I have been playing EA's NCAA Football for years and have generally enjoyed it more than Madden. Now that I have young children, I find myself playing most of my games on the PSP rather than with an XBOX or PS - just to hard to find TV time. Thus, I have not played the other versions of NCAA 2010 so I just will be commenting on the quality of the gameplay for the PSP.
Having only played NCAA 2007 for the PSP (skipped the last 2 versions) and enduring all of the issues it had with the running game, I decided to pick up 2010 and give it a try and I am glad I did. (NOTE: I have played about 8 to 10 games on Dynasty at All-American level with an average B- squad in the ACC) As I play more in Dynasty in the future, I will come back and add more comments on recruiting, etc. if there is any interest.
POSITIVES:
1. Gameplay: On the whole, very smooth considering it is on the PSP. The running game is well done and you can see the holes well. If you are having trouble with the running game, make sure you set your audibles so you can adjust at the line - this makes a big difference especially at the higher difficulty levels. Passing has gotten better since I made some adjustments to the AI settings which I detail in the Negative section. One other note about audibles, if you are the away team, plan on your team making mistakes if you try and audible when the crowd is loud. I go back and forth on whether I like this as in real life many teams can now call audibles with just hand signals. I think there is a setting regarding home field advantage that you can turn off and although I have never adjusted it, I think it would allow for audibles in away games if you turned it off.
2. Supersim: Thank you EA for finally adding an option to sim to the end of the game. There was nothing I hated more than either beating a team easily through the first half or them doing that to me and then having to finish out the game - just a waste of time. Now you can choose during the game to sim a couple of plays, one quarter or the rest of the game. Just a great addition.
3. AI: So far I have had no problem against teams that are equal (I am a B- team right now) or worse and had a fairly close game against a B team. However, the first time I played an A- team, they were clearly better players and beat me. I like that in a game. Also, the computer play calling has improved. It use to be that I could blitz a lot and that would solve many challenges against all types of teams. Thus in past NCAA games, I had to stop blitzing so much so the games would be more of a challenge. However, I have found the computer AI for better teams does a great job of calling quick over the top passes if I start blitzing too much. This is the first NCAA game that I remember this happening so now I can still blitz when I want to but I realize I can not do it as much or I will get burned.
4. Dynasty: Too early to give a full opinion but if you have played NCAA in the past, I think you will find this right in line with what you expect. However, EA still needs to fix the Sim aspects of Dynasty. I am using 5 min quarters, thus my scores tend to be lower than the other games that are playing because they are all simmed based on regular 15 min quarters. There is still no way to adjust the length of time that sim games are played at so the scores and stats are in the ballpark of my games with 5 min quarters. This does affect recruiting because since I do not score as many points on average with 5 min quarters, my defense does not give up as many points or yards. Thus my offensive rankings are on the lower end (thus reflecting poorly on offensive recruits) and my defense is always ranked top 5 because it is being compared to games that are being simmed with 15 min quarters. Thus the top defensive recruits always want to play for me because I always have a top defensive team based on the stats. The only way I have found to compensate for this in the past is to rarely offer scholarships to 5 star defenders - thus balancing things a bit. Also, I found in the past that having too many 5 star offensive and defensive players makes the game to easy even at the highest difficulty settings so this aspect does not bother me much. Hopefully EA will add the ability to adjust sim time in the future - as a fan of the old NFL 2K series, they always had that adjustment option and trust me, it makes a difference in the stats.
NEGATIVES:
1. Fumbles: Yes, there are too many fumbles and you can not adjust this in the settings, but I have been able to reduce the occurence significantly. I have noticed that the "Composure" rating for an individual player has a huge effect on fumbles. Younger players have a lower composure rating thus they tend to fumble more. Check your roster and if you have a young freshman or sophmore who is more talented that an upperclassman but has a really low composure rating, than put the upperclassman in the starting lineup and you will notice a big change on the fumbles for your team. This is a strategic call in the end, but unless there is a hugh drop off in talent between two RBs or 2 WRs, go with the one with the higher composure rating. Also, get in the habit of redshirting your freshman and that will raise their composure rating in future years. Overall, I hope in the future, EA adds the ability to adjust fumble occurrences as they do with Interceptions.
2. Wide Open Dopped Passes: This was frustrating in the first couple of games and it did not matter if it was a WR with great hands or not, nor did composure really matter - just too many dropped passes for my team as well as the computer. You can fix this in the AI setting for "Catching" - just keep raising from game to game until you like the balance. I have raised it to 70% for both the computer and me and there is still an occasional drop, but it has made a big difference in the enjoyment of the game.
2. Stuttering after the play: I have seen some 1 to 2 second slowdowns, genrally after a play is complete while it the games shifts to the play call screen. You get used to it and it does not affect the gameplay much.
3. Default AI settings: Like the dropped passes mentioned above, I have found that making some tweaks to the AI for both the computer and my team helps make the game more enjoyable.
Kicking - add some strength to all kickers - in general the kickoffs are much too short. On average, I prefer to see drives begin in the 20s but on the default setting, most drives for both teams start in the high 30s.
Interceptions - Still too many and I have seen defenders jump like Jordan up in the air to make interceptions. Adjust this down some so at least they just knock the ball down more.
Holding Penalty: All I see is holding and hardly any other type of penalties. Adjust this down a bit and increase the others if you prefer to have penalties called occasionally. However, even now, I have Def Interference at 60% and have still yet to see one Def Int penalty called over the last 8 to 10 games. I will probably keep playing with this some more.
5. Special Teams: It is much to easy for both teams to score touchdowns on Punts and Kicks. I should not have games where there are 5 kicks returned for touchdowns combined from the computer and me (and only on 5 min quarters.) No real fix for this except to let them catch you or run out of bounds to keep things realistic. Also, my returns are not superstar players and I still run back a bunch of kicks.
For people who play sports video games, you know that some games just feel right or they don't. The highest compliment I can give is that this game just feels fun to play and it has kept me coming back for more. Somehow, EA has programmed the equivalent of a high quality PS2 NCAA Football game for the PSP and if they can just tweak some of the details mentioned by other reviewers from the last 3 years of PSP reviews on Amazon, I will be back for 2011. NCAA Football 10 - Psp Games - Ea Sports - College Football - Psp'
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