Thanks to EA Sports’ Will Kinsler for hooking us up with a copy of the game.

EA Sports made no secrets about the emphasis of NCAA Football 2009. With “Big Play Saturday,” gamers were quickly told of how this game was going to play. It was going to be full of big plays and a wide-open attacking offense that we see so often in college football. But have they overdone it? Through a handful of games, these impressions are still relatively incomplete, but troubling at the same time.

Before I jump into some quick gameplay impressions, I’d like to talk about the game’s new feature, the “breakaway engine.” NCAA ‘09 has improved on the controls of its predecessor, making you feel like you’re actually in control of the ball carrier, not the other way around. This year, running the football is about more than mashing the turbo button until you get to the corner, or jerking the juke stick in traffic.

Actual running lanes get opened up inside, allowing backs to squirm their way to some nice gains. The cutback lanes are also open and if you’re good enough, you can really rip off some big gains. I’ve only played with one elite back (Tennessee’s Arian Foster) and was able to see the difference in his ability to a lesser back from another team. The running game aspect of this game is greatly improved. However, computer teams still don’t run the ball effectively. Some slider tweaks here and there should help fix this problem, but we won’t start seeing those sliders for another couple of days.

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A huge thanks to EA Sports’ Will Kinsler who was nice enough to invite me to their football community day this past week at the Tiburon Studios in Orlando, Florida. In this second part of a three part series, I will go over my experiences with NCAA Football 2009.

Initial Reaction
Upon arriving at EA Sports last week,I was told that NCAA Football 2009 would be the first game that I would play. Man, was I pumped and let me tell you, the producers and designers didn’t disappoint. I immediately took control of Knowshon Moreno and the Georgia Bulldogs. Wow! I have always jocked Georgia since Champ Bailey left, so don’t think I just played with them because they’re #1. I proceeded to lose my first match up against Justin from EA Sports World by a slim margin. Back to the game though. I was simply taken away at the “crisp” player controls and juke moves. Have you ever wanted to pull a little shimmy/shake on someone instead of using a cutback? Well in NCAA Football 2009, get ready to used that feature. The producers of the game added a whole new breakaway engine that allows you to take full control of the animated athletes. Designer Ben Haumiller explained that it is much easier to run in and out of tackles, slap a defensive player with a huge stiff arm or even pull the new shimmy/shake on them. If you can get a team that allows players to easily get to the flats, you could do some damage.

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