Monday, November 17, 2008
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Saturday, November 15, 2008
http://www.operationsports.com/forums/ea-sports-ncaa-basketball/277794-ncaa-basetball-09-demo-available-impressions-here.html
So now to get down and dirty, what do I think?
NCAA Basketball is a good, but not great game. Which features good but not great action on the basketball court and it features a good but not great set of options. The play-calling is the same as NBA Live, which makes it the best play-calling system for basketball available. The pre-game focuses add a depth of strategy, especially in your dynasty games.
The action on the court is an overall improvement over last year. Guys try to pick off the ball and your teammates do their best to run offensive plays with a bit of a purpose.
Players also tend to play pretty close to their ratings. My shooting percentages and such have been pretty realistic thus far. The huge thing I was looking for was to see if the bad teams shot like bad college teams and if the good teams shot like good college teams. It certainly seems to be the case, as a more athletic team will suffocate the offense of a lower tier team.
As I stated earlier, I can describe the gameplay as good, but not great.
One thing I think is a huge positive is the control feels much more tight to me compared to NBA Live. I haven't had as many instances of losing control of my players because they get stuck in a string of animations. I also somewhat prefer the control scheme of CB over Live, even though they are mostly identical.
One thing that the AI doesn't do very well is go to their star players. In Live, I saw this happen over and over again. I know college basketball is a more team oriented sport, but some of the teams with absolute superstars don't really seem to go to them enough in key situation.
There are a few things I'm not a huge fan of....I have seen numerous backcourt violations because an animation causes a player to cross the half-court line. Players running out of bounds due to a canned animation seems to happen less frequent than in Live, but it still happens.
I will be around most of the day to answer some gameplay questions but I don't have the game with me today unfortunately, so I will try to answer any questions as best as I can!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Army
Boston College
Central Michigan
Chattanooga
Cincinnati
College of Charleston
Colorado
Delaware
DePaul
Detroit
Georgia State
Harvard
Hawaii
Holy Cross
Howard
Indiana State
Iowa
Iowa State
La Salle
LSU
Richmond
Rutgers
Saint Louis
Santa Clara
Southern Methodist
Vermont
Washington
Wichita State
William & Mary
Yale
This isn't a full impressions update, but I just wanted to pass along my feelings before diving back in. This game could be the best college basketball game on the next-gen consoles so far...still a lot more playing to go, but it has a chance.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
(1) '68 UCLA vs. (16) 2006 George Mason
(8) '86 Duke vs. (9) '83 NC State
(5) '78 Kentucky vs. (12) '93 Michigan
(4) '99 UCONN vs. (13) '81 Indiana
(6) '79 Indiana State vs. (11) '59 Cal
(3) '84 Georgetown vs. (14) '97 Arizona
(7) 2005 Illinois vs. (10) '54 LaSalle
(2) '82 UNC vs. (15) '57 Kansas
NCAA Midwest Region
(1) '76 Indiana vs. (16) '90 LSU
(8) 2008 Kansas vs. (9) '75 UCLA
(5) '80 Louisville vs. (12) '86 Navy
(4) '94 Arkansas vs. (13) '59 West Virginia
(6) 2005 North Carolina vs. (11) '77 Marquette
(3) '54 Kentucky vs. (14) '90 Georgia Tech
(7) '93 UNC vs. (10) '83 Houston
(2) '56 San Francisco vs. (15) '95 Wake Forest
NCAA East Region
(1) '96 Kentucky vs. (16) '91 Georgetown
(8) 2004 UCONN vs. (9) '91 Arkansas
(5) 2001 Duke vs. (12) '81 Virginia
(4) '67 UCLA vs. (13) '52 Kansas
(6) '79 Michigan State vs. (11) '89 Michigan
(3) '57 UNC vs. (14) '89 Syracuse
(7) '87 Indiana vs. (10) 2003 Syracuse
(2) '74 NC State vs. (15) '90 Loyola Marymount
NCAA South Region
(1) '72 UCLA vs. (16) '88 Kansas
(8) '96 UMASS vs. (9) 2002 Maryland
(5) '95 UCLA vs. (12) ''85 St. Johns
(4) 2007 Florida vs. (13) '60 Ohio State
(6) '62 Cincinnati vs. (11) '68 Houston
(3) '91 UNLV vs. (14) '85 Villanova
(7) '66 Texas Western vs. (10) '86 Louisville
(2) '92 Duke vs. (15) '70 LSU
Field Goal Shooting
3 Point Shooting
Free Throw Shooting
Dunking
Stealing Ability
Blocking Ability
Offensive Rebounding
Defensive Rebounding
Passing
Offensive Ability
Defensive Ability
Speed
Quickness
Vertical
Dribble
Strength
Durability
Shooting Range
Stamina
Inside Scoring
Dynasty Mode Thoughts
The mode is very similar to last year, which I consider a good thing. The mode has been slowly gravitating towards what college hoops has been offering in terms of how it handles the coaching market.
You can pretty much customize everything while setting up your dynasty. Basically anything from having the ability to get fired, to being able to select only the schools that want to hire you as your first school, to whether injuries happen and how frequently. Basically, you can customize your universe as you see fit.
The pre-season menu has been streamlined a bit, and is still easy to navigate. Options are very similar to last year.
Finally, stats and such seem to be acceptable at first glance. I picked for my team to play an up-tempo game and it seems like all of the scores of my games (simulated) are a bit higher, so that's a good thing. I will share some more stats when I'm through a complete season.
If the recruiting ratings are handled anything like they were last year (with the letter ratings being a general predictor of what guys are rated), the recruiting may be a bit top heavy with a bunch of guys being pretty good at the top (some 5 stars will be 90+ overalls) with the lower tier guys being barely 55-60 ovr. That makes sense. Since I haven't completed a full season, I don't have full impressions on this just yet.
-Is XYZ School in the game? What are their uniforms? Can I get a screenshot? What about player John Doe?
Let's just make this simple....just about every Division I school is in the game. Some do have alternate unis, some don't. I haven't seen anyone with more than 3 unis though so far (home, away, alternate). And while I'd love to spend all day getting roster screenshots and the like, I unfortunately am limited on the amount of time I have so team specific questions aren't going to be answered. I'm sorry, but it's just a matter of me not having the time to dig through each team's rosters, uniforms and arenas.
-Is there a create-a-school mode?
Simply put, no.
-What creation options are there?
You can create players, edit players, delete players, edit coaches and there is the auto name rosters feature.
-What legendary teams made it?
I'm going to try to compile this list, but no guarantees. The teams you would expect to see are on here though. You have the 66 Texas Western bunch, 07 Florida, 01 Duke, 83 Houston and so on and so forth...complete list coming soon.
More to come, keep checking back on my blog!
Monday, November 10, 2008
- The game is much better this year. How much better? I'm not sure, but we gave March Madness a 4 out of 10 last year, this game is not going to be near that.
- The atmosphere is good, not great. I don't think the atmosphere is as good as it could be, but it definitely is far from terrible.
- Commentary, need more time. Having Erin Andrews is a cool addition as well, but I'm pretty sure the commentary will end up repetitive in a major way.
- Canned animations cause some general weirdness still. EA basketball strikes again! Unfortunately this is just what to expect, it's comparable to NBA Live 09 truthfully.
Posted on November 10, 2008 at 04:57 PM.
After a system update and the installation of data, I am finally in and listening to Bill Self tell me how to control the tempo in a game....interesting.
On another note, who has the highest ovr so far? Mine is sitting at a paltry 11ovr
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