Electronic Arts'

NCAA Football 10
$59.89
I read quite a few of the other reviews and many were from the perspective of 09, 08, 07, etc, owners who seemed to be writing their reviews relative to those other games. That's definitely useful to many readers. But, they weren't useful to me because I've never owned an NCAA FB game and haven't played a console football game since the early Madden days on the PS1.

So, despite the negative reviews, I went out on a limb and bought the game anyway, because I wanted a sports game and have recently gotten interested in college football. I'm glad I did, because this game has been *a lot* of fun for me.

A couple modes, in particular, that I really enjoyed:

- "Road to Glory": You create an athlete and take him from his high school playoffs, through recruitment, to a college career. One somewhat annoying thing, here, is that you really are just the player -- not the coach. So, you don't get to decide what plays to call or even when your 'toon's in the game. I played a QB, though, and got to override with audibles. This actually was a good place to start, for me, because I got tons of practice as a QB finding receivers without having to think about the other stuff (you can simulate when you're not in the game.) It was fun taking my dude to the BCS title and Heisman. I tried as an HB and found the lack of play calling control irritating.

- "Dynasty": You choose a school and not only get to play out a full season, but also get to recruit in between each game and in the off-season, cut players, etc. The recruiting basically works by calling up players and trying to find what they like (there are about 15 defined topics of conversation). You want to talk about stuff your school is good at and they're interested in, thereby boosting their feelings toward your school. I played with Texas for a couple seasons and it was total domination. My second dynasty was more fun, because I chose a 1 star team and had to built it over the course of a few seasons.

Also, during gameplay, as an idiot when it comes to football defense schemes, I found the "Ask Corso" feature very helpful. He seems to do a reasonable job picking appropriate defensive schemes and educating you why he's choosing a play.

The gameplay itself is fun, I thought. There are several pretty annoying things, though, that lead me to give it 4-stars instead of 5:
- I had to set my "strip ball" game plan to conservative, because I've had defensive drives with 5 or 6 facemask penalties called against me in a row, even in situations a player would have to be an idiot to do it (4th and long, going for a sack).
- The CPU can call a "hurry up" offense and trap your D-line offsides before they're able to get on the right side of the ball. Lame.
- The CPU runs back a kick-return for a TD at least once a game unless I squib it, kick it through the end-zone, or intentionally kick it out of bounds.
- There's an annimation for penalties, which is slow, uninteresting, and annoying.
- The announcers sometimes speak at the same time (over one another), which seems like an inexcusably stupid bug.
- The CPU is remarkably good at on-side kicks, even if you correctly guess its going to do one.
- I was surprised at how long the load times are before games.

Overall, however, this game is a lot of fun and has given me hours and hours of entertainment. It's definitely not a bad game, in my opinion, although I can understand that it might be a poor value as an upgrade over earlier versions. If, like me, you don't own those, however, I would definitely recommend this game.

The Sims Life Stories
$19.99
My Dell Inspiron has trouble playing The Sims 2 (even though EA EasyInfo says I have all the components to run it), so I thought this would be a good game for my laptop. After all, the box says "laptop-friendly."

I don't know how many times I have Ctrl+Alt+Delete to exit its frozen state since I bought it on Saturday. EasyInfo says the only thing I lack on my laptop to support the game is a bit of processing speed. But get this: I have been able to load Riley's Story once and played long enough to unlock Vincent's Story before the game froze. However, Free Mode runs perfectly fine. I don't understand how the game can work for Free Mode but not for Story Mode. It's extremely frustrating. What's more, my own desktop computer (which runs The Sims 2 and five of the expansion packs) won't run this game, and neither will my parents' desktop (which runs The Sims 2 even better than my own desktop).

[...]

Battlefield 1942: The Complete Collection
$9.99
This is a must have for WWII or Vietnam fans! The multiplayer is very fun. The single-player is OK. I would greatly recommend this game to anyone who likes war games.

NHL 09
$9.99
I played the NHL series as a kid, and loved it. I was curious if this would hold my interest, even not being a big hockey fan.

Well, it didn't. The controls are extremely tough to learn (I don't play a lot of sports games, though). The difficulty settings are sort of awkward...I would win 6-0 on easy and lose 0-6 on normal. Dynasty mode is a little weak. Not much control over anything outside of the typical trades, salaries, etc.

Unless you like hockey, I'd avoid this game.