First NCAA Basketball 09 Screens and Blog

by pastapadre
Posted October 11th, 2008 at 9:21 am

Operation Sports has received the first screenshots and producer blog for NCAA Basketball 09. You can check out the screens here and the blog here. The producer blog details the use of the NBA Live engine and how they’ve improved upon it and made it unique for the college game.

As a production team, we all knew that we had to continue to invest in creating an authentic college basketball experience. We needed to continue to capture everything that is unique about college basketball – from the mascots and cheerleaders to the amazingly unique venues to the student sections and fight songs. Also, and probably more importantly, we had to recreate the differences in gameplay that you see between NCAA and NBA.

Just as the teaser trailer did the screens remind me a lot of NBA Live 09 which shouldn’t be a surprise given the shared engine. One of the specific improvements mentioned is how the gather has been removed from the shot block animations. Given that delay in response is one of the biggest complaints about Live it seems likely to be included in an upcoming patch. In fact probably more than a few of the improvements made to NCAA Basketball will be added to Live so this offers some good insight into that even if you aren’t all that interested in NCAA.

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29 ResponsesLeave a comment
  • Amazin4ever
    October 11, 2008 at 9:28 am
    Reply

    1st times a charm

  • David
    October 11, 2008 at 9:57 am
    Reply

    2

  • crawl down
    October 11, 2008 at 10:03 am
    Reply

    no be a pro and otp = no buy. ill stick with live.

  • E z E
    October 11, 2008 at 11:12 am
    Reply

    This game looks better and better each preview! I love how they are going to run by Tempo! I LOVE COLLEGE BASKETBALL!

  • kpf48
    October 11, 2008 at 11:17 am
    Reply

    I hope we can edit the faces and hair. Also I hope we can control more than one team in the season.

  • ferris
    October 11, 2008 at 11:27 am
    Reply

    in the first cheerleader picture, the girl all the way on the left is holding the cover upside down. its pretty funny

  • J-Claw
    October 11, 2008 at 11:29 am
    Reply

    [quote comment="41619"]no be a pro and otp = no buy. ill stick with live.[/quote]

    And no names in online games. I’ll have to see the game and probably play the demo before making a decision on whether the game will be worth it for me.

  • JR
    October 11, 2008 at 1:45 pm
    Reply

    NBA Live 2009 Sliders, check them out!

    http://www.pastapadre.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1469

  • slacker77
    October 11, 2008 at 2:27 pm
    Reply

    i’ really looking forward to this game. Cant wait until the demo is released to try it out.

  • sdot
    October 11, 2008 at 2:38 pm
    Reply

    game is gonna be W-E-A-K

    i’ll pass

  • di
    October 11, 2008 at 3:01 pm
    Reply

    if its same engine as live then no.

  • sdot
    October 11, 2008 at 3:33 pm
    Reply

    @ di

    U make it sound like Live has da best engine

    it has da same engine as Live wit NONE of da features dat make Live a decent game

  • JR
    October 11, 2008 at 4:04 pm
    Reply

    Live’s engine is pretty good, just needs maturing and refining. Adjusting the sliders has made the game much more fun to play with IMO. I think it’s a smart move for NCAA to use the same engine as Live now, because now they can refine and mature the engine with 2 games a year which will benefit next years installment. Really dissapointed though that there’s only going to be one title. 2K did some really good things with their 2K college hoops that I’m going to miss.

  • pat
    October 11, 2008 at 4:39 pm
    Reply

    2k 2k 2k 2k 2k 2k 2k…. college hoops 2k8 all day

  • Its Britney B!tch
    October 11, 2008 at 4:54 pm
    Reply

    U happy now E

  • rondoman
    October 11, 2008 at 7:08 pm
    Reply

    It has been 4 days now and no review, or thoughts on 2k???

    The only posts I ever see is Pasta noting problems that 2k is having.

    Seriously, can Pasta ever put his EA allegiances aside?

    It’s like he afraid to say too many positive things about 2k cuz then EA might restrict his access.

  • JR
    October 11, 2008 at 7:12 pm
    Reply

    Well Pasta is trying to get his impressions on 5 on 5 online, but it’s been down. He has posted his thoughts on 2K, but give him time. 2K didn’t provide him a copy, so he hasn’t had extensive time with it, nor did they hold community day events so he could get his impressions. Talk to 2K PR if you have a problem with that.

  • Anthony
    October 11, 2008 at 7:32 pm
    Reply

    When 2K can get their servers working, and you don’t always get a network error when launching an online game, then i’m sure he’ll do a writeup.

    And I like 2K’s sports games, but I’ve not been able to play ranked matches myself.

  • rondoman
    October 11, 2008 at 7:52 pm
    Reply

    I know Pasta is trying his best, and I sometimes get pissed for the wrong reasons.

    Just frustrating with the types of problems we are seeing from these “nextgen” games when last gen seemed to have most the kinks worked out.

    Whether games are being released incomplete, or with major glitches and bugs, or with major online issues, it just seems to be one thing after another lately.

    I like patches as much as anyone to correct gameplay issues, but some of these things never should have been in the retail copy to begin with.

    Just frustrating. . .

  • sdot
    October 11, 2008 at 9:02 pm
    Reply

    play’d a couple of games of live & 2K

    2day was a good day

  • sdot
    October 11, 2008 at 9:02 pm
    Reply

    @ britney happy bout wut

  • pastapadre
    October 11, 2008 at 9:09 pm
    Reply

    [quote comment="41670"]I know Pasta is trying his best, and I sometimes get pissed for the wrong reasons.

    Just frustrating with the types of problems we are seeing from these “nextgen” games when last gen seemed to have most the kinks worked out.

    Whether games are being released incomplete, or with major glitches and bugs, or with major online issues, it just seems to be one thing after another lately.

    I like patches as much as anyone to correct gameplay issues, but some of these things never should have been in the retail copy to begin with.

    Just frustrating. . .[/quote]

    I understand your frustration, but I don’t really think things are different now than they were then. It was just that people accepted things more, as games progressed and the technology improved people became more demanding of them. I guarantee the games you played 10 years ago had as many damaging problems if not more than we have now. It was just you had to live with them because no fix was coming.

    Now that is not an excuse to have non-functioning features around release time. I’ve written harsh articles on EA numerous times for that (Tiger Game face, NCAA online dynasties, NCAA online performance, Madden online performance) and 2K (MLB 2K8 online performance), and SCEA (The Show online performance).

    It’s one thing to have aspects of a game people don’t like or glitches, every game will. But when you advertise a feature and don’t deliver you deserve to hear from the community about it, unfortunately the media doesn’t seem to care. They review a game, don’t even test online play as we see time and time again, and move on to promoting the next game to come out. Until they make these companies be accountable there is no end to this in sight.

  • Its Britney B!tch
    October 11, 2008 at 11:38 pm
    Reply

    Ok, I get no respect? Watch what your avatar gonna be tomorrow

  • Jonathon
    October 12, 2008 at 1:21 am
    Reply

    NCAA Basketall 09 = Weak Sauce…

  • sdot
    October 12, 2008 at 5:29 pm
    Reply

    who U rodney dangerfield or sumthin

  • Josh
    October 13, 2008 at 9:53 am
    Reply

    [quote comment="41681"][quote comment="41670"]I know Pasta is trying his best, and I sometimes get pissed for the wrong reasons.

    Just frustrating with the types of problems we are seeing from these “nextgen” games when last gen seemed to have most the kinks worked out.

    Whether games are being released incomplete, or with major glitches and bugs, or with major online issues, it just seems to be one thing after another lately.

    I like patches as much as anyone to correct gameplay issues, but some of these things never should have been in the retail copy to begin with.

    Just frustrating. . .[/quote]

    I understand your frustration, but I don’t really think things are different now than they were then. It was just that people accepted things more, as games progressed and the technology improved people became more demanding of them. I guarantee the games you played 10 years ago had as many damaging problems if not more than we have now. It was just you had to live with them because no fix was coming.

    Now that is not an excuse to have non-functioning features around release time. I’ve written harsh articles on EA numerous times for that (Tiger Game face, NCAA online dynasties, NCAA online performance, Madden online performance) and 2K (MLB 2K8 online performance), and SCEA (The Show online performance).

    It’s one thing to have aspects of a game people don’t like or glitches, every game will. But when you advertise a feature and don’t deliver you deserve to hear from the community about it, unfortunately the media doesn’t seem to care. They review a game, don’t even test online play as we see time and time again, and move on to promoting the next game to come out. Until they make these companies be accountable there is no end to this in sight.[/quote]

    Yes companys should hear from the community when they advertise a feature & don’t deliver, but just because the online play of the game isn’t as smooth as offline play doesn’t mean reviewers should give the game a significantly lower score. A game can still be good without online play. People shouldn’t expect so much out of online play in my opinion.

  • Josh
    October 14, 2008 at 12:12 pm
    Reply

    [quote comment="41690"]NCAA Basketall 09 = Weak Sauce…[/quote]

    That’s funny..I thought I was the only person who said “Weak Sauce”. Lol

  • tramacity
    October 16, 2008 at 1:53 pm
    Reply

    wack!!!!

  • university
    October 29, 2009 at 12:44 pm
    Reply

    college hoops 2k8 all day…..
    Thanks for the great reading,Great Posting,I will pass this on to our Ira clients to read.

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