Evil Avatar writes: "Sports games are always hard to review simply because there is a subsection of gamers out there that are heavy simulation players and any small problem or number of roblems is like a nuclear bomb blowing up. These games probably aren't as hard to review here at Evil Avatar simply because I don't get the sense that sports games are held near and dear to many of our members. With the new version of EA's college game, NCAA Football 09 there are several things they did right, but a growing list of broken things and oddities will set off several nuclear bombs in the hardcore simulators."
The Good
* The graphics are easily better than last year
* No more stutters in-between plays
* It plays a good game of football despite problems
* Online Dynasty (once saving update is done, maybe today)
The Bad
* Campus Legend too much like last year
* Defensive line problems are frustrating if you play that exclusively
* Linebacker lack of speed really hurts coverage and tackle angles
* No environmental graphics as game goes on during rain or snow
* A myriad of other problems various people have picked up on
The Ugly
* When the uprising begins in forums when people start to see problems in these game
As GamePolitics has reported, Electronic Arts may soon face a lawsuit by retired NFL players who believe their likenesses were unlawfully incorporated into EA's best-selling Madden game. But former college players now want their slice of EA's money pie as well.
SF Weekly reports that a one-time college quarterback is now making the same claim as NFL retirees in regard to EA's popular NCAA Football and NCAA Basketball franchises. Samuel Keller (left), formerly of Arizona State and Nebraska, is the lead plaintiff in the class action suit.
But College athletes aren't allowed to be payed. A roster download is done by third parties, and merely makes renaming every player in the game much, much quicker. Which is what many gamers will do anyway.
And the players aren't always right anyway. Austin English (#33) from OU is black in NCAA 2008, but is clearly white in real life.
I don't know what he wants EA to do, they aren't allowed to pay the players, and gamers want to play as the players. It's a lose-lose.
The NCAA Football 09 $1,000,000 Challenge, sponsored by House-Kidder Entertainment, is a new nationwide Tournament that will allow U.S. video gamers to compete using the NCAA Football 09 video game on the Xbox 360 for a Grand Prize that could be as much as $1,000,000.
Operation Sports' Wil McCombs examines NCAA Football 09's recruiting model and gives suggestions on how to improve it for NCAA Football 10.
Excerpt: "The main system 'improvements' in '09 were, in my opinion, aimed in the wrong direction. Last year, EA developers presented gamers with ways to streamline the process via features like Quick Call and CPU assistance. Sadly, many sports games -- particularly EA Sports games -- yearn for the casual gamer, and these new tweaks made it nauseatingly evident. Considering the over-the-top, hardcore nature of most college football fans (and NCAA gamers), it seems counter-productive to dumb down the product for the masses, at least in this department."
