PSI reports:
''NCAA Football 09 features all of the traditional modes and offerings fans have come to expect from the series. Aside from Dynasty mode, Campus Legend is where you'll find a lot of the game's meat. The mode hasn't changed too much from last year's version. You still make a player and guide him through his college career. You'll still have to go through practice, classes and outside social activities, but the entire interface has been streamlined. You can skip through the week-to-week activities and focus just on the game. Like last year, Campus Legend is a lot of fun, but wears thin after the first season or two.
Getting back to Dynasty Mode, you can now play with up to 12 players in Online Dynasty Mode. In order to participate in a Dynasty, you need to be invited, giving you access to a special online lobby. One player will take the role of commissioner and set up all of the rules and regulations, as well as the difficulty level. The commissioner can also change play schedules to ensure that you'll play against human opponents. When online, you'll compete against other players in games and for recruits. It's pretty clear that EA put a lot of thought into planning; the commissioner can "force" weekly progression by either simulating the week or even booting players who join and are never seen again or refuse to participate. New players can also join in if your numbers ever get too low.
Whether online or off, Dynasty has been streamlined. You can now have the A.I. deal with certain details and it's easier to get in touch with recruits. Recruiting seems to be one of the franchise's "love it or hate it" features, and the lack of major changes this year won't do much to sway you either way. I've personally never enjoyed recruiting; it's dry and gets tedious after a while.''
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."
