Great game with a few glitches, but what game dosent have any? I explain the good and the bad of NCAA 09
The Good Stuff:
The animations and physics are awesome, the home feild advantage isnt too cheap as you can still get a hint as to what your play is even when the play art becomes scribbles. The customizable stadium music idea is great because i like colledge ball but all the band music gets old after awhile. The extra game modes are enough to keep you occupied. Dynasty mode is great for single player and i hear it is great online, i havent tried online yet. Freestyle celebrations are cool now you can celebrate witht the team mascot by yourself or with the team, after a while you will get bored and skip it like i do. The game does not fumble like the epidemic that it spread in last years game with a fumble every three plays or so
The Bad Stuff:
I can bet everyone is aware that on All-american mode the CPU is always open on slants and cut routes. It is almost impossible to stop, believe me, i've tried it all. There is no pre game footage as it just gets into the game, to some that is good but i like games to have great presentation and seem as real as possible. Icing the kicker is very difficult to overcome at times, i have lost 2 games because of it but i have won 1 because of it. Campus legend is still a bit boring and they used the same old high school state finals to determine where you go. The coaches still run the sames plays often so if you are an option QB prepare to run 8 out of 10 plays, you could audible out to a pass but it gets old. Some of the controls as the ball carrier can look kind of dumb at times, you could tap B twice and the runner will slide backwards. Whenever you make a diving catch (and you actually have posession) they will challenge it and even if it is a completion it will be reversed thus making it 2nd down or whatever. There is a very weak pass rush and jumping the snap correctlt is hard. Very often the cpu will fake punt to a pass, you play prevent punt coverage but the cpu gets the first down %80 of the time. In franchise mode you will get rain games at least every other game, this makes me mad. If you have a low ranked team it is very difficult to recruit decent players, therefor your team will suck forever until you learn to play with bums and be good. The CPU often runs out of bounds when there is no preasure which might help you out, but it takes away from the people who like challenges. Passing seems way to easy. When you do a screen in all american mode you rarely get good blocks or a defender will follow and stand next to your running back. Also on screens the player never runs into position right away, they always stop for a 2 second dely and then finish thier route. When kicking you can barely see your goal post, you have to squint everytime because the goal post blends in perfectly with the crowd.
All together it is a great game with a few bugs, but every game has them. I would give it a 9.5 rating