• Posted April 27th, 2009 at 16:21 EDT by
• 8 Comments

This past week, PSU was invited out to New York City in order to check out EA Sports' upcoming seasonal line-up, which featured the likes of Madden 2010, Tiger Woods 2010 and of course, NCAA 2010. On top of checking out the upcoming titles within EA's lineup, we also had the opportunity to attend the NCAA Draft Premiere Event later that night. During the event, I, along with Chris Jacobs (Utopia) and Bryan Wiedey (PastaPadre) were given the opportunity to interview NCAA athletes about the upcoming draft and their love of video games. Surprisingly enough, we also got to talk with Erin Andrews, the new sideline reporter for NCAA Football 2010. To kick the night off, Andrews introduced the athletes to the media in attendance, which got the party started.

However, before we get to the aforementioned interviews, it's important we get our impressions out there about one of the biggest and best features we've seen in a sports video game to date, namely Team Builder. While EA Sports struck gold with their Be A Pro online modes in both NHL 2009 and FIFA 2009, neither can truly compare to what the team behind NCAA 2010 has brought to the table with Team Builder mode this year. It's no secret that fans of the series have been practically begging the development team to reintroduce Create-A-School back into the array of features found within the gridiron series for a considerable time now, and fortunately, the result has been more than worth the wait.

First and foremost, it should be made clear that Team Builder is going to be fully accessible on the web roughly one month prior to the release of the game. Due to this, gamers have the chance to check out and create up to 12 teams that will be fully integrated within the game once it's purchased in July. Furthermore, if you pre-order the title from certain locations, you should be given an access code that allows you to bump the number of created football programs to 25 -- enough to field an entire ranking worth of schools. If this wasn't enough, the team behind-the-scenes has also given you the ability to utilize these created schools within your online dynasty, which pushes this addition to NCAA Football off the map and into your living room.

Diving right in, you’ll notice that everything is easier to manage than past iterations due to the ability to use your keyboard to input all of the details necessary. From the start, you need to input the key information such as naming your coaches, school, and even its location. While all of this is standard, the next step is one that gamers should enjoy being included as much as I did hearing about it. If you've played the title in the past, you know that if you've ever wanted to create a team, you've been stuck with the same generic 20 or so bland logos that everyone else can use. However, that isn’t the case this time around. In order to give every team its own true identity, you'll be able to upload a logo of your choice onto the website to use for your jerseys, helmets and school. This may seem like a small addition, but when you're able to go to your High School's website and integrate its logo into the game in order to use for your school, it adds an entirely new dimension to the feature.

Once you have your logo fully uploaded into the program, you can click on it in order to grab colors from it to perfect the color scheme of your team. This makes creating a school quite more memorable as those hard to perfect colors are now very conveniently chosen resulting in a more authentic feel. Unfortunately, selecting a stadium for your school lacks the customisation options seen in other features within this application, with users only able to select between existing venues and other generic set-ups. However, the field customisation options somewhat makes up for this.

Once you've reached the point of creating your field, you're able to choose between four types of grass. This ranges from turf to multi-colored grass. On top of this, you also have the option of deciding where your school's logos will appear at midfield or within the 20 to 40 yard lines. In addition, you also have full control of your endzone details, meaning you can change not only the color, but the text as well. Yet, as comprehensive as this system is, this is merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you’re able to achieve.

Jersey customization is undoubtedly the most integral part of creating your team. Not only does it serve as the representation of everything your school should have on offer, but it also gives each team a unique look and feel that helps set it apart from every other created school in existence. Thankfully, EA Sports has realized the importance of this and created a jersey editor so advanced that you're looking at roughly 20,000+ possibilities. There are over 200 stripe variations, four jersey options, shoe colors, stripe placements, logo placements, number placements, color placements and alternative looks. In order to make this an easy transition for newcomers to the idea, EA has also provided the option of allowing gamers to pick from previously created uniforms in order to have a template to work from. This helps to speed up the process and afford users a quicker way to jump into the mix.

Sadly enough, Mascots aren't given any real customization options either, much like the stadium themselves. You only have the choice of choosing between already created mascots, though hopefully next year we’ll see the introduction of both being further customized. Once you've reached this point in your building process, it's time to choose what type of team you're going to be putting on the field each week.

As many of you may recall, the method in which to identify your team was always given through a vague five-option style. You had your Juggernaut option or your Cupcake option. Regardless of which you picked, you ended up with a team in a different grade class in order to compete against the best. This year, that's not the case at all. Users are now given the chance to use sliders as well as the old generic method. However, with the former, you're able to customize what type of team you should field from the get-go, resulting in a far more dynamic and unique team experience.

After Jersey Customization is done (3-4 hours later, right?), you move on to customizing your roster's overall look. Unlike in the past, you're able to see exactly what each player will look like before the team is created. Therefore, you'll know if your Quarterback looks like a beast or a scrawny dude with a huge arm. Pushing the level of customization further, you're able to use a "template" for your roster by picking which school you'd like to mold them after. So, if you choose a school like Florida, your QB is going to look like Tim Tebow, but you’re also able to tweak him as you see fit. This provides you with the option of making him faster, stronger, slower or a completely different ethnic background from Tebow's Caucasian persuasion.

By the time you're finished building and creating your perfect masterpiece, you'll probably want to start on your second team since you should still have about a month of waiting to do. If not, you're going to want to perfect every little detail because when that online guy ends up being ran over by your monster Linebacker, you want him to remember who did it and where it came from. NCAA 2010 allows you to not be from Kansas anymore.

The above video is Aaron Curry discussing exactly what it's like to be that huge Linebacker running over an unsuspecting victim. Fortunately, nobody was hurt on the play, but one guy was left feeling a little dazed and confused. This was pretty much the atmosphere of the entire party that night: A bunch of athletes, being good guys and conducting interviews as you see above. We'd like to thank EA Sports for the opportunity to take part in this event and for Chris Jacobs and Bryan Wiedey for the great interview clips. In case you were wondering, PSU is the one doing some stellar cameramen work on these with the sleek Flip MinoHD (a great camera).