NCAA 10 First Impression

I got the game at about 1 am Tues. I played an online game (lost 17-14), played some Road to Glory (never really been my thing but it was fun), tested out some Dynasty (the pay features are annoying to no end and irritating at best) .

I've also played a little with scrub teams (UNT) and a half with good teams (Texas).

So? How is the game? Well, I like it. I tested out the new adaptive A.I. by trying some of my old money plays. EA did a good job of covering the big problems from last year. The defense doesn't take extremely horrible angles to the ball now. More things off the top of my head:

• Better running animations- they don't look stupid now
• Nice catching/ball in air animations- they look like they are fighting for the ball
• I like the updated playbooks- There are things I haven't seen before, and some old plays work like they are supposed to now.
  
• Really like the aggressive/passive options now. More on this later.
• They fixed the 'hurl it down 70 yards while sprinting the wrong way' problem that I hated but still used when I had to. Really that was my favorite part.
  

I played as Oregon vs some dude who was Fla St. I ain't gonna make excuses but I was more interested in trying everything out than I was trying to win. Still, I would have won if I didn't turn the ball over so damn much. I digress, however. Like I said, I rolled out right and tried to chuck it down the field to a guy running a post. Thank goodness that the ball didn't travel 80 yards. Really, even though it was incomplete, I was happy. One of the ways dudes would play on 09 was to roll out with Tebow and chuck that shit down to Harvin like 90 yards down field. I am not saying that Tebow couldn't do that. But I know that dude couldn't do that while sprinting backwards.

On the aggressive settings:

I love that shit so far. I suppose this ties into the revamped A.I. or a similar fix. Whatever it is, I love it. Last year if you played zone, you really were playing 'score-on-me'. Really, a zone with capable athletes is deadly. Combined with a tricky zone-blitz? Pick-six baby. I love that feeling of confusing the shit out of the opponent, hitting him, and sending a duck-tail pass into the waiting arms of my corner who is ready to dance into the endzone. Almost like this but without me getting pissed.

Now it may be just that I was playing a sucky dude and/or he was unfamiliar with the new features and so the defense was a little ahead of the offense. I dunno.

I played an aggressive zone (where the players tighten up and could allow the big play over the top.) and combined it with some combo blitzes. It worked.

That is the biggest difference. On last years game, I couldn't ever play with a 4-3. The defense A.I plays with better awareness of the QB and contains him a little better, allowing you to actually stop the dude from just running around Donovan McNabb-style.

So yeah. I liked it.


UPDATE:

I'll probably get more into the game later Tuesday. More review then.