NCAA Football 10 continues the time-honored tradition of only adding just enough to get people to buy the new edition for the new year. Incorrect uniforms, dull (and often inaccurate) stadiums, boring commentary and lackluster audio plague the game, however it has always been that way. The first game I played, a rivalry game between Wisconsin and Minnesota, wasn't a very good first impression. While the new stadium is there in name, it is not represented very well as it uses a generic bowl stadium with the incorrect endzones (the true TCF Bank Stadium isn't complete, however EA Sports could've easily used the concept images that exist, they couldn't even use a generic horse-shoe stadium). It is still referred to as the Metrodome during audio, and the band still plays the incorrect rouser.

That all said, a football game is not made or broken on what's off the field (or the field itself) it's what's on the field that matters. My first game, which I already mentioned, was an offensive shootout, both teams marched down the field (I'm known for my staunch defense in Madden, but nothing I could do seemingly worked against the Badgers, then again nothing they did worked against me), each team scored on EVERY single drive. I ended the game early at half time with the score tied 28-28, the difficulty was on the hardest setting, All-American.

I played another game to get the feel of the game and to review some more of the game's new features. One of the real standouts for me was the setup plays. You could run the same play several times to start to get the opposing defense to key in on the play, then run a different play with the same formation, thus fooling the defense. Running the ball for a few downs then pulling the play-action is the most common example of this. While this technique isn't new by any means against human opponents, it's the first time they allow you to “fool” the cpu.

Season Showdown is another great new feature. You first commit to a team (you can commit to any team in the game except for those built in EA's teambuilder) and then anytime you play as that team against the CPU or online, you receive points during that game. Everything from making a tackle to winning as the underdog count as points, and the points are then added to the team totals online. The points are gathered from 3 different sources, Skills (ie: completing plays like making a tackle or scoring a touchdown), Strategy (ie: reading the offense and successfully stopping them), and Sportsmanship (ie: not running up the score at the latter part of a game). When a game is complete (incomplete games won't add scores to the totals) your score is added to the team totals. While this is a very nifty feature, the team that wins (the showdown ends when the real football ends, and starts a week before the real football starts) will most likely be comprised of the most popular school rather than the most talented school.

Road to Glory replaces campus legend with the only real differences being the addition of Erin Andrews (and let's be honest, adding Erin Andrews to anything can't really be considered bad) and the new name. Everything else remains the same, from player creation to playing the high school state tournament to choosing a team to play for. While this mode is nice, I can honestly say they have some work if they want it to equal the Be a Star mode from the NHL series.

Teambuilder is the revamped Create-a-school feature, however it is 100% online. You can go to team builder.easports.com and create any team you want and can control everything from stats to logos. Unfortunately it costs money to have slots on your account and if you want any more slots than what you get with the game already, you have to purchase them from the Xbox Live Marketplace (or PSN).

Custom conferences are also new and you can even use the teambuilder feature to make a whole new (or historical) conference. I appreciated the ability to finally take all the PAC 10 teams and add in Boise State to see how the Broncos handled teams their own size. Another great feature of the custom conference is the ability to use it with online dynasties; you can now play any team with any other team on a regular basis.

The graphics and audio are for the most part the same in 2009 save some new stadiums and graphic presentation. The presentation is my favorite and I prefer it over any other football game (even ESPN NFL 2k5). While it doesn't have the flash and pizazz that the Madden NFL 10 had at E3, it should be noted that the college game is some-what toned down from its professional brother. Everything from the mascot to the marching band have been thrown in the game and while not all schools have full fight songs and none of the teams have the correct cheerleader uniforms, it still adds that little bit extra realism to add on to the game.

All in all, take my review with a grain of salt, the demo is up on PSN and the Live Marketplace so go download it and decide for yourself. For those without access, I do highly recommend this game to any college football fan.  If this is your first NCAA football game, I'd give it a rent before you decide to purchase.

It should be noted that although NCAA Football 10 ships with incorrect rosters on the disc, a file can be downloaded at launch to fix the issues.

To do this, go to the main menu:

• Select Online, then EA Locker
• Select Download Roster
• Select Enter Online ID (or Gamertag), don't worry, you don't need to add anybody to your friends list.
• Enter EASCNCAA10 (it's the same for both the PS3 and 360)
• Realize that it's unfortunate that the Minnesota Golden Gophers are still fairly inaccurate.

The patch to fix the other issues that shipped with the disc will be released within the week.