Padre Road to Glory: Part One

My first mission with NCAA Football 10 was to get into Road to Glory mode. I’ve enjoyed Campus Legend in the past but a lack of updates or improvements caused me to lose interest. Given that I’ve now only gotten through the first two High School tournament games it is too early to tell whether the additions will change that feeling. Continue on for a recap of those two games and general thoughts on the mode thus far.

Road to Glory starts off with an introduction from Erin Andrews. Basically the storyline is that they are choosing an athlete’s career to follow. You can accept this proposition in which they’ll take automatic videos and screenshots to use during their updates or you can choose not to and play through the mode essentially the same as in the past. I haven’t not encountered more Erin Andrews since though I suspect she’ll be back once the High School portion is complete. I am not to college yet so I’ll be looking to see if you can import a Teambuilder school come that time. I also don’t believe you can bring in named rosters as I only recall seeing the option to auto-name them.

High School Tournament Game One

Padre once again has taken his favorite position that being corner. In the past the non-premiere positions have been somewhat neglected and felt as though they were an afterthought. I’m hoping that will not be the case again.

The game couldn’t have started out any better. On the first drive Padre picked off the pass and returned it for a TD. I think it was eight or nine games into his rookie college season before that opportunity presented itself last time. So that was initially encouraging but concern about the CPU AI immediately came to mind.

As a suggestion to EA I’d like to have a camera angle for the highlights that follows just your player. In this instance I created a highlight that had to include about 10 seconds of the CPU QB moving around in the pocket. I would’ve rather seen the whole play focused on my player.

I saw quite a bit of the CPU QB throwing passes into the ground which was great. It used to be that the only incomplete passes were batted down or intercepted. This time I’d say over half of the incompletions were simply off-target throws. Granted this is a High School QB so it’ll have to continue to be monitored going forward. The CPU QB did have a lot of time in the pocket but again it’s HS and that could be why.

As the game went on I was pleasantly surprised by how well the CPU was playing. The game was not a sloppy turnover-fest of years past. Of course I tweeted about that and then within minutes saw the QB throw two pick sixes back-to-back. Hopefully that won’t continue. In the regular game I believe a pick six is rare, but in this RTG High School game there were three of them. It seemed like the CPU’s route running was sharper but that could be my imagination.

Another new touch is that punt and kick return coverage is done from an elevated sideline view. This makes it much easier for blocking purposes and the camera isn’t doing that spinning around thing, but at the same time it can be difficult because you don’t see the returner in view. So basically you end up blocking blind unless you run back close to the returner.

I used to get frustrated as a corner because it seemed that the CPU purposefully avoided throwing to the user controlled side of the field. You literally had to bait the QB to throw your way and get a tackle. Its part of why INTs seemed so rare. In this game there were a handful, maybe five, passes thrown my direction. That was an improvement but it is only one game and not enough to go on yet.

After the game I took a look at the auto-saved moments. I believe there were three highlight videos and two screenshots. One of the videos was of the INT, another of a tackle, and a third of a block. They used different perspectives to show them off. The INT video was okay but the others were pretty irrelevant. The screenshots were terrible. One didn’t even have my guy in it (or maybe he was behind someone) and the other was taken from the side and looked pixelated.

Padre finishes the game with the INT-TD and three tackles. Teams scouting in attendance included Ole Miss, New Mexico, and San Diego State. Padre is currently a two star prospect.

Padre High (W) 42-7

High School Tournament Game Two

After the first game I realized that the difficulty was set to Varsity. I went in to change difficulty up to All-American and got a notice that you become ineligible for the leaderboards if you change any settings outside of the difficulty being on Varsity, All-American, or Heisman. Changing any other house rules removes you from being included in the leaderboards.

As I simmed through the different times of the game when my player was off the field it became evident that we really need a “drive recap” after those simming periods. Once the simming is done it goes right into your play and you have no idea what just happened. Even if it just told you the result of the last play (TD, FG, Punt, INT, FUM, ect). That would go a long way.

One problem I have come across is that time does not elapse between plays. I’m not sure what it was they fixed about the clock (maybe during simming?) but this was not fixed. Basically you go away from the end of the play and come back to the players breaking for the line of scrimmage with the same time on the game clock and 25 seconds on the play clock.

I don’t remember it being possible in the past but you can call a timeout as the player. There were a couple occasions where I did not like the play call so I took the opportunity to use a timeout and come back with something new.

In this game there were only three passes thrown my direction, two of which were late in the game during desperation time. I need to see more than that or else it is going to lead to frustration again. The majority of passes were up the middle or to the other side of the field.

This matchup was a little closer but never felt in doubt. At one point I was plowed over on a block that allowed a TD. I went to check out the highlight and was given the message that “no highlight is available for this play”. Lebron James and Nike must be in charge of the highlights because that was the second time a play that made me look foolish somehow disappeared.

There were three videos and three screens auto-saved. Again they were poor selections. I’m hoping that the game will use the ones I’ve saved myself during the presentation portions.

Padre came away with seven tackles (two for loss). Teams in attendance included Iowa and TCU. Padre remains a two star prospect. At this rate I’m getting the sense that the non-premiere positions will yet again be at a big disadvantage unfortunately. Unless you want to buy that five star prospect downloadable content…

Padre High (W) 30-17

Look for the second update to come on Saturday night! That will include the completion of High School and into the start of Padre’s collegiate career.