NCAA 2009 Xbox 360 Review

It’s hard to review a game that is essentially the same exact game every year. This of course is the lifelong dilemma of the sports game reviewer, but I digress. I didn’t buy NCAA 09 the first day it came out, instead I rented it. After playing it for a few days I came to the conclusion that it is worth buying, but not until it’s patched

As usual EA sports quality assurance is the biggest oxymoron in the industry. There is currently a glitch in the EA locker roster download feature that causes the game to crash if you edit players. Right now the game is buggy as hell. It’s got the worst secondary AI that I’ve ever seen. Don’t be shocked when in critical moments your defenders in the secondary stand around doing nothing and decide not to guard anyone. 

Wide receivers consistently do the tippy toes sideline catch for no good reason even when their five yards away from the side lines. The CPU controlled offensive players run out of bounds for no reason. Oh and don’t be shocked when you see the CPU QB go 27-28 passing. Don’t be surprised when the CPU nails a 56-yard FG like it’s nothing.

Overall the graphics and lighting look great, although the player models are still annoyingly tiny. Oh, and no camera controls again. How next gen of EA. The weather effects are the best I’ve ever seen in a sports video game. I loved the rain effect, snow is great, but the field degradation is nonexistent.

Heisman difficulty has gone from impossible mode, to basically equal to a harder version of All American. All American has been dumbed down to varsity level, or worse. Most disappointing of all is after you win the national championship there is no celebration what so ever. It’s actually worse than NCAA 08.