NCAA Football 09
July 15,2008 - It’s that time of the year again, as the new college football season is nearly upon us. With that in mind, it also marks the return of the NCAA Football series from EA Sports. The series’ next-gen offerings have been rather lean on content that takes advantage of the possibilities, but it looks like NCAA Football 09 is finally starting to realize the potential that this generation has to offer. Has NCAA Football 09 stepped up its game or is it still acting like a freshman?

The gameplay of NCAA Football 09 has gotten a nice facelift, not so much that it’s different, but that it feels looser, more dynamic that it has ever felt before. It’s almost like how All Pro Football 2K8 felt, but definitely with more polish to the gameplay system. Receivers can make some incredible catches, defenders can make some heart-pounding hits, and a deflected ball can bounce in or out of your favor for a big catch or game-changing interception. It’s just really nice to see the players around be a bit more aware of their surroundings, though it’s just a start. There are some minor issues, such as pass defense being rather non-existent when in control of your defense on All-American difficulty or higher, so the opposing quarterback has too much of an easy taking completing passes, but good players can easily overcome those obstacles anyway.

The dynasty mode and campus legend modes in NCAA Football 09 have gotten some small tweaks, but they still function the same way they did in last year’s game. Recruiting in the dynasty mode now allows you to quick call players instead of having to make a long, drawn out call to players to find their interests and dislikes about what your school has to offer. It’s nice to see recruits signing on much more quickly in the season, rather than dragging out their rejection or acceptance until the end of the season to ultimately screw you over in getting others’ acceptance. Campus legend mode now lets you move from daily practice to practice without having to exit back to the calendar after each session, saving precious time, as well as letting you choose what to do each evening, instead of it being a random event with random repercussions. Both modes feature a new interface for bringing news, updates, and all of the important rankings and award info that works quite well, though it tends to keep around old articles from the week or two before that might as well have been deleted after that week is over.

The online features of NCAA 09 have been nicely beefed up for this year’s game. The biggest addition is easily the new EA Locker feature, which lets those who take the time to rename the players of every team share their work with the world. Instead of letting uploaded rosters be easily seen by all to download, you need their username to access the custom rosters, which isn’t much of a hassle for those who are in the know. The other big online addition is the new Online Dynasty mode, which lets you join eleven other players in what would usually be a deep, single-player mode to fight for the top rankings, recruits, and eventually take the National Championship home to your school to gloat over your lesser peers. It’s a really flexible mode that offers up a nice change of pace over the typical online leagues that most sports games offer these days.

NCAA 09’s visuals look great, mostly because of the new animation system and the push to get both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3’s frame rates up to a smooth 60 frames per second. Though both versions are now lightning fast, there are a few small hiccups along the way when there are many players on-screen along with a large portion of the crowd, which is usually during the unique camera angles in the Campus Legend mode. The animations are nicely done, so that players can more easily jump out of animations and start up new ones when the time’s right, leading to better sideline catches and tackling-breaking jukes and spins. A minor inconvenience shows up when looking at replays and the videos that you can save to your shrine, which is that animations look a bit worse than during normal gameplay, especially how the ball awkwardly leaves the QB’s hand when thrown. While the game does look nice, there are enough minor annoyances that it’s still a step below looking fantastic, which doesn’t mean the game’s a bad looker either.

If you’ve played any of the previous NCAA games, you know that NCAA 09 is full of the marching band music that many of these schools play during games. The hardcore college football fiends know that there are still plenty of missing anthems and songs, unfortunately, but now you have the option to fix what EA neglected to do. Luckily, EA’s taken the chance to offer up custom soundtracks for the game, so that you can add in your own music, college football appropriate or not, to be played during specific moments in the game. The sounds of the intense action is also nicely done in NCAA 09, adding a nice touch to the hits that may just only look somewhat painful, but now you can hear that pain, as well. The commentary is standard fare, though it’s strange that you can no longer hear the commentary of Lee Corso and the gang during Campus Legend mode, meaning those big games you experience will only get the generic comments of the stadium announcer.

When all’s said and done, NCAA 09 may have some rough spots and bugs, there are ways around it that keep them from hampering the immense amount of enjoyment that the game offers. From the return of the awesome Shrine to the new Online Dynasty mode and custom rosters, NCAA 09 is definitely the best showing yet for the NCAA series on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 so far. EA still has a ways to go before they the game becomes the amazing experience it can be, but right now, what we’ve got are the first few steps on that path.

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