
interactive coin toss
on field warm ups
coach on the field
heisman ceremony
OL/DL interaction
lack of a cpu running game
poor recruiting logic
pre game show
post game show
ESPN integration......


Fingers crossed for 2010...

[Hammerhunker]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

I enjoy the game BUT..... I still can't get over all of the missing features:

formation subs
endzone art
FCS
CAS
Bowl atmosphere
all alternates
uniform editor
playbook creator
interactive coin toss
on field warm ups
coach on the field
heisman ceremony
OL/DL interaction
lack of a cpu running game
poor recruiting logic
pre game show
post game show
ESPN integration......

multiple camera angles
improved running motion

Pardon the piggyback, but your list just about did it for me, with those two additions. If the gameplay was adjusted to where you could use sliders to take this game from arcade to sim, then have the ability to expand the playbook, and implement just a couple of features to enhance the presentation, this game would be sweet.

That is what makes me angry. We can see just what it would take to be great, but the makers either don't or choose not to, but still passes the game off on us at $60.

[stoncold32]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

Wait, HOLD UP, why didnt I know the PS2 version has all this?!? They even have Corso putting on the mascot head. W-T-H?????? Oh,this really ticks me off now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWwJvxerco0

This is completely unacceptable to not have anything close to this in the next-gen version. I don't know how the A-squad next-gen team can live with the B-squad last-gen team being that much better than them.

Even the box cover athlete(Desean Jackson) turned out to be better than the next gen players.

[TheTodd84]

Guys, you can tear me apart on this one for mentioning a hypothetical game in my critique of this game, but there are just a few questions I have posed that I have yet to get a viable, strong response to.

First of all, why are canned animations and motion capture still in next-gen video games? Why? There is NO excuse for this. PS3 and 360 can handle a physics engine that re-creates real-life situations ON THE FLY, like Backbreaker would if it ever comes out. When I have posed this question previously, the only response is that it takes too much time to re-write the Physics engine and start from scratch in order to meet the release date. To me, that is probably top-3 lamest excuses I have ever heard. I am also getting a little sick of people saying that the physics engine utilized in that game are "rag-doll" and will "never work" in a football game. Well, are the canned animations working right now? No sir, they are not. People are skeptical about it because it is human nature to be skeptical about large-scale change. But, for the same reason we voted in Barack Obama, sweeping change is needed on the sports gaming front.

I know release dates are based on investors and what not, but tell the investors where to stick it and tell them you will release the game when it's ready to be shipped and a good game. If they don't like it, other people will invest in the game and the company when they see the public absolutely foraging to the stores to buy an amazing sports/football game.

Canned animations are a thing of the past, a thing for PS2 when the processor wasn't strong enough. There is no excuse for them on the next-gen systems. None. Get rid of them at any cost. Will sports games be 100x better without them? YES. Can sports games advance with canned animations and mo-cap? NO. End of Discussion.

I am not a businessperson so I don't know how you would go about finding the resources to do it, but I'm sure EA with their billions of dollars could figure it out. Just Sayin'.

to quote Stephen A Smith, I GUA-RAN-TEE YOU that if a company took the time to actually make a new physics engine, or i dunno BUY ONE THAT IS ALREADY OUT THERE, then many of the programming issues would go away immediately.

For 2010: Adjust the running animations for gods sake, PLEASE. They are awful.

Change the pursuit angles COMPLETELY. Players are WAY too quick to run behind the ball-carrier and try and chase him down.

How hard is it to make a realistic pocket? Also, 2K figured out how make blocking realistic, why can't EA? Those two things ALONE would make the game 20000000x better.

Again with the tackling, 2K figured out a way to make it so that you would not see the same tackle twice in a game on the LAST-GEN, so why is this still an issue on the next-gen systems? Again, NO excuse.

Why are QB throwing animations so bad, and the ball physics just as bad? There is not realistic pass coverage at all, or ANY recovery speed by the Defense. Makes for a one-sided affair, which sucks.

Unfortunately, I bought NCAA 09, so I contributed to the problem. But there will a rental of 2010 first with no purchase. Sorry EA, but your product stinks. Bad Company was great and so was Dead Space. Madden and NCAA? Not so much.

[JAYMO76]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

Wait, HOLD UP, why didnt I know the PS2 version has all this?!? They even have Corso putting on the mascot head. W-T-H?????? Oh,this really ticks me off now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWwJvxerco0

This is completely unacceptable to not have anything close to this in the next-gen version. I don't know how the A-squad next-gen team can live with the B-squad last-gen team being that much better than them.

Even the box cover athlete(Desean Jackson) turned out to be better than the next gen players.

Oh man, I'm about to snap! I watched the above link. I hadn't seen a PS2 version since NCAA FOOTBALL 07. That is the game I want for next gen consoles. The Broadcast desk, the players walking on the field, warm-ups, the interactive coin toss complete with refs, refs on the field during action, FCS teams.... THIS IS THE GAME WE ALL WANT EA.... WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN?

I refuse to believe that it is toooooooooooooooooooo difficult and time consuming to recreate that introduction. I suspect that difficulty has nothing to do with it but rather it's a competition between development teams and the next gen team doesn't want to copy last gen.... AND THE BIG LOSERS..... YOU AND I!

[Hammerhunker]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

Oh man, I'm about to snap! I watched the above link. I hadn't seen a PS2 version since NCAA FOOTBALL 07. That is the game I want for next gen consoles. The Broadcast desk, the players walking on the field, warm-ups, the interactive coin toss complete with refs, refs on the field during action, FCS teams.... THIS IS THE GAME WE ALL WANT EA.... WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN?

I refuse to believe that it is toooooooooooooooooooo difficult and time consuming to recreate that introduction. I suspect that difficulty has nothing to do with it but rather it's a competition between development teams and the next gen team doesn't want to copy last gen.... AND THE BIG LOSERS..... YOU AND I!

I tell you the game is great.

I was actually turned on to this game and Madden by a thread started by Countryboy. I was skeptical at first, but went ahead and bought the NCAA PS2 game and was blown away. You have that initial few seconds to get rid of the graphics but actually they are pretty sweet. Heck a lot better running motion and the speed of the game is just right, now lumbering cumbersome like the next gen. The QB's drop and throwing motion is more accurate. I have not even touched a slider and have had super games. Absolutely no complaints. I won't go into how the Madden is actually better imo, but that is for another thread.

I just hope the PS2 version is released next year as well as an insurance policy.

[stoncold32]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

Oh man, I'm about to snap! I watched the above link. I hadn't seen a PS2 version since NCAA FOOTBALL 07. That is the game I want for next gen consoles. The Broadcast desk, the players walking on the field, warm-ups, the interactive coin toss complete with refs, refs on the field during action, FCS teams.... THIS IS THE GAME WE ALL WANT EA.... WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN?

I refuse to believe that it is toooooooooooooooooooo difficult and time consuming to recreate that introduction. I suspect that difficulty has nothing to do with it but rather it's a competition between development teams and the next gen team doesn't want to copy last gen.... AND THE BIG LOSERS..... YOU AND I!

You know what, you're probably right about that. I'll bet the next-gen team leaders have too much pride to want to "copy" the stuff from last gen. Too many times on this board I've seen the EA guys say, "(topic) isn't a main priority". Nothing that really matters to us seems to be a priority to them.

Heck, I'll take just the audio of that intro. I don't even need to see the Gameday desk and characters. They CANNOT, CANNOT, CANNOT, make me believe that they can't input that audio from the intro. That's just a flat-out lie.

[JAYMO76]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Postmortem

You know what, you're probably right about that. I'll bet the next-gen team leaders have too much pride to want to "copy" the stuff from last gen. Too many times on this board I've seen the EA guys say, "(topic) isn't a main priority". Nothing that really matters to us seems to be a priority to them.

Heck, I'll take just the audio of that intro. I don't even need to see the Gameday desk and characters. They CANNOT, CANNOT, CANNOT, make me believe that they can't input that audio from the intro. That's just a flat-out lie.

In addition to my other issues, No formation subs in NCAA FOOTBALL 2010... I'm sorry but that for me is a deal breaker. How much longer will members of this community passively accept table scraps? Mediocrity is just not acceptable! For me, two of the top last gen features are: formation subs & customizable playbooks. How can these things still be missing?

What really makes me angry (if formation subs don't make it in) is that Madden has them. All we need is the Madden playcall screen and done... we have formation subs. NCAA and Madden are essentially the same template... just transfer the files over!!!!


EA, don't recreate the wheel... that philosophy only hurts gamers... you know.... those people who pay your salary...

[RJTheDestroyer]

I agree with this review in every way pretty much. I feel it was an awesome game that kept me playing for awhile when I had the time. And to all the people about the speed...it's definitely one of the most important things in college football, but the good teams also have guys with good enough speed to keep your guys in check for the most part I found.