Review by: William Abner

NCAA Football from EA Sports has had a checkered history since the industry went “next-gen” – every version of the college football staple on the Xbox 360 and PS3 has had one or two huge issues that kept it from being an A List sports game. There was the year wide outs couldn’t catch; the year defensive backs couldn’t cover anyone, and of course last year when the game fell apart with its ridiculous pursuit angles and spastic defensive AI which was dubbed “wide open gameplay.”

The good news: NCAA 10 is the best version of EA Sports’ college football game to ever grace a next-gen console system. It’s the first year where there are no game in and game out gameplay killers. The bad news is that it still contains far too many fundamental flaws for a franchise that has been a sports gaming institution for well over a decade. It’s time for EA Sports to take NCAA to the next level, to get it out from under Madden’s thumb—and this version still isn’t it.

However, you have to give EA Sports its share of credit because a lot of what was terribly wrong with NCAA 09 has in fact been fixed for this version. All of these issues have at least been somewhat addressed: the punt return game, the non-existent defense, the overly easy crossing patterns, the AI will finally throw the ball deep (still not enough but hey...), and the AI no longer runs out of bounds for no reason and only tries to “juke” a defender when a defender is actually there.

It’s easy to forget just how messed up NCAA 09 actually was until you play NCAA 10 and see these things working as they should. Of course you could gripe about the fact that these issues should have never been in NCAA 09 and patting EA Sports on the back for patching the obvious is a cheap compliment.

And you’d be right.