NCAA Basketball 09 Demo Videos

Having resolved the audio problems while recording I wanted to post up a couple videos from the demo. Kentucky is a half-court team, Tennessee up-tempo, and the two classic teams are balanced. The teams playing to their tempo should be evident through the videos. Make sure to check out my impressions as well as read through the comments on the last couple articles for more thoughts on the NCAA Basketball 09 demo from the community.

The first is Kentucky @ Tennessee followed by 79 Michigan State @ 82 North Carolina. Both were played using the broadcast camera and on All-Conference difficulty controlling the home teams.

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NCAA Basketball 09 Demo Impressions

The NCAA Basketball 09 demo came out earlier today marking the release of one of the more important demos we’ll see given the circumstances. In a good move EA included four different teams, the ability to change cameras and difficulty levels, and made it a full eight minute half. Structurally it is one of the best sports game demos ever offered. How the game is being received though seems to be mixed, with some seeing improvement over Live 09 and others actually thinking it is a step back from that.

I’m having issues with the audio in my recordings right now so I’ll attempt to get videos of the demo up when I’ve figured out what the problem is. Until then I wanted to drop some quick impressions from the demo.

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NCAA Basketball 09 Demo Now Available

The demo for NCAA Basketball 09 is out now for the Xbox 360 and will be this afternoon (usually around 3pm PT) on the PS3. Coming in at 875.89 MB it features two four different teams that can be used in any combination. Kentucky, Tennessee, 1979 Michigan State, and 1982 North Carolina.

In a pleasant surprise the demo lets you choose from six different camera angles, four different difficulty levels, and is a full 8 minutes half. If there has been one really frustrating thing about sports game demos it is how many have had multiple short quarters which doesn’t provide an opportunity to get into any sort of flow. Thankfully that isn’t the case here and should allow for the tempo feature to actually come into play.

Leave your thoughts on the demo in the comments. I’ll have some impressions and videos up tonight.

NCAA Basketball 09 Top Rated Players

With the demo for NCAA Basketball due out tomorrow (approximately 2am PT for the 360, 3pm PT for the PS3) here is the always fun to discuss first look at player ratings. Game Cinema HD has lists of the top 20 players at each position and their overall rating.

I expect the initial reaction will be that the numbers are strikingly low. However make sure to take into consideration that now with the NBA Live engine there are a ton of ratings categories that factor into an overall. Players can be effective at what they do well based on the individual categories, where the overall just tends to show more along the lines of how well rounded they are. Still there are sure to be some arguments as to those who is over/underrated and being placed ahead or behind other players in the ratings.

With college games the player ratings are generally static since companies aren’t allowed to put out regular updates as they do with the pro sports. Somehow EA got around the no roster updates by providing one with the Bracket Packs of the past two years for March Madness and hopefully they’ll continue that this year. With the EA Locker and roster sharing it makes the names and ratings relatively easy to obtain but that doesn’t do anything for those playing online who are stuck with the default rosters and absense of names being displayed.

The First Big Test For 365 and Insider

Earlier today Allen Iverson was traded to the Pistons with Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess heading in return to the Nuggets. This is obviously a very high profile transaction which provides the first opportunity to see which NBA game will have the change made first.

Will it be NBA Live 09 with the daily 365 updates? Or will the 2K Insider come through and get the move completed? With Live 365’s initial struggles and the 2K Insider being largely absent this could be an interesting race. While there is more to 365 and Insider than roster moves, to most consumers that is the most significant element they offer.

Vote in the poll and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Update: 2K Insider has won this round. The Iverson-Billups trade has been completed in a roster update released early Tuesday morning.

First NCAA Basketball 09 Gameplay Video

Operation Sports has provided the first opportunity to see gameplay from NCAA Basketball 09 with a video of North Carolina @ Duke. It goes from the loading shoot-around through just over the first four minutes of the first quarter.

Just some quick observations I made from the video:

• There is little info given pre-game, with the lineups showing nothing but the player # and name (or in this case their position). It isn’t giving any info to use such as you see with Live’s DNA. There should really be some type of info provided there because many people aren’t going to know the skills of the individuals in a college game.

• You can definitely recognize the NBA Live engine though having a longer video or in getting to play the demo later this week I’m sure much more differentiation between the two games will be realized. Apparently this will especially be seen in the additional animations and the tempo feature.

• Love the court spacing, it seems even more wide open than Live which should prove beneficial.

You can watch the video here. Make sure to leave your thoughts on it in the comments.

NBA Highlight Contest Winners

Once again thanks to everyone who sent in highlight clips from NBA Live 09 and NBA 2K9. It was tough to narrow the entries down to the fields of five and then for the voting which in both cases ended up close.

The NBA 2K9 winner was CTROB with his Baron Davis submission and for the Live side it was TRex3302 with the Lebron James clip. The two winners can send me a message through the contact form in order to discuss the prize and delivery information if you don’t hear from me first via email within the next day or two. Continue on to check out the two winning highlights.

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NBA Live 365 Now Somewhat Updated

After the initial delays in getting NBA Live 09’s 365 feature pushed out, the first update is currently available for both the PS3 and 360. From here on out it there should be a new update every day after at least one NBA game is played.

Now though EA is stating that they are not going to update the DNA for a few more days. Until then it’ll just be the rosters and rotations that are adjusted based on the previous night’s games and the Rewind games. It’s frustrating to have to wait on the DNA (and previously the start of 365) when they could provide it immediately especially considering the data is optional to use. Understanding that just one or two games worth of data wouldn’t provide the most accurate look at players and teams at least we’d be able to see the changes and how it is all going to work as the season progresses.

Instead, what we have is an update that has made every player and team’s DNA identical. Which seems worse than giving us the DNA based on the first 1-3 games that has been played by each team. The Rewind games are currently available for ones played up through 10/31 and the DNA is displaying differently within them.

More NCAA Basketball 09 Related Topics

I have added 25 new screenshots in the gallery.

The Xbox 360 Achievements for the game can be found here. I’ve never liked achievements that I immediately recognize I’ll never have a chance at or that force you to play the game in an unorthodox manner. There are a few of those on that list for 09. There will also be accomplishments tied into EA Sports World for both the 360 and PS3 but no trophy support for the PS3.

The EA Sports World page for the game just went live. Though we haven’t heard confirmation on whether the game will have screenshot and video highlight features its safe to assume that it will.

NBA Live 365 MIA

If you’ve been watching any of the NBA games so far this year you surely haven’t been able to miss the onslaught of advertising for NBA Live 09’s 365 feature. Certainly the feature is already proven beneficial for improving Live, but what most everyone was waiting for was the daily updates. After all the slogan is “Made Fresh Daily”.

To EA’s credit they’ve done manual updates including details such as player accessories leading up to the start of the season. Though I felt that they should have started 365 right away after the first night of games, it wasn’t a big deal to wait two days and have the very first update be significant and affect every team in the league. So the promise was made that the first update would be out this morning. Yet is no where to be found with no explanation having been given. It sure would’ve been nice to get whatever is causing this delay out of the way two days ago…

Needless to say this isn’t the ideal start for a feature that EA is hoping to be perceived as a value add-on. I’ll have a full look at how well 365 turned out for this year as well as the 2K Insider which hasn’t lived up to its own PR hype. That is when both of them actually get serious and start providing what they’ve promised.

Update: I’ve just now received the following statement from EA

“Hello Everyone,
Like we told you guys yesterday, NBA LIVE 365 would go live today. Well, I’m officially letting all of you know that NBA LIVE 365 has now been turned on, and is scheduled to go live between really late Friday, and early Saturday morning. You should see all roster lineups accurately reflected in-game based on what’s currently happening in the real NBA season. You’re probably wondering about DNA and Tendencies right? Well, those will be ready for you to download soon, but we’re waiting for teams to play a few games so that you see some differences in their DNA and tendencies.

This is an exciting and brand new feature for not only us, but sports games period so there’s bound to be some kinks that need to be worked out. I wanted to thank you on behalf of the entire NBA LIVE 09 development team for being so excited, eager and patient about the implementation of this feature. Because this is happening as the season goes along, it’s something that we wanted worked out and fully tested before we turned on the switch to you guys. Two things to note; there are some inconsistencies in the lineups that you may see, but they will be addressed as we move forward. Also, in order to keep the daily updates going, if there is a player at any point in time during the season that is not in our game but has played a game in the real NBA, you’ll see him reflected in-game as a generic player. Don’t worry, he’ll be implemented in-game accurately that same week, and the generic player will be out of your game.

Thanks again for the patience everyone! These are truly exciting times for all of us as the future of basketball is now!

Thanks,
The NBA LIVE 09 Dev Team”