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NCAA Football 10 Review - Heisman... err... Road to Glory mode exposed
A big deal was made when it was announced that Erin Andrews would make her debut in NCAA Football 10. The initial press release mentioned her appearance in a "new mode", and when Road to Glory was announced earlier, it was presented as if it were a brand new addition to the game.
Longtime players know different. This is just Heisman mode repackaged. What's worse, the popular single-player mode has been left largely untouched except for all of the bells and whistles surrounding it.
No doubt, Road to Glory was a great idea. The inclusion of your player's highlights during segments presented by Erin Andrews is really cool. But not nearly so cool as something relatively simple such as fixing a dumb coaching AI that calls inappropriate plays or doing something about the boringly mundane day-to-day events that jump from a practice session to a very droll 'evening' event where you simply choose if you want to work out, study the playbook or perhaps hit the books.
Microtransactions also make their way into this mode, but considering that it has no effect on online gameplay, these can be largely ignored. They mainly unlock 5-star athletes, which you should be able to unlock by winning the state championship. They might even be worth it if you prefer simming the high school playoffs but still want a top athlete.
For those who really enjoy Heisman mode, there is some improvement here simply because the core game is better, so the mode won't be quite as easy as it was last year. But it's sad to see so much attention paid to the packaging and so little attention paid to the guts of this mode.
NCAA Football 10 Review - Season Showdown quirking but interesting
There's no true way to review how well Season Showdown will work until the season is well underway and players from across the world have been adding to their favorite team's score, but it is easy to tell that it will (1) add a different dimension to the game and (2) has its own quirks.
Chief among these quirks is the thinking behind sportsmanship. While I can applaud docking a person points for passing on 2nd and 4 with a 21 point lead and 2 minutes left in the game, the idea of docking someone for passing on 3rd and 24 in the third quarter no matter by how much they lead is absurdly stupid.
In fact, it is the worst game play decision since adding mictrotransactions to online play. (Which they probably made the same day.) The idea of building a good game is to allow players to have fun playing it. And calling all running plays throughout the entire second half because you don't want to lose your team any Season Showdown points is a little absurd.
NCAA Football 10 Review - Best yet on the current generation?
Microtransactions aside, NCAA Football 10 is a great game. It is the best-looking of the series and has the most realism on the field. It might not be quite up to the 2006 and 2007 versions on the old consoles, which were both very solid versions, and we're still left waiting for basic features like a spring game and custom playbooks, but I don't think too many people will be left disappointed in the game play.
It's too bad that more attention wasn't paid to improving the actual Heisman mode rather than just adding bells and whistles. With so much attention paid to the game on the field, and so much time dedicated to this mode, it'd been great to see some real improvements.
There is no real way to discount microtransactions completely because of EA's boneheaded decision to allow them to boost online dynasties as well as offline dynasties. For that alone, EA deserves the docking of a letter grade. Online dynasties were one of the best additions to last year's games, and microtransactions will put a dent into the feature.
However, if you are mainly interested in single player dynasty mode -- or you can trust your group of friends not to cheat in the online dynasties, you are going to love NCAA Football 10. The graphics on the field are improved, the recruiting is more indepth, and best of all, the strategy of the game is finally starting to emerge -- something that is long, long overdue considering how much strategy is in the actual game of football.
Perfect? Not by a long shot. There are still many missing features from spring games to custom playbooks to refs on the field. But it is a great improvement over 09.
NCAA Football 10 Overall Score: 82
The score was dragged down by microtransactions, which cannot be completely ignored, and by the re-packaging of Heisman mode without making any real improvements to it. Still, there is no denying that a lot of realism and strategy was added to the game, and the overall game play is the best it has been since making the jump to the current gen consoles.
More about NCAA Football 2010
Read up on all the new features in NCAA Football 10
Check out what's been added to Madden 2010
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