EA Sports kicks off digital football season with NCAA Football 10, available for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This year's installment adds three big features: the Coke Zero Season Showdown, Road To Glory and Team Builder modes.
The Coke Zero Season Showdown is a competition that includes every person who plays the game. EA tracks each player based on different categories like skills, sportsmanship, strategy, their competitors and number of wins. Each played game, against the computer or online, adds credits to the player's chosen team (you keep the same school throughout the entire season). When the season concludes, the team with the most points wins the tournament. To prevent the most popular teams from winning, EA divided this mode into five categories that players can spend credits on, so in theory, a smaller school could defeat USC if its fans wisely distribute their credits. Whether or not this works, however, remains to be seen.
Want more (real-life) college football news? Check out NCAA Football Fanhouse.
Road To Glory is an expanded version of the Campus Legend mode from previous NCAAs. ESPN broadcaster Erin Andrews commentates and shows video highlights of each milestone in your created character's career, such as picking his college, winning the Heisman Trophy or securing the national title. If you've grown tired of the same old modes, Road To Glory's a refreshing change of pace.
Finally, Team Builder lets you create up to 12 teams from scratch (gamers who pre-ordered received an additional 13 slots) and then upload them into the game and share them with other players. There's a wealth of options for people to choose from, including the ability to upload images to use as logos, creating uniforms and customizing the roster and team information. Once you use up all of the slots, you'll need to pay for more unless you delete teams you no longer need.
Aside from those new features, this year's NCAA offers the same gameplay and presentation from previous installments. Because of this, what could've been a five-star prospect quickly became a solid backup. Unless you're a college football fanatic, we suggest waiting for Madden NFL 10.--Andrew Buffa
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