NCAA 10 Game #1 - Oregon at Boise St. plus initial impressions - ianlast's Blog

ianlast's Blog

NCAA 10 Game #1 - Oregon at Boise St. plus initial impressions

Posted on July 14, 2009 at 09:00 PM.

Just played my first game of NCAA 10, Oregon (me) at Boise State, with 10 minute quarters on Heisman (default sliders).

1 2 3 4 F
Ore 7 14 4 15 40
BSU 7 10 9 21 47

BSU Ore
FD 18 13
Total Off 427 301
Fumbles/lost 1/1 2/2
Int 0 1
Sacks 2 4
Pen/Y 4/30 1/10
TOP 20:30 20:40

Scoring Summary

1st
BSU Potter 6 yd TD pass from Moore (Brotzman kick) 3:57
ORE Masoli 4 yd TD run (Flint kick) 2:40

2nd
ORE Blount 2 yd TD run (Flint kick) 5:51
BSU Avery 3 yd TD run (Brotzman kick) 4:38
BSU Brotzman 40 yd FG 1:07
ORE Davis 29 yd TD pass from Masoli (Flint kick) 0:08

3rd
ORE Safety Boise 8:02
ORE Safety Boise 5:59
BSU Gallarda 23 yd pass from Moore (Brotzman kick) 5:01
BSU Brotzman 36 yd FG

4th
ORE Blount 25 yd TD run (2-pt. convert successful) 7:48
BSU Franklin 14 yd TD pass from Moore (Brotzman kick) 5:32
BSU Wilson 28 yd fumble recovery TD (Brotzman kick) 5:22
ORE Pleasant 28 yd fumble recovery TD (Flint kick) 3:54
BSU Potter 10 yd TD pass from Coughlin (Brotzman kick) 1:56

Passing

Ore
Masoli 16-32-213 1 TD, 2 INT
Costa 0-1-0

BSU
K. Moore 24-27-297 3 TD
Coughlin 4-5-51 1 TD

Rushing

Ore
Blount 13-41 2 TD
Masoli 8-21 1 TD
Crenshaw 7-23
L. James 1-3

BSU
Avery 27-71 1 TD
Harper 11-24
Moore 5-(-26)
Brockel 2-12
Franklin 2-0
Coughlin 1-(-2)

Receiving

Ore
Holland 4-65
Dickson 4-46
Maehl 3-46
Pflugrad 2-8
Davis 1-29 1 TD
Crenshaw 1-9
Blount 1-10

BSU
Young 5-83
Pettis 5-50
Potter 5-84 2 TD
Avery 4-11
Franklin 3-36 1 TD
Gallarda 3-66 1 TD
Brockel 1-9
Harper 1-(-6)
Efaw 1-15

As a college football fan, this was a hell of an exciting game, but as a sim football gamer...eh, not so much. I
wouldn't even blink if these two teams played to a 47-40 final on Sept. 3rd, but I'm calling shenanigans on some
shoddy AI and unbalanced gameplay.

My initial impressions:

-RoboQB is still in effect. Admittedly I'm rusty on D, but there was absolutely no balance, the CPU couldn't run but passed at will. Still had that helpless feeling every time there was a pass in the air.

-still haven't seen the QB flat-out miss his receiver

-no deep passes from the CPU yet, other than a couple deep-ish corner routes

-As for the human passing game? Feels awesome on Heisman. I was having a pretty easy time dinking-and-dunking at
first, but the CPU catches on pretty nicely, and soon enough I was forced to go downfield with mixed results

-scored a rushing TD out of the Wildcat with Blount...at first, it cut to this really weird camera angle almost 90
degrees to the right, and I'm thinking WTF, but then I realize it's because the entire D has been faked out...and there's LeGarrette, with a clear path to the endzone. This was the only Wildcat play I ran all game, so as long as it's not overdone, very cool indeed.

-note to self: do not pitch blindly into traffic. Otherwise it's an easy six, as I found out.

-speaking of no rushing, blocking AI is still at the peewee football level...no real surprise there.

-pursuit angles have been cleaned up really nicely...contrary to what some people have said, I have not noticed any 'speed cheats' given to the defense

-two negative yardage completions by the CPU, as a result of stupidly running out of bounds...can't believe this
glitch hasn't been fixed

-pass rush is hit or miss...I picked up 4 sacks, but never felt like I got any hurries on the QB

-Heisman is slightly easier than last year, though not by much

-WAY TOO MANY injuries, both starting HBs and QBs were knocked out of the game for brief periods of time

-as a whole, the game feels a lot smoother than 09, though there are still some disjointed moments

To summarize, I'm optimistic that offline isn't going to be flat-out unplayable like 09, and I'm thinking with some slider tweaks this could actually be a decent game.