Heartful review from a big time NCAA player and college football fan
First off, the game is way too easy. I'm not a "baller" or anything like that but I destroy Heisman on NCAA 10. I'm looking for a true football simulation. For example, my favorite teams are Tennessee and Texas. When I'm in my dynasty on Heisman I expect (esp. with Tennessee this year) to lose to Florida or Alabama unless I play a near perfect game. Not the case in NCAA 10. It's ridiculous how easy it is. I'm my first 2 seasons with Tennessee on Heisman I went undefeated. I never had a challenge. I think my closest game was like 21 points. That's not even close to being real. So, once I got bored of that. Me and my friends and co-workers and my roommate all got together. We drew a conference out of a hat to play with for an online dynasty. We drew the MAC. After that, we drew teams. We were assigned: Ball State, Central Michigan, Temple, Toledo, Buffalo, and I got Kent State. Now, keep in mind we're playing on Heisman difficulty. We played 4 seasons before we all got tired of it. I was Kent State and we made our custom schedules hard (like against top-15 teams every non-conference game). I NEVER lost a game to the computer. The only time I would lose would be to another human player. It was just plain stupid. Way too easy.
Defense is way too easy as well. You'll get burned in the passing game but running defense is ridiculous. WIth Kent State over 4 seasons I only allowed 200 yards rushing per season! In fact, my DE had over 125 tackles and 60, yes 60, sacks a year! I won the Heisman with my DE every year. It was stupid cuz his overall was like a 77 when he graduated. This is not realistic at all. Some examples of my games final scores would be like: 73-10, 84-17, 91-3, 49-7, 56-0, 63-21, and I might have a close one every year at like 56-31. These were against good teams against the computer. However, whenever we played each other, scores would be like 28-24, 35-28, 38-35, 21-13, and stuff like that. For some reason, the computer sucks, even on Heisman difficulty. I've probably played a total of 10 complete seasons and I've won the Heisman with a DE every year except for 1. The time I didn't, I got 2nd with my DE and my RB won it. It's stupid how easy it is.
I attend TN Tech, which is a small school in Tennessee. I created them with the Team Builder (which I have to say is an AWESOME addition). I tried to create them as realistic as possible. I gave them the preset roster on cupcake (which is the worst one available). Guess what, my DE (who was like a 69 overall) had 82 sacks his first year and won the Heisman. I put them in the ACC and they went undefeated 3 seasons in-a-row and won 3 straight national titles. I never even had a close game. When I want a realistic football game, I want real college scores. Like a UT vs. Bama game with a score of 13-12 or something like that with little yardage. Yeah, that's boring but every game doesn't have to be like that but I want games to be close. This is no fun at all being up 24-0 at the end of the 1st quarter every single game. It's just a waste of a great looking game. I know I may be better than some other NCAA players out there but I'm nowhere near as good as some others so I know it must be really boring for them. I never even won our online dyansty league. I would always lose 1 or 2 games (to a human opponent) and they would win out against the computer and it was just pointless.
Here's the deal. With my offense, I can run like 5 different plays the whole game and win easily, ON HEISMAN! It's stupid. The wildkat is unstoppable. There is one play in the wild turkey of VT that cannot be stopped by the computer. I don't even run it anymore b/c it's boring. One time I ran that play every down against the computer on Heisman with VT and my running back had 10 TDs and 750 yards rushing... that's just plain stupid, with 5 min quarters! It was ridiculous. That is no fun at all.
Tackling looks great but sometimes you can break the craziest tackles. Like if you hit the truck stick after you hit a defender 50% of the time you'll break a tackle even it's with a skinny little speed back with an overall of 80. It's stupid. No matter how bad your players are, you can beat the best of teams. There are a couple plays in each playbook which the computer cannot stop. Back to my wildkat play, once I break the line of scrimmage, if the safeties are in a zone (which they normally are) they don't even come after me! I can blow right past them and they wont even try to tackle me. They will just stand there. I go back and watch the replay and they haven't moved!
The game looks good and I've heard alot about Road to Glory but I don't necessary like playing that way. If you want to play with the whole team in a season such as Dyansty or Madden's franchise modes, get Madden. NCAA's gameplay is broken this year. No way should my cupcake TN Tech Golden Eagles blow out Florida by 60 points every time I play them!