Double Jump Gaming News

NCAA 10

Article by: Derek Gilkes

NCAA Basketball 10 is a college basketball game created by EA Sports, and can be considered the basketball version of NCAA Football. This game was released in 2009, but was the last of its series due to the ongoing lawsuit against EA Sports regarding its use of sports players’ likenesses without compensation. NCAA Basketball 10 is definitely the best of the series. It was one of the most realistic and ahead-of-its-time basketball games ever at release. NCAA Basketball 10 continued on with the series’s previous game modes, instead focusing on the little things it could improve. An example of this would be its deal with 5 different TV broadcasters and a realistic looking TV broadcast. There is also an enhanced dynasty mode and more offensive and defensive playbooks to use.

As mentioned above, one of the best improvements was the broadcasters and the broadcast presentation from previous titles. The new broadcasters included in the game are from 2 different TV broadcast presentations: 3 from the ESPN telecast and 2 from the CBS telecast. The ESPN telecast features Dick Vitale, Brad Nessler, and Erin Andrews, while the CBS telecast features the legendary team of Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery. The combinations of broadcast crews are everything a basketball fan could hope for, and the broadcast presentation is just as unbelievable. It looks exactly how it would appear if you were watching a game in real life. You get to see both the pregame and postgame parts of the different telecasts. The presentation really took this game

NCAA Basketball 10 also continues its success in Dynasty Mode. They enhanced the mode this year with all new facility and recruiting features. Just like in the football version, this Dynasty Mode lets you pick a college team and turn them into one of the greatest dynasties to exist. This year of Dynasty Mode lets you recruit and upgrade your facilities like never before, and it's one of the many reasons Dynasty Mode is so fun. Getting the chance to turn small programs into a powerhouse is so fun. This year of Dynasty Mode also allows you to get offers from different conferences depending on how your team plays. You can start in lower conferences and work your way up to a power six conference. Dynasty Mode is one of the main reasons this game is so fun to play.

Another of the things that makes this game so fun are the little simple features they added like new game playbooks, top 20 hardest places to play, roster shares, and coach engagement. The new playbooks were much needed and make the game deeper. Players can use a bunch of different playbooks to beat their opponents. The next little thing they added was the top 20 hardest places to play. You can see these in the regular play mode. These were voted on by the fans and make it harder to play at different arenas. Another featured mode added in this game was roster share. This was the mode that let players add rosters for others to download and use just like in NCAA Football. The last little enhancement was the coach engagement in game. This feature lets your coach tell you what you need to do better to win the game. This helps you figure out how to beat your opponent. These little features definitely helped enhance the game and make it that much better.

While I think this is one of the best sports games ever, there are a couple things they missed that could have made this game really great. Those two things would be a single player legend mode (like in the NCAA Football series) and better looking arenas. A legend mode would have been so much fun to play. You could start your player in high school and work them up to be the player of the year. I know a lot of people would’ve loved to have that feature in this game. The other thing they could have done better was the arenas’ appearance. Some of the arenas in the game just do not look anything like a real arena. There are over 140 divisions 1 teams, so it would have been hard to get them all perfect, but some of the big schools’ arenas just don’t even resemble the actual arena. Other than those two screw ups, this game could have been flawless.

Overall, NCAA Basketball 10 is a fantastic game that will keep you playing for hours. The little improvements that were put in make this game great. Dynasty Mode continues with its success, and the new broadcast presentation added another great dimension to the game that we hadn’t seen yet. This series unfortunately did have to end due to the ongoing lawsuit with EA Sports, but this game will never be forgotten for what it did for future basketball games. For that reason, I think it is one of the best sports video