NCAA Football 09 Review (PS3): Poor Game Play

NCAA Football 09 is a college football video game released on the Playstation 3 and developed by EA Tiburon. There's not many college football games out there, in fact I think this is the only one. So if you're a fan of college football, you'll probably be interested in this game. Let's take a look.

Story : There is no story, it's a college football game.

Graphics : The graphics are beautiful. All the players are animated beautifully and drawn just as well. The weather looks fantastic, and the level of detail in the all the objects of the game is seriously impressive. Except for the grass, which isn't quite AstroTurf or natural grass, it's something weird and doesn't really fit. I guess they were going for something new, but I definitely noticed it was a bit weird.

Sound : The sound is important in a Football game, and the sound in this game is quite good. The hard hitting tackles and shoulder tackles all sounded fantastic, the crowd sounds great, and even the weather sounds are fantastic. The music is pretty good too, and it's all fairly ambient without being too obtrusive. Overall, the game is a very nice presentation sound wise.

Game play : The game play is decent but not without errors. First, the controls are far too sensitive and responsive. Even doing the basic attacks too harshly will make your player spiral out of control of whatever they're doing. If you plan on playing this game and doing it well, be expected to have a light touch. The difficulty in this game is really quite high, but not from your opponent. Rather, it comes from the absurd controls that never quite seem to do what you want. The running game seems fully intact, but if you want to do long shotgun passes or hail Marys, you're going to lose a lot. Really though, pretty much basic command in this game turns into a real chore. The controls are simply unforgivable. Moving on, there are a few modes of play but none are particularly engaging, nor are they too far removed from the previous installments of NCAA Football. Recruiting is basically a Create a Football player option, and it's very fun.

Re playability : There's a few annoying mini games which you'll look at then never play again. Other than that re playability really depends on how much you love frustrating football games. I sure don't.

Overall : 3/10. Game play makes a game. No good game play equals no good game.