• Posted July 14th, 2008 at 23:36 EDT by
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• 9 Comments

Review Score

NCAA Football 09

PSU Review Score

7.5

Avg. user review score:

6.7

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Summary

NCAA 2009 is a step above its previous installment and shows EA Sports is dedicated to improving the brand name they’ve created.

We like

• Online Dynasty is fantastic
• Custom Stadium Sounds system is innovative
• Atmosphere is dead on

We dislike

• Shimmy can toy with the AI
• Broken defensive zones
• Player vs. player experience

See PSU's review on Metacritic & GameRankings

(continued from previous page) ...what Campus Legend is, it allows you to create-a-player or utilize an existing one in order to play that one and only position. It’s kind of like the 5 vs 5 mode in FIFA, except you’re able to progress through an entire collegiate career as that one player.

The mode starts you off going through your local High School state tournament in hopes of turning the heads of certain scouts and landing a great scholarship opportunity at the University of your choosing. The stats you compile during this tournament not only affect your overall attributes, but they will also play a large role into what place on the depth chart you’ll be offered. If you want to start right away, you may have to go to a lower ranked team, while if you want to just play for your favorite school, you’ll probably have to work your way up the roster.

In order to work your way up to the starting role, you’ll be given the chance to partake in daily practices that will allow you to earn points in order to climb the ladder. Once you’ve earned the required point total, you’ll move up to the next spot in the depth chart. Not only will practice give you the ability to do this, but it will also allow you to gain permanent attribute increases to your player. If practice isn’t your thing, you can participate in many night events in order to gain temporary increases in attributes. These night events will range from hitting the library, working out at the gym, studying your playbook and visiting your training. Don’t ever forget though that if you allow your GPA to hit below a 2.0 (C average), you’ll be suspended from athletic participation, so be sure to hit the library whenever needed to gain a boost in GPA. One of the problems that arose from this was it seemed way too easy to have your stats boost and maintain a healthy GPA. These boosts come into play at an alarmingly unrealistic rate.

From this point, you’ll play through games just like your default Dynasty Mode and earn legendary status throughout your campus depending on how well your player plays. Hopefully you have a successful enough collegiate career that you’ll be drafted in the NFL someday and start making the real virtual dollars that matter.

Mini-Games:

The mini-games section has also received some new implementations that will help you hone your skills a bit quicker. These two new additions are Horse and Special Teams Challenge.

Horse is a field goal kicking competition that allows you to place the ball at any point on the field and attempt the kick. If successful, your opponent must match your attempt. However, if your opponent misses, he will be given a letter. It's the Horse you know and love.

As for the Special Teams Challenge, it works much like Tug-of-War except utilizing the punt teams instead. Users must gain better field advantage through their returns in hopes of reaching field goal range or returning a kick all the way to the house. Once either of those goals is achieved, the winner is decided and the game ends. The mini-games section still offers up the classic Option Dash, Tug-of-War and Bowling for the veterans of the franchise.

Gameplay:

This is where the game seemed to have the potential to not only shine but also separate itself from the game released last year. For some odd reason the game plays extremely differently when you compare playing against the computer to playing against an actual human opponent. NCAA 2009 has been revamped with an entirely new engine of play and level of responsiveness, but it doesn't necessarily show as much as it should.

Some of the newer features provided are Ice the Kicker and QB Composure Quiz. Both of these add a nice element of play to the title and definitely can make things interesting. Calling a timeout in a key situation during a field goal attempt will enact the Ice the Kicker scenario. This will create a low-angle camera view that makes it difficult to aim the kick. On top of this, the kicking meter will appear iced over and be much harder to read in ... (continued on next page)