If there’s one thing I love about sports games nowadays, it’s the evolution of the dynasty modes. Having full control of their team, sports titles often allow gamers to write history as they see fit as they build their team from top to bottom. A fantastic dynasty mode can often help gamers overlook gameplay flaws and graphical hiccups. Unfortunately, NCAA Football 10 doesn’t employ said dynasty mode, and thus, falters before ever taking off. The biggest mistakes throughout dynasty mode that players will run across are the constant omissions of precious All-American players that don’t make the NFL draft. Take for example, Tim Tebow from the Florida Gators: Tebow wins the Heisman trophy in my first year of play, is voted the best QB in the U.S., takes his team to the National Championship, and has stats to die for.
Want to take a guess what his route after college looked like? He didn’t make the NFL Draft. Sounds a little odd, right? Nope, this wasn’t an odd occurrence, as during the five years of dynasty mode that I endured, countless of my top players never entered the draft after four years of brilliant play and awards won. Another huge error on Electronic Art’s part this year was asking gamers to pay money for help during their dynasty modes. Want to hire a recruiting assistant? That’ll cost you a few bucks. Want to reach out to a distant state to recruit? That’ll cost you a few bucks. Want to automatically recruit 5-star players? That’ll cost you a few bucks. If you haven’t seen the silver lining yet, don’t worry, EA makes sure to let you know throughout the course of your games that you can pay extra for features that are already included in the game.
This, my friend, is a travesty to see in action. Let’s cross our fingers this doesn’t become the trend for all EA Sports’ titles. As a gamer, we don’t want to pay extra to unlock items already included on the disc. If you were to judge NCAA Football 10 by its gameplay, it’s not a half-bad. Among the best inclusions for NCAA Football 10 is the ability to can set up gameplans after halftime and timeouts. This has always been a trait that hasn’t been fully featured in sports titles, but with each and every passing year, the feature is becoming more accessible to strategize between halves and timeouts for sports titles. Another addition that will sure draw a lot of attention by sports aficionados is the ability to chew the clock away to run down the time on your opponent. On top of all that, the computer AI has been improved slightly with competent opponents, new simulation options and better defensive pre-play choices.
Online traits have also been improved upon with an online dynasty mode and EA Sports TeamBuilder. The former is being introduced in practically every sports title known to mankind, but the latter is a different entity by itself. EA Sports TeamBuilder allows players to create a school and take it online to share with the world. This create-a-school mode will allow you to recreate any of your favorite teams from years past or any fantasy team of that your heart desires. From importing logos to creating your home field, players have a tremendous amount of selections to use to create the school of their choice. Creating up to 12 teams at EA’s website, players have to download their team via Xbox Live after searching for their team. This is probably the biggest hassle, but it’s easily overlooked if you are ecstatic about playing with your high school football team in game.
But even with the new online options and, not to mention, the ability to create custom conferences in the dynasty modes, NCAA Football 10 isn’t a huge leap forward for the franchise – unless you want to count their suicide leap towards making gamers play for extra content and features already included on the disc. I’d recommend renting NCAA Football 10 as a blind purchase may send you into fury when you find out that the franchise hasn’t evolved too much past last year’s entry.
