By Anthony Kennedy

Publisher: EA Sports
Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Madden may get all the hype when it comes to football video gaming, but don’t sleep on EA Sports’ college pigskin game. While everyone’s waiting for the next iteration of the Madden franchise to drop later this month, NCAA fans across the nation are enjoying this game for being the anti-Madden with some sweet schoolyard gameplay and features. Here are some of the differences:

–120 teams. NCAA smokes Madden with the huge number of teams. With the exception of the Pac 10, which schedules the same nine conference opponents every season, you get to schedule a max six out-of-conference teams to play each season. If you want total scheduling control, EA has finally added customizable conferences. You can take your favorite college team independent and schedule every game. Another option allows gamers to go to Teambuilder.com and create their own schools with name, uniforms, and logos.

–Roster turnover. NCAA 10 has very different challenges toward maintaining a successful football program. Drafting, free agency, and the salary cap makes building and keeping your potential dynasty intact a challenge in Madden’s franchise mode. Try building a dynasty with players that leave after three full seasons. Worse, if you redshirt a freshman because you have a much better senior you want to get one more year from, you may only get two years out of a recruit. You get a feel for what college coaches go through during the recruiting season for NCAA enthusiasts.

–The BCS. The most hated system in the world of sports is still in effect here. It won’t go away even in the virtual world. Here, you get the same drama and controversy without the chance for split titles. Some odd things happen in voting, as the teams with the reputations get the benefit of the doubt in the polls. Presently, I’m playing as my alma mater, UCLA. I scheduled #5 Texas in week one and the #1 ranked Florida Gators in week two. After beating both teams, my previously unranked Bruins are now ranked #23, behind Texas and Florida. Somehow, even though UCLA received the most votes of any unranked team, the Bruins were jumped by previously unranked Tennessee and Georgia Tech after their victories over BYU and Clemson ( ranked #12 and #14 respectively). Reputation rules.

Now for the nitpicking. EA gets criticized, rightfully so, for generating what amounts to annual roster updates with its sports titles. The developers fell into a trap of going crazy with mini-games and making adjustments to off-field parts of the game for the sake of making them, the most annoying of which, is the ridiculous amount of new windows that make navigating the menus tedious, particularly in recruiting mode.

Now they allow you to pitch against other schools, for example,badmouthing USC (if you’re PAC 10 School) to land a blue chip wide receiver from Oakland. Maybe this appeals to some, but unless you’re 5-star school or a 4-star school that’s just won a BCS Bowl or better yet the BCS National title game, you’re not getting that 5-star stud half back.

While we’re on the subject of recruiting, how does EA have the balls to charge for add-on programs to help with recruiting? That’s right, for just another $2.00 you can have a program help you perform better at this $60 game.

Gameplay wise, the A.I. is a lot tougher than in previous years. Even on Freshman level, those 80-90 yard touchdown runs aren’t happening. When you’re throwing the ball, if you’re not careful with holding the left stick while you throw, the ball will go high. Your receiver will still catch the ball, most times, but the defense will almost always make the immediate tackle.

As in many sports games, the computer cheats. If you’re playing as a team (i.e. UCLA, Iowa State, Duke) that shouldn’t be beating a powerhouse program (i.e. Ohio State, Florida, Oklahoma), you’ll notice a ton of holding and clipping calls against you. There is also an abundance of facemask penalties called, especially when you make shoestring tackles.

Customizable conferences, online dynasty play, and tight game play controls makes this a must play for hardcore sports fans. However, there are too many flaws and not enough improvements for this game to be truly great.

Out of 5

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