Your NCAA Football 10 Nebraska Cornhuskers

9 comments so far July 17, 2009 by Brandon Vogel

I turned 30 this week and the absolute crowning achievement of the first week in this new decade of my life will come tonight when I beat Utah to win Nebraska's first national title since 1997 on my PS3. Some of you, like my wife, are shaking your head in a mixture of disgust and despair.

A few others, however, are nodding knowingly. This post is for you.

Last year I took a look at "Your NCAA Football 09 Nebraska Cornhuskers" a day before the game was actually released, focusing on the roster and ratings. This year, based partly on some feedback from readers and partly on the fact that the 2010 rosters were all jacked up, I decided to play for a few days and give a more Nebraska-centric review.

If you're like me, the annual release of this game is one of the major signposts along the road to actual football in the fall. For that reason, it doesn't really matter how good or bad the improvements are year to year, I'm buying it anyway and I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it. It's not a value proposition for me--is this year's version worth $60?--it's a rite of MLB's All-Star Break, the perfect reason to ignore that game totally in favor of virtual ego-stroking in the name of Dear Old Nebraska U. Maybe that hampers my ability to judge the game objectively, but it doesn't matter because I'm not going to do that anyway. Rather, here's my take on the good, the bad and the ugly of Nebraska in NCAA Football 2010.

THE GOOD
--Quentin Castille is an absolute pile moving, tackle breaking horse. Helu's no slouch himself but with the new ability to set up plays--perhaps the best game play addition this year-- like a PA Power Iso by running the regular Power Iso a few times, I've found Q to be perfect for those up the gut jaunts. Also, it's nice that he's not a fullback this year.

--Zac Lee is a good quarterback. Good enough speed to run your I-formation and shotgun options competently but not quite fast enough to be truly dangerous on your zone read keepers or QB draws. Lee will be nowhere near the super-stud you'll recruit two video game years down the line as you're riding a 26 or 27 game winning streak, but he gets the job done.

--The EA programmers believe in the ability of Niles Paul. Paul's proven to be my go to guy so far. Good on special teams, good hands, some big play ability, basically what we thought we were getting when the North Omaha star signed the dotted line two years ago. Using the "If it's in the game, it's in the game" corollary, this is very good news for Nebraska in 2009.

THE BAD
--The playbook. It's so ho-hum. While all your friends playing with other schools are enjoying 87 option play options in the Flexbone or running Jet Sweep passes in the Spread or taking snaps with a receiver in the Wild Rebel, Nebraska is pretty much stuck motioning tight ends or h-backs a lot and running single back counters to set up a playaction pass that'll get you a first down. It gets the job done, but I'll admit to a little offense envy after playing the demo for two weeks with Florida.

--Suh ain't Suhy enough. Don't get me wrong, he's good, but I was expecting to leave opposing guards and tackles still in their stances as I slammed Hawkins, Reesing, et al to the turf at my will. And, despite the fact that you can hit a QB while he's throwing causing the ball to flutter precariously and generally get picked off by one of the front seven (easily one of my favorite additions), I have yet to return an interception for a touchdown with big Suh yet. How realistic is that? I will say this, however, William Yancy has reaped the benefits of lining up on the same side as old casa de lanzas.

--For the past few years if you took a sack or two Lee Corso would yell at you to run a screen or a draw. Last year it seemed like they finally worked out the blocking on a halfback screen and you could get it to work pretty well. This year, and maybe these are my own limitations, I've found the HB Screen almost impossible to execute without the dreaded "turn and sprint" drop from the QB.

THE UGLY
--We're still largely using the same pregame intros and sideline animations that we were when this game debuted for the PS2 and Xbox. This isn't a huge deal--I'll take gameplay improvements over window dressing any day--but it would be nice to have some team specific entrances. I'm not a huge fan of the Tunnel Walk in general so you can leave Nebraska out if you want, but give me Miami's smoky entrance, give me rubbing the rock in Death Valley, give me slapping the banner at Michigan and touching the sign at Notre Dame, and definitely give me the running of Ralphie at Folsom Field. Forget the addition of marching bands, if they don't put live mascots in the game next year I'm officially boycotting NCAA Football 2011...for one day.

--Yes, there are a whole lot of game add-ons that you can purchase. As MJD noted in his review of the game for Dr. Saturday, this is as ugly as it gets. Since I'm not really into playing online against random people--who needs that sort of reality check?--I'm not as concerned as some might be about the potentially unlevel playing field but you could also say that this is just another way of putting the game in the game. Resources at the real college level are far from equal too! Thumbs down for the cash grab, but thumbs up for harsh realism.

--I'm not just a video game geek, I'm also a uniform geek and finally EA Sports has given us the ability to get really creative with the uniform options. The results are generally ugly--hence their inclusion in this section--but that's actually a good thing for me. I like ugly. When you're playing 50 hours with one team it's nice to have options and I was ecstatic to see that not only where the all-white Callahan surrender specials an alternate option for NU but that by using the custom function you could also deck the Huskers out in all-red too, which I did to celebrate the 300th virtual sellout. You can do the same with Missouri in all-gold (which isn't really gold or even old gold, but more of a mustard), Baylor and all-gold (that's how it's really done Mizzou), and Kansas State and their Grimmace get-up.

I won't even bother to try and describe the new Season Showdown mode that allows you to accumulate points for your school in hopes of winning some sort of mythical showdown against the rest of the country. Sort of like the BCS itself, I'm not sure I totally understand the methodology behind it and I'm not sure I ultimately care who wins.

All I really care about is the fact I'm playing again and if somehow all those hours logged end up on a server somewhere and help Nebraska in some grand gamer rank, then bully for Ol' NU and bully for a built in excuse to give my wife.

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