One of the biggest benefits to the early community events is being able to provide input that can be acted upon. This is the first year with the football titles in which that opportunity has been available. So it’s important to look back at what was mentioned coming out of the first event for NCAA Football 09 and see how much impact it actually had on the final product.

The game was reeled in from then to now and I have somewhat mixed feelings on that. It was much more “wide-open” originally which provided a greater feel that anything could happen at any time which I enjoyed. But the frustration of realizing the defense couldn’t get any stops started to build along with how many interceptions were being returned for touchdowns. Now the game is more constrained, and while keeping the possibility that “anything can happen” it just does so much less frequently. Playing defense can still be frustrating but not because of allowing big plays, instead because stopping the short safe ones consistently is unlikely.

Continue on to read quotes from my event impressions and my feelings on those areas now. For reference you can check out impressions from the first event through parts one and two. How much was acted upon based on the feedback that was given?

Read more

In what will be a challenge throughout various upcoming sports titles, Fred from SportsGamer and I will be playing a series with each game for bragging rights all the while getting the community involved and recapping the outcomes. First up is NCAA Football 09 which will be a seven game series.

Game one was Navy (PP) @ Air Force (Fred). Continue on for a short recap and highlights. There is also a poll for choosing Thursday’s match-up which will feature two teams from the Big 10.

Read more

Earlier today Gamespot hosted a live stage show demonstration of NBA Live 09 which included producer Brent Nielson. Of course one of the main topics discussed was the recently announced 365 and the player DNA along with “Rewind”. There is a great deal of gameplay shown throughout the 10 minute video along with the demonstration of signature play calling. It is also mentioned that the demo for the game should be out around mid-September.

Continue on to watch the video and be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Read more

While E3 was light on details surrounding NBA 2K9 at least the first five screenshots for the game were released today. You can check them out in the gallery and make sure to leave your thoughts on them in the comments.

A patch for NCAA Football 09 to fix editing issues is on the way. The expected time for the patch to go live is 5-10 days from now according to a producer post on Operation Sports. To make this time frame it would appear that Microsoft and Sony would be giving the certification of this patch priority. I wouldn’t count on it being pushed out that quickly (seems awful optimistic) but it is good news to know that they are actively attempting to get it out as soon as possible.

Only two things will be fixed with this patch. The bug that causes the game to freeze when editing players as well as how depth charts reorder after editing a player.

Apparently this will not adversely affect any ongoing dynasties that have used named rosters. A patch to improve various gameplay elements and address other issues is planned for the future.

With the EA press conference and the first day of E3 out of the way there is a wide variety of sports titles to track progress on. Outside of the NBA Live 09 365 details the rest have not presented the opportunity for in-depth looks. Below are the games that have had media reports so far.

NBA 2K9: No hands-on at E3. Operation Sports and Gamespot have reports.

NHL 2K9: No hands-on at E3. Operation Sports and Gamespot have reports.

NBA Live 09: Hands-on available at E3. Reports on 365 here, from NLSC, 5WG, Gamespot, IGN, and a producer blog. I’ve also added some offseason screens to the gallery which include Baron Davis as a Clipper and Elton Brand on the 76ers.

Facebreaker: Hands-on available at E3. Chase from OS has labeled this as his favorite game played so far via this update. I’ve been referring to this as a “fighting” game for months rather than a boxing game and he concurs.

NHL 09: Not present at E3. The secret online feature was not mentioned in the press conference however Game Informer has revealed this to be an MMO online mode. More details on this later.

NBA 09 The Inside: The first screenshots for the game are out and can be seen on IGN.

With the official release of NCAA Football 09 finally here the start of the highly anticipated Pastapadre Online Dynasty is nearing. Here is a look at the early preparations as things get underway.

The dynasty was easy enough to set up. Heading into the Xbox Live section is where you’ll find the area to continue an online dynasty in progress, create a new one, or take over as commissioner for a different dynasty. After choosing to begin a new one you’ll come across the opportunity to adjust the settings and sliders as well as send the invites out. Those don’t necessarily have to be done at that time as the commish is able to change those and add/drop owners at their convenience.

Read more

While many of the EA Sports titles over the years have struggled in the area of online play (both in performance and lack of options) this has never been more evident than with NCAA Football 08. So naturally this was a major concern heading into the release of NCAA Football 09. EA assured the community that they were putting a great deal of effort into getting the game to run well. Have they achieved that goal? Here are some details and my current thoughts regarding 09’s online play.

Read more

EA Sports has just revealed the “ground-breaking” feature for NBA Live 09 that will “change the way sports games are made”. Known as NBA Live 365, the feature will update Live 09 daily with the latest statistics and the game will interpret that with changes to player ratings and tendencies. Through an exclusive agreement, Synergy Sports Technology will be providing the data from every game played on a daily basis.

No longer are you stuck playing a game based on what happened last year, instead you’ll have the ability to play with up-to-that-date information that will reflect on how the game plays in standard play now and online games, as well as what you can begin your dynasty with. Synergy tracks every game on a possession by possession basis. At this time that includes only the tracking of offense and not defense. Not only are stats kept but player tendencies based on what is done every time they get the ball. The whole idea is to keep the game “fresh” throughout the year.

Read more

Since the introduction of modes that center on controlling one individual player, NCAA Football’s Campus Legend has been more enjoyable than Madden’s Superstar. That looks to be the case again in 09 as Superstar mode has kept the annoying influence points/screens and the money/agents factor remains pointless.

This year the changes to the modes were minimal. The most significant ones are a fix to the cameras so that they don’t swing around when possession changes which was disorienting, and the ability to stay within an activity such as practices for the whole “week” instead of having to spend time loading into them on a “daily” basis. As I go through the Pastapadre Campus Legend reports we’ll see if anything else arises and what improvements have been made.

Read more