A below average game through and through
I tend to get more or less interested in certain games as they have more announcements. When EA announced a mascot competition to figure out who would be on NCAA Football 09 for the Wii, I started to get worried. Still, I brushed past this and let myself remain excited. When EA announced it's special "All-play" feature, I lost all interest. I knew EA was not going to take their sports seriously on the Wii. NCAA is a perfect example.
Since there was no NCAA 08 on the Wii, I'll have to compare this game to Madden 08 on the Wii. To start, NCAA has no Campus legend mode....kills the whole experience right there. I wanted to create a player, lead him through 4 years of college, that sort of thing. But no Campus Legend mode kills a lot of the games replay value. The Dynasty mode is all right, solid but not great. And then there is the mascot game, which is basically even teams(a feature that puts every player at 99 in everything) but with mascots instead of players. And thats all the game has in terms of features. Not much.
The gameplay has been dumbed down a bit from Madden 08. EA is aiming for the "old ladies who have no interest in video games" crowd with this title. There is now a light surrounding receivers icons indicating whether they are open or covered. This along the ease in breaking tackles, means that there can be some ridiculously high scores at the end of games. Also the playcalling has been weakend also. Its hard to find the plays you want to run and the suggestions are limited to 6-7 basic plays on both sides of the ball.
The commentating is decent. I have no idea who these guys are, but they sound interested and excited. Obviously EA took their voices from the 360 and PS3 over to the Wii. The soundtrack is comprised of a bunch of school fight songs, alll with the marching band feel to them. As for graphics, the game look even uglier than Madden. The jerseys look dull and boring and the players lack even the definition Madden 08 had.
As I said earlier, the replay value dropped like a stone without Campus Legend mode. This is a very average game that EA let out to make a few bucks. If Maden 09 for the Wii is the same, I might have to buy a new console. In conclusion, don't buy this game, you'll only encourage EA to make more casual sports games, which isn't good for hardcore Wii owners.