Its that time of the year again. FOOTBALL SEASON! EA Sports kicks off football season with the latest release of the NCAA Football franchise. NCAA Football 2010 is packed with features we have come to love over the years, and a handful of amazing additions that will pull many football fans into the NCAA series. Truthfully I don’t know where to start, there is so much to this game, and so many good things, that for the first time ever I do not view NCAA Football as a stripped down version of Madden NFL.
NCAA is jam packed with different game types. If you want a quick game you can jump right into “Play Now”. For those who want a long trip down the college football highway, you have two choices, “Dynasty” mode which is your normal pick a team and run all aspects of that team, or the new “Road to Glory”(RTG) mode, where you can create a player, then bring him up from the High School playoffs and through his college career. And lastly if you just wanna kill a few minutes you got “Mini-games”. On-top of the new RTG game mode, there are two other features that are new to the series, “TeamBuilder” and “Season Showdown”. With teambuilder you can create your own team, either on your console or on your computer (which can then be downloaded to the console and/or shared with friends). Teamuilder is fairly deep, not only do you design the uniforms and stadium, but you can fully customize each player on the roster. Feel free to search for my gamertag (“magaman”) and check out my alma Mater Hofstra University that I put together, complete with team logo! Season Showdown is going to be a neat competition that pits all NCAA Football players against each other. You start Season Showdown by picking your favorite school, and then through out the NCAA season as you play the game you earn credits for your school of choice. Its pretty much a massive team game to see which school can come out on top at the end of the season. There are five categories that you can earn credits for, and you can earn them both on Xbox Live or offline as you play.
Playing NCAA Football 2010 changes depending on which mode you play. We’ll start with “Play Now”. Play now starts with you picking a gametype, be it Exhibition, Family Play, Practice, Mini-Games, or the always fun Mascot Mash Up. The team selection screen has gotten a nice little change, by pressing “Y” you can bring up the Uniform Customization and change the teams different uniforms pieces, lets say you like the teams away shoes, but their home helmets, you can change them. From there you get the normal screen of settings, Skill, Time, Stadium, and Weather. With weather you can set it yourself or just use The Weather Channel Live Feed, which pulls the current weather for the stadium. I’ve always loved live weather in games, it makes it more fun and connects the game to real life just a bit more.
Now onto the gameplay. There are some new gameplay things going on in NCAA Football 2010. First is “Game Planning” are you down be a touchdown, well set you defense to “Aggressive” and they will go for the ball, but run the risk of penalties. This is a nice addition as it lets you quickly and easily change the style of gameplay as the game unfolds. Another addition is “linked plays” on offense. As you pick plays you will notice links connecting them. Some plays will set-up other plays and cause the defense to be tricked which equals big yardage. The way it works, you’ll run the same play a few times and each time you run it, you’ll see that its linked play gets more set-up, once the play is set-up expect the defense to have some holes in it. And the last big gameplay addition is “Player Lock”. Before a snap you can choose your player by hitting “B” and either play as normal using the camera angle covering the entire field of play, or you can now click the left thumb and the camera will zoom in and lock on that player for you. This is nice as you can be locked on a half back for a run play and get a nice camera angle, but it really shines when your on defense as the camera will swing around and be locked at you from behind. No more playing defense from the offensive camera angle!
Road to Glory(RTG), is the latest game mode addition to the NCAA Football franchise. You start by creating a player and choosing a position. From there you pick your high school team, and play out the local high school playoffs. Depending on how well you do during the high school playoffs dictates which universities make you offers and how good those offers are. Once you pick a college to attend you move into your college dorm room. From your dorm you can move through the various menus to steer your players college career. The menus are a bit strange, the one menu you always need is your “Academics and Skills” is buried 2 levels down in the “Main Menu”, you are always checking your GPA and skills this should have been right up top and in the open. Once in college you will be doing 3 things, Practicing, training/studying, and playing games. More then likely you will be picked up as a 3rd string player and you will be spending LOTS of time on the practice field. Each position has its own practice drills, and as you make positive plays on the practice field you earn points, and at certain levels you are moved up to the better strings. After each day’s practice you then have to choose to study or train, both have either negative or positive effects. In order to play on gameday you need to have a 2.0 GPA, and at the same time you need to improve your skills. For the most part these practice/training sessions are tedious work. As a QB you will throw passes for plays that you don’t even get to pick, which makes it real boring. As a WR you run your routes and catch balls, which makes moving up longer as there are other WR on the field at the same time as well getting passes. Also there is no clear indication on what exactly you need to do to earn points, it seemed if I throw 5+ yards I would get 2 points, a touchdown pass seemed to be 6 points, but this is never really made clear. Also the training/studying is just picking, no type of mini-game, and again no clear cut answer if choosing one will have positive or negative impacts until it’s selected. Sometimes I would study and my GPA would go up a few tenths of a point and thats it, other times my GPA would go up 2 points and my speed or power would go down 2 points.
Now comes your first big game. After many weeks practicing and not playing you finally get a crack at playing. Again you will run the plays already set forth by the coach. Its more exciting then practicing yet still very bland. Presentation is a bit strange in RTG mode during games. Either the game is or isn’t televised, if it isn’t televised you get less on-screen graphics and no commentary. If you are playing in a televised game you get the same presentation experience as in “Play Now” mode. It gives the game a little realism boost, but makes non-televised game rather boring.
Dynasty Mode, is the mode many hardcore football gamers love, and for NCAA Football 2010 it is “hardcore”. For most sports games I’m a big fan of the “Road to Glory” type modes, however with the very repetitive nature of RTG, I have found that Dynasty Mode is the way to go. Dynasty Mode works the same as other sports titles Dynasty/Franchise modes. You start by picking a team and then managing many aspects of the team. In NCAA Football 2010 there are some difference, the biggest being in the recruiting aspect. You start the season by picking 35 target recruits. You are then given time each week of play to make phone calls and convince the recruits that they want to come to your school. Now it sounds like it could get boring but you do need to use strategy when on the phone. You need to find out what interests the recruits have, be it Academics or Television Coverage, just to name two. Once you have a recruit that has enough interest in your program you can then schedule a visit for them to see the school. From there you can offer scholarships to the top candidates. Playing games is also fun as the games play similar to that of “Play Now” mode. Dynasty Mode uses the same presentation concept as RTG mode, televised games get the bells and whistles, non-televised games don’t. But since the games are similar to “Play Now” where you get to pick plays and do much more, the lack of presentation isn’t as noticeable. Dynasty mode is quite in depth and offers tons of hours of play.
Moving on to the two new features of NCAA Football 10. Team Builder and Season Showdown are great new features that really add to the replay value of the game. WIth Team Builder you can build your own team, fantasy or even real life. You can also build your team on your console or at the comfort of your computer via teambuilder.easports.com. You can either make a quick team, or you can go all out. The first steps are to create the look of the team, you pick the uniforms including the colors and patterns. You can also upload a image for your logo. Yes you could make your logo a picture of your face. Then you pick a replica stadium and design the field. You can pick the colors the fonts in the endzones and again the placement of your upload logo. From there you move to the roster. Here is where you can be quick or spend some quality time. You have the option of select some default roster types or you can go through and name and give each player stats. Once your done you can download the team to your console logos and all, plus you can share the team with the entire world. In game playing as your Team Builder team is a lot of fun. The logo you created will be integrated into all the graphics during the game and is quite amazing. The only negative is the team mascots don’t get the uniform treatment and will still have the uniforms of their true teams.
Season Showdown is what is going to keep players playing. Season Showdown is a massive team game. When you first start Season Showdown you pick a team, choose wisely as this is permanent. Then as you play the game you earn points for that team. The game will mirror the true NCAA schedule and each team will be put in their respective matchups. The winner will be decided by which teams NCAA players(you) earned the most points. At the end of the season one school will be crowned champion. This is a great way to show off your team spirit. And not to fret there are a ton of individual stats that you can use for bragging rights.
Presentation is very good in the games “Play Now” modes. The game will unfold with a nice tv broadcast feel, with cuts to all the activities on the sidelines after a big play or touchdown. Scoring a touchdown might net you a celebration dance with your teams mascot or a view of the schools cheerleaders! Other new presentation additions, include on-field band formations, field goal nets, camera flashes in the stands, and team flags on the sidelines. When playing games its always fun to find little things that just add to the realism, be it stadium announcements for winning seat prizes in games past, or its NCAA 10’s obviously large audio library of popular/expected name. I made the legendary Rod Tidwell(Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry Mcguire) as an RTG player and the stadium announcer is able to say his name perfectly when he makes catches, and even better when playing my Teambuilder team The Hofstra Pride, when the game starts your welcomed to a game between “The Pride” and whatever team you pick. Its small things like those announcements that make games shine. In Road to Glory you are also treated to a weekly highlight show featuring Erin Andrews after games. The highlight shows, show off your big plays of the previous game, and has a nice call in from Kirk Herbstreit doing a more in-depth analysis of your performance. I’m still not a big fan of the lack of commentary during non-televised games, even radio type commentary would have made RTG games better.
Xbox Live play is what everyone is use to. Each week there will be a showcased game lobby which has two pre-defined teams for the week. ALso as you play online you get the rake in some major Season Showdown points. Everything you have come to love in NCAA Football online play is still in place and still looking good, including the EA Locker Room.
Overall NCAA Football 2010 is a great football game. I haven’t played NCAA Football in many years and gotta say this years game has hooked me. NCAA Football 2010 really captures the amazingly high energy of college football games. I’m always looking for realism in football games and for once I can say animations are solid all the away through. Long gone are the days of wild not possible tackles, and here are the days of players fighting off multiple tacklers to break free. On top of that, the gameplay additions, teambuilder, Season Showdown and the changes to Dynasty mode make this year game a winner. Any NCAA Football fan will enjoy this game!
| Gameplay | |
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Overall Rating: 8.6/10 | |
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What I want to know is when the fans wont look horrible.
And just the general sideline/atmosphere will be better.
It adds alot to the game, and it’s missing.
Come on EA.
I’ve been playing Road to Glory mode for over two months now. I have to say its pretty awful.
- user can’t change length of quarter (5 Min only) which means since you’re playing as a single player at one position you only get a handful of touches per quarter.
- rather large glitches in gameplay: mystery catches, players running WAY out of bounds and then back in again, clock fails to stop if you do manage to get out of bounds, etc.
- playcalling: you’re at the mercy of the AI and man, is it dumb. 3rd down and 22 to go and they call a running play. Down by two scores with under 3 minutes to go in the game and the AI calls 4 or 5 consecutive running plays.
- defense: maybe Northwestern (I know, I know) is that bad, but opposing teams are scoring on about 85% of their possessions. MSU marched down the field and scored 5 consecutive times before the fourth quarter even started. Look, we know Northwestern’s D is full o’ holes, but since when did they play like my public high school’s special teams squad?
- SIM mode: if you’re playing as an offensive player your team’s defense is simmed all the way through. There are really weird glitches in how the AI is tracking plays…like, the opposing team will routinely go for it on 4th down and their success rate is obscene. Sometimes it will be 2nd and 9 for the computer and they’ll end up mysteriously punting? As you move through the plays while your RTG athlete is on the bench, its pure chaos. I can tell who’s done what for how much yardage and what the last play was.
- FG: my FG kicker makes about half of all his kicks INSIDE THE 25. Thats horrible. That’s high school. Yet, fairly routinely he’ll nail a 58 yarder before halftime. Awesome.
- The Option: I have yet to play with a quarterback who can actually make an option toss accurately (or is willing to toss to my RB at all). You know its bad when your QB has be charged with 3 fumbles for the game because he literally tossed it into the hands of an oncoming defender. Stupid.
- RTG mode has no voice overs from Herb Herbstreit and Co. Not that I’m a huge fan of that, but at least having the option would be nice.
- Running: you better be trained up in the running back position. The blockin in this game is mediocre at BEST. I’m routinely hit behind the line after I make the first guy miss. How pathetic is it? My RB is leading the team in receptions because thats about we can do to actually gain yardage.