{"id":1542,"date":"2009-07-18T17:17:38","date_gmt":"2009-07-18T22:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2009\/07\/18\/ncaa-football-10-where-did-all-the-good-sports-games-reviews-go\/"},"modified":"2010-09-05T07:03:56","modified_gmt":"2010-09-05T12:03:56","slug":"ncaa-football-10-where-did-all-the-good-sports-games-reviews-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2009\/07\/18\/ncaa-football-10-where-did-all-the-good-sports-games-reviews-go\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Football 10: Where did all the good sports games reviews go?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This afternoon my wife was shopping, my youngest son was taking a nap, my two older sons were watching some Sponge Bob, and my PS3 was on a UPS truck. I decided to look for some good NCAA Football 10<\/em> reviews.<\/p>\n

Based on a few tid bits that I have read, I strongly suspect that PS3 version is just a minor upgrade over the NCAA Football 09<\/em>. What about the PSP version? That could give me some quality football time until Madden gets here in a few short weeks.<\/p>\n

First stop was metacritic \u2013 the PS3<\/a> release only has 7 reviews listed, for an average score of 82%, while no reviews [in case I stuttered, that is zero, zip, nil] were listed for the PSP<\/a> version. WTF? Don\u2019t bother us; waiting for Madden!<\/p>\n

The disturbing trend here is that for the PS3 reviews, none of them are sports gaming centric. This is disappointing. I know reviewers, especially sports game reviewers, are damned if they do and damned if they don\u2019t. If you review too quickly you may miss some obscure flaw that ruins everyone\u2019s fun. If you review too late, no one cares. What is the poor reviewer to do?<\/p>\n

Next I went to gamerankings \u2013 they had the same PS3<\/a> reviews and of course no PSP<\/a> reviews. This sucks monkey nuts. No reviews? What is wrong with the kids these days? I figured someone would have slapped up a couple hundred words on their blog and called it a day. Cheese and crackers.<\/p>\n

Finally I headed to IGN<\/a>. I bet they had a review, but maybe the tracking sites just did not get around to listing it? Not so much. At least IGN pointed me to something called gamestats<\/a> that at least had a couple of worthless reviews. This is is more or less worthless, because the next link is actually for a PS2 game, not a PSP game, but I am desperate at this point, so here goes nothing! At least G4TV<\/a> is going to try to throw me a bone and give me some fun with a mediocre review.<\/p>\n

On the field, the game is a solid football title. Kudos to the dev team for adding some new animations that not only enhance the realism of gameplay, but look cool as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Huh? Love me a dash of coolness with my gameplay. How exactly does this improve upon last year\u2019s gameplay?<\/p>\n

Receivers and DBs jostle as they run routes, pass protection actually forms a pocket that QBs can step into, and it\u2019s also possible to throw out of sacks \u2014 though players are advised to it at their own discretion; it\u2019s embarrassing to get picked off twice in one game by a sure-handed defensive end.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No doubt. Embarrassing. I thought this was heading somewhere important.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame that all these new tweaks are just that: tweaks. The gameplay jump from NCAA Football 09 to this year is quite minimal, and the fact that NCAA 10 will be a full price game should make gamers think long and hard about whether or not they can just make do with 09 for another year. NCAA Football 11 will need some additions, most notably some better on-field presentation (no rivalry game trophy celebrations? C\u2019mon, EA) and the development team needs more creativity when they decide to add new modes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How dare those bastards at EA leave out the all important rivalry game trophy celebrations? My gameplay is just not complete. Screw it. I give up. I guess I need to go back to writing my own reviews because this dribble sucks.<\/p>\n

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