Hey everyone I am Andrew Kennedy, senior majoring in journalism at UCF. The idea for this blog is mainly taken from "The Sports Guy" Bill Simmons over at ESPN. I love sports too but there ca't be two Sports Guys so i decided to incorporate my other love, vido games.Every sports video game season begins the release with one video game and one only: NCAA Football. Since 2003 this has probably been the best football game title since it is the game I have played the most.
After turning out crap the last two years NCAA 10 is pretty decent this year so I'll start with a late review (which I feel are the truest reviews because no one can tell how good a game is in just a few days) followed by a rundown of what to expect with the rest of this blog.
NCAA 10 has basically taken what was the most effective parts of Madden 09 and NCAA 09 and combined them into one game creating, not a perfect game, but a very playable game for many seasons if dynasties are your think, and they're mine.
The "game-killer" from NCAA 09 was the speed, that's no secret. Eventually if you didn't like playing Florida online anymore, dynasty mode was not about to save the game either. Once you started reeling in the big recruits or just trying to get fast guys, the game was way too easy even on Heisman level. For me, I took UCF to an undefeated national title in just my seventh season followed by another in my eighth.
Winning titles too soon kills a dynasty faster than ripping the game out of your PS2 and smashing it against the wall, which I've done.
NCAA 10 fixes the speed problem and gives the game a feel much like Madden 09. It's better than Madden 09 too though in a way that EA decided was the only way to get realistic results, at least when playing the CPU.
All defenders in NCAA 10, with the right sliders, are idiots when reacting to the run. You know what, it has to be this way. It is very possible to start getting realistic results even while playing on All-American this year, which was impossible last year.
No one reacts to a running play unless they are matched up with the running back or are blitzing until the back crosses the line of scrimmage. If they did, then the CPU running game would be exactly like it was in Madden 09, which was like watching Hawaii try and run against USC.
The fix for the realistic NCAA 10 gamer is to control a safety (if not you'll get beat around the corners way too much), and start preparing your Thorpe award acceptance speech right after you decide which safety you'll be controlling, because you're going to have to make at least 150 tackles a season to keep the CPU running game under wrap.
So there you go, one quarter of this game is not perfectly fine, but fine and not a game-killer. The other three quarters, as you may have guessed, are the human running and passing game and CPU passing game.
Robo-QB, which dominated both football games last year, seems to be gone for the most part when playing on All-American, not sure how much it appears on Heisman. Still though if you are playing against quarterbacks like Colt McCoy they are going to frustrate you with their high-completion rates. That's real though. I remember feeling the same way back in 2007 when UCF hosted Texas, so no one's allowed to complain about this either.
As for the human offense, it can be tough to handle at times. With good sliders you are forced to watch your O-line total for about 10 pancakes a season, and look like total retards on plays at times. Blocking assignments are often blown resulting in plays where your back has no chance.
Nonetheless, this is a must to keep games close. Even when I feel like my O-line hasn't made a solid block all game long, I look at the stats and see I was sacked only once or twice. This is something the gamer will have get used to and accept if they want the CPU to put up a tough fight.
The only real changes in the passing game involve wobbly passes when the quarterback is hit while he's throwing and wide receivers acting like panzies and getting jammed by corners resulting in broken routes. These are both very annoying but help so that third down conversions are not as easy and make you have to take sacks from time to time instead of forcing passes.
This is only a portion of the gameplay and the most important things I have seen so far. As my dynasty continues and I start to see new things, I will take note of them and write about them here.
Right now I have just finished my first season with UCF. I went 10-4 losing to Memphis, Miami and Texas in the regular season. I beat Houston in the conference championship and then lost to Alabama 24-14 in the Liberty Bowl.
Florida and Oklahoma met for the national title again. UF completed a perfect season with Tim Tebow winning the Heisman. North Carolina and Boise State also finished their seasons undefeated but Florida was still first in both polls.
I received an invite to replace Duke in the ACC after one season and accepted. This also happend to me in NCAA 09 after one season with UCF, although I went 12-2 in that season.
That's all for now though, I'm off to watch my friend Andrew Espidol compete in a Fight Night Round 4 tournament in Orlando.
Thanks you my name is Andrew (this is my weird sign-off).
You can follow me and my dynasty on Twitter at https://twitter.com/akennedy41.
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