NCAA Football 09 (Xbox 360)

CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
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Overall score: 7.5 (3.5 stars)
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Gamespot editors' review

• Reviewed by: Aaron Thomas
• Reviewed on: 07/15/2008
• Released on: 07/15/2008

The NCAA Football series has always been in the shadow of its big brother, Madden. But like Eli Manning or Ronde Barber, both of whom have a more-famous sibling, NCAA Football has established its own identity and proven itself to be more than Madden with marching bands. This year's effort benefits from the inclusion of an Online Dynasty mode and the ability to share custom roster files, but other than these two additions, little has changed.

You can now take your dynasty online. Finally!

Series fans have long clamored for the ability to play Dynasty mode online, and EA has finally made that dream a reality. Up to 12 players can compete head-to-head online for up to 60 in-game years. Setting up an online dynasty is a breeze. One person acts as the commissioner and sets the rules and difficulty and sends out player invites. Because you're free to play as any Division 1A school and might not otherwise encounter another human opponent, it's good that the commish can alter each team's schedule to ensure that people get to play against one another. You'll want to make sure you play against one another because although you're all recruiting against everyone else, doing so doesn't provide any sense of competition--it's just navigating menus for weeks on end. NCAA 09 seems to do a good job anticipating the problems that typically arise when coordinating a large group online for any length of time. If one player is holding the group back, the commissioner can advance the week or even boot the offending player from the dynasty. You can even throw out results from a game if you suspect something's fishy. If you lose a few people, or just want to add a few new coaches to the mix, you can do so at any time. It would have been nice if you had the option to play a few weeks ahead if you wanted to, but there's very little not to like. It was a long time coming, but it was worth the wait.

It's a good thing Dynasty mode is online this year, because few changes have been made with regard to how it's played. You pick a school, recruit players, and try to lead them to a championship. While you now have the option for the AI to handle a few minor aspects of recruiting and you can quick-call prospects to save a few minutes, the process once again gets tedious after you're about halfway through the season. There simply aren't enough variables to make it interesting. One notable addition is the ability to download custom rosters and use them in Dynasty mode. Some ambitious individual has already made a file available with real player names, so no longer will you have to play with fake player names, nor will you have to spend hours altering individual players.

Another mode that hasn't received a whole lot of attention is Campus Legend, where you create a player, guide him through the final games of his high school career, and help him pick a college where he can pursue his dreams of becoming a legend. You'll still need to attend practice to work your way up the depth chart and boost your attributes by studying for class, going to the gym, reviewing your playbook, or going to the trainer. That may sound interesting on paper, but it involves nothing more than picking an option from a menu and hitting a button. If you've never played Campus Legend before, you'll find that it's a lot of fun for a season or two, but if you've previously spent time with it, you'll be let down that there's nothing new here.

Home-field advantage is a huge part of college football, and it's a huge part of NCAA 09. If you're on the road playing in a hostile environment like Nebraska or Tennessee, you'll have to contend with the crowd as well as the opposition on the field. A rattled quarterback who checks his receivers' routes preplay will see the normally straight lines replaced with a moving, squiggly mess or, worse yet, a question mark over the players' heads. If you manage a few successful drives, you'll take the crowd out of the game (they'll actually leave the stadium in a blowout) and the routes will return to normal. It's a neat way of taking home-field advantage into account without going overboard as is the case with icing the kicker. When the game's on the line, you can now call a time-out to "ice" the kicker. This moves the camera down behind the kicker, which makes it tough to aim and literally puts ice on the kick meter. It's extraordinarily difficult to make even a short kick if you've been iced, which is completely contrary to what happens in real life, where the tactic has a minimal effect on the kicker.

Thankfully, you can turn off the way-too-effective ice-the-kicker feature.

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• 1.5 stars

  "horriable game play"

  by gator0716 on July 23, 2008

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