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NCAA Football 09 Official First Look: NCAA Strategies

11:42 PM - April 24, 2008 by coogrfan

NCAA Strategies have just posted their first look at NCAA Football 09.

Quote:


	"The offensive line play seems improved in pass protection, IMO. I am not sure I would quantify it as a pure �pocket� like some of you have asked, but I didn�t got stomped by the defensive line as much as I did in 08. In 08, online play was hampered by gamers taking advantage of the lead blocking feature with offensive linemen. If you attempted pancake blocks with them, they would blow the DL several yards deep opening up a huge hole. This year, that does not seem to be the case. I worked on this several times and only saw one pancake, but it did not result in the DL getting blasted five yards deep � only two or three. The rest of the time the players were simply engaged in a tie-up."

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Member Comments

# 61 FlyingFinn @ 04/25/08 09:41 AM

Disappointing... seems the only real presentation upgrade is cutscenes of cheerleaders. No pre-game,half-time or post-game shows... most likely the same old commentary, no intros, one camera angle...

In the words of Aerosmith... Same ole song and dance!

# 62 SteelerSpartan @ 04/25/08 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyingFinn


	Disappointing... seems the only real presentation upgrade is cutscenes of cheerleaders. No pre-game,half-time or post-game shows... most likely the same old commentary, no intros, one camera angle... In the words of Aerosmith... Same ole song and dance!

And what makes it so disappointing is that they haven't even been able to fix the most crucial gameplay aspects yet..

# 63 SidVish @ 04/25/08 10:26 AM

I'm very disappointed. I'll just wait on impressions to see if both qb ai and int returns for td can be adjusted by sliders. I mean if these still aren't fixed why would I want to buy 09? The qb ai and turnovers were a huge game killer for me in 08and I don't want to put myself through that kind of frustration again. Not happy.

# 64 FlyingFinn @ 04/25/08 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteelerSpartan


	And what makes it so disappointing is that they haven't even been able to fix the most crucial gameplay aspects yet..

Thing is... if the game is immersive with a wow factor and has great atmosphere, it becomes easier to look past gameplay faults. NHL 08 is a game like that and ESPN NFL 2k5 was one as well.

# 65 thelasthurtknee @ 04/25/08 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edubbs


	You are correct. All of the hard code is already been put in place by this time in development. This game will not see 'major' changes before the retail version is done. If the INT issue and the lack of a QB pocket is not in by now, we will not see either corrected by the final version.

there is still about a month or 5 weeks to change things. they said the game is much more advanced than just two weeks ago. alot of that is polish but things that they don't have to rewrite but just tweak can be change. i would think that the qb accuracy would fall into that but not sure about the cpu qb's aggresiveness. last year the game was much diffrent from community day to release date from what the guys that went said. annimations are done but i would expect the feedback to used to the best they can.

# 66 LBzrule @ 04/25/08 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thelasthurtknee


	there is still about a month or 5 weeks to change things. they said the game is much more advanced than just two weeks ago. alot of that is polish but things that they don't have to rewrite but just tweak can be change. i would think that the qb accuracy would fall into that but not sure about the cpu qb's aggresiveness. last year the game was much diffrent from community day to release date from what the guys that went said. annimations are done but i would expect the feedback to used to the best they can.

There really is only about six to seven weeks to change it. All of May and maybe the first two weeks of June, then they gotta prepare for pressing and all that other mess. They'll address some of it.

# 67 thelasthurtknee @ 04/25/08 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LBzrule


	There really is only about six to seven weeks to change it. All of May and maybe the first two weeks of June, then they gotta prepare for pressing and all that other mess. They'll address some of it.

yea, about all of may and then they will be done with code. they start testing, i guess they test but it didn't look like it last year. then get little things right with graphics and errors in graphics.

# 68 SteelerSpartan @ 04/25/08 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyingFinn


	Thing is... if the game is immersive with a wow factor and has great atmosphere, it becomes easier to look past gameplay faults. NHL 08 is a game like that and ESPN NFL 2k5 was one as well.

Yeah theres really no excuse for how big EA is to not have significant improvements in gameplay and presentation

# 69 mdgoalie37 @ 04/25/08 11:25 AM

No mention of in-game saves - why is this feature so hard to implement?

# 70 BezO @ 04/25/08 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by a4reak


	I still want to just hold off before rushing to judgment. There is still 3 months before release, hopefully they can get this QB thing ironed out.

It's not a rush to judgement. It's judging what's been presented to date.

And an EA rep stated that they have to be done with the game 2 months before release. NCAA is a July release. At best, there's a month left for adjustments. Unfortunately, it sounds like more than adjustments are needed, at least for my enjoyment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteelerSpartan


	Wonder if Bowl games have endzone art??...I probably shouldn't even ask

You would think this would be part of the new presentation they're touting. So far I've only heard about cheerleader cut scenes & announcers. EA's bark is much louder than its bite.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadedSteeler


	Hopefully these consoles have at least a 10 year life cycle...can't wait to go through this all over again on the next consoles.

That's the thing. Not that EA is looking to improve these things we're asking for, but if it's still a matter of them getting used to the system, building on their "new" engine, ect, we'll be looking at this same cycle in a couple of years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cdjacobs


	Hey guys - hope you enjoyed the early impressions.

Not at all, but at no fault of those delivering the bad news.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cdjacobs


	I will add that the lead prodcuer stated that within just the last week there have been tweaks to the game on both sides of the ball.

This game needs more than tweaks.

Any chance there were improvements not mentioned? Have the blocking mechanics & scemes been improved at all? Can DEs rush up the field without getting stuck to the OT? Has gang tackling improved at all? Physics?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cch99


	...but it would seem that making one of the games, either Madden or NCAA more sim would benefit them...

Or separate arcade & sim modes in each game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteelerSpartan


	Big Emphasis on Big hits, Ints, fumbles, Juke Moves, higher scores.....instead of the meat and potatoes of the game of Football.

I don't think they understand that the spectacular is no longer spectacular if it happens all the time.

# 71 jdrhammer @ 04/25/08 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twisted88


	That's assuming the sliders actually WORK this year! In browsing various forums last year, it seemed the overwhelming gamekiller was the excessive turnovers in 08. There were obviously other gameplay issues, but the ints was the one I saw complained about the most. You would have hoped that would be one of the first things they addressed this year. Just hope with over 2 months before release, they get that fixed!

I agree with that first sentence completely. I just thought to increase the penalties and I see some form of it working. Same with QB accuracy, WR catching, and RB ability. They seem realistic. Batted down balls at 100% and numerous picks a game is BS.

# 72 SageInfinite @ 04/25/08 12:04 PM

Sounds like Tiburon spent all its time on the online dynasties.

# 73 KG @ 04/25/08 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-Unit40


	Here is some information from Pasta at pastapadre.com. Thanks for the link Rudy. "When it comes to the offensive-defensive balance I�d say the leaning is clearly towards the offense. However in most of the games that were played the scores ended up realistic. It brought about more excitement due to the big plays. Scores will likely depend heavily on the styles of the people playing. With longer quarters (7+ minutes) on All-American the scores would probably be unrealistically high." That doesn't sound too good. Maybe that's just for HUM v. HUM, but it looks like DAWR and other defensive sliders will have to be maxed (except for INT because that would just mean more points from returns ). My guess is NCAA '10 will be the year of the D!

Such a blower that they implement the online dynasties and I get all hype but when I read actual impressions it sounds like the only thing they have changed is atmosphere. I love CFB so I will probably get the game but cmon, anyone who has ever watched CFB knows that 1-2 Pick 6's per game is outreagous.

# 74 SteelerSpartan @ 04/25/08 12:14 PM

"There was a gap in communication and I have found out that hands-on reports of NCAA 09 are to be embargoed until May 2.

At that time, the Utopia hands-on report will be re-posted, along with updated thoughts from last night's event and interviews.".....cdj

hmmm.....

# 75 mercalnd @ 04/25/08 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBucc


	I don't know exactly how many games were played last year, but lets just say if 119 teams played 12 games each, that's 1428 total games.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott


	Just researched, there were a total of 1504 games. So INT's come out to 1.1 INTs per game and .11 INTs returned for a TD per game.

You guys have the number of games wrong. Remember there are 2 teams in every game so you need to divide by 2 to get a near accurate total number of games. The number won't be perfectly accurate because some teams played one or two games against FCS teams.

# 76 coogrfan @ 04/25/08 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteelerSpartan


	"There was a gap in communication and I have found out that hands-on reports of NCAA 09 are to be embargoed until May 2. At that time, the Utopia hands-on report will be re-posted, along with updated thoughts from last night's event and interviews.".....cdj hmmm.....

Hmm what? That's only a week away.

# 77 Hey_Rebby @ 04/25/08 12:47 PM

It'll be interesting if the tone of the review changes next week. Something is up. "A gap in communication?" Pasta Padre and NCAA Strategies have been saying all week they were going to post their impressions after the event. They do, people read it and get disappointed, and then all of the sudden they have to take them down.

Memo to EA Sports - if you made the game your core customers wanted you wouldn't have to worry about negative reviews/comments.

# 78 Scott @ 04/25/08 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercalnd


	You guys have the number of games wrong. Remember there are 2 teams in every game so you need to divide by 2 to get a near accurate total number of games. The number won't be perfectly accurate because some teams played one or two games against FCS teams.

Oh you're right, didn't think about that..

# 79 SidVish @ 04/25/08 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coogrfan


	Hmm what? That's only a week away.

Hopefully that means there tweaking the damn inaccurate amount of int returned for tds. That's the only thing I'll be waiting to see impressions on to decide whether or not it's worth a purchase.

# 80 Solidice @ 04/25/08 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercalnd


	You guys have the number of games wrong. Remember there are 2 teams in every game so you need to divide by 2 to get a near accurate total number of games. The number won't be perfectly accurate because some teams played one or two games against FCS teams.

there were also 120 teams last year in FBS. don't forget Western Kentucky, 2007 was their first year in FBS. Even though they had an easy schedule, they were still FBS.

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