CBS’ iconic Road to the Final Four and March Madness presentation is paired with ESPN’s signature college basketball, and both announcing teams will call an offence of back cuts and ball reversals familiar to fired-up gyms in the dead of winter. But can NCAA Basketball 10 deliver a game just as compelling as the sport’s annual Cinderella stories?

Loved
Men in Motion: This year’s big gameplay innovation involves implementing the motion offence, which is to college basketball what the option is to college football – versatile, team-oriented and not really used in the professional league. NCAA Basketball 10 offers what appears to be a head-spinning variety of motion sets, but it’s easy enough to implement them. You’ll bring the ball up in a base motion offence and then by touching the left bumper (or L1) initiate the play. Your teammates then start cutting across the half court, with passing indicators either grayed or lit depending on whether they’re open for the pass. Timing is a big key, and it takes a few games to learn how to hit your man right as his icon becomes lit; just waiting for a full colour indicator results in a lot of standing around. The responsiveness can be frustrating at times – direct pass control can often zip passes completely across the half-court no problem, while a skip pass inside in the motion offence suddenly becomes a turnover because the indicator goes grey when you don’t expect it. Still, getting the hang of the motion does deliver satisfying thrills unique to this style of game. Seeing your man curl off a screen to the top of the key, hitting him in stride and dropping the dagger three exemplifies the character of the college game, and indeed sets NCAA 10 apart from its pro sibling NBA Live.

Prime-Time Performer: Much has been made of this game’s use of both ESPN and CBS’s broadcast packages, and with slight quibbles they live up to the hype. The CBS “heartbeat” graphic opens that package over a black screen, followed by a cut to the network’s title graphics, iconic theme song, and Gus Johnson introducing the arena and the competitors. ESPN’s Brad Nessler, Dick Vitale and Erin Andrews return as voice talents but are accompanied by that network’s graphics and theme music too. It instantly took me to a sports bar on a Wednesday night in January. Nessler and Vitale, as veterans, have a deeper script and provide the truest broadcast. I straight up enjoy anything Nessler does and Vitale is tolerable because, frankly, he’s in a recording studio and doesn’t have a specific coach (or two) with an arse for him to kiss all game long, the worst aspect of his schtick. Johnson does a great job delivering his inflections and his excitement in the situations you’d expect to hear it. Unfortunately, he and Bill Raftery are rookies and as such, go into repetition earlier than Vitale and Nessler. The wipes and graphics are true to life for both networks, although they sometimes hang before going back to the action. Shooters go to the free-throw line with a biography box, complete with a major, again, just like on television. I love it that the announcers talk about going to a commercial, over highlight footage or a sideline cinematic, when you call a timeout. The CBS Selection Sunday show is minimal but an utterly necessary touch, and it’s always fun seeing another bracket and rating other teams’ shot at the Final Four in addition to your own. In all, these features deliver a verisimilitude that will definitely fire you up at least the first few times you see it, and is always enjoyable.

Hated
That’s All Folks?: The motion offence and the broadcast presentation, though both are substantial, are it, unfortunately, as far as gameplay and experience changes from NCAA Basketball 09. The dynasty mode is basically a carbon copy from the previous year and, disappointingly, its schedules out of the box are not authentic, and must wait for a patch on Tuesday to fix these. That will be when EA Sports rolls out the game’s first Dynamic Update, new to this year. It is similar in basis to NBA Live’s Dynamic DNA, in that it will provide the updated, current state of college basketball as a context for your singleplayer dynasty, with a real world Top 25 and RPI and announcer commentary responding to those numbers. There’s no superstar career mode, although I know how much effort this would take to create as it has no analogue in NBA Live. Online play has one head-to-head mode and no online dynasty, which is now integrated into every other major sports title. If anything needed at least an online tournament mode, it would have to be NCAA Basketball, but its multiplayer capabilities remain previous-gen.

AI Doesn’t Play Smart: NCAA 10 is still fundamentally the NBA Live engine, right down to the harebrained AI your players and the computer’s will exhibit. Too many passes go to a man standing with a foot out of bounds to be acceptable. The opposing offence will inexplicably dribble down its clock and get locked into passing back-and-forth rather than attacking the basket. I’ve seen both on display in NBA 10. There also isn’t much of a post-up offence to speak of, looking like a NBA Live 10 with its post mechanics stripped out before they were patched back in. In truth I didn’t notice it that much because I was lobbing into the high post mostly to distribute the ball to a cutter, occasionally going one-on-one with a baby hook. You’ll definitely want to bias the sliders toward more fouls at lower difficulties or shorter time lengths, as not enough are committed and when the CPU starts using them for clock management, it’ll often have five or more to give before you go to the line. I also had issues with the point guard coming back to take the inbounds pass after a made basket, sometimes taking off for the wing immediately but looking back, I could have had some bizarre three-guard offence put in at the time.

Mild Manners: For a game with such polish in its presentation, what it’s “broadcasting” comes off somewhat bland. There are too many generic looking players, and too many generic arenas for its mid-major teams and in tournament play. Over the course of a long season, the broadcast novelty will wear off and the games will start seeming to blur into one. For players, there are some 800 faces to choose from in create-a-player mode but the body types seem restricted to just a few templates. Until you build a familiarity with your roster it’s hard to pick out key players because height in the college game, with 6-9 centres and 6-4 forwards, is not as matched to a position as it is in the pros. While all schools in the major conferences have their home arenas represented, tournament sites are generic until you reach the Final Four, and even then, the dimensions seem a lot more cramped than what you’re used to seeing on the television. Also, I’m disappointed that the crowd and the commentary in tournament play seems to favour the designated home team as if it were a regular season game. College basketball has a rich tradition of tournament crowds kicking in for the underdog if they’re close, or leading, late in a game. And overall, rather than the sustained jet-engine intensity peculiar to college arenas, the crowd’s emotion rises and falls in waves, and cuts in inconsistently.

NCAA Basketball 10 is an odd duck to recommend. For a casual basketball fan with a lot of school pride, it’s very entertaining, very accessible, and even educational in how it teaches you the basic college offenses. It’s also a less complicated game to master than NCAA Football, so someone nostalgic for his campus days will be winning bragging rights faster here. Hardcore hoops junkies will at least want to see the motion offence and the CBS and ESPN packages, and will need more than a rental period to cut down the nets.

It’s for the sports gamer or the basketball fan in the middle – not wed to a particular school or team, nor that fixated on offensive strategy – where NCAA 10 might fail to hold someone’s attention. Of course, you don’t have to run your offence through half-court motion sets. You can use a straight-up pick and roll, or drive and kick all by yourself. For those who prefer to play this way, it will feel very much like a reskinned NBA Live 10. And if there’s anything bemoaned in the college game, it’s the one-season mercenary who’s already thinking of the pro game. NCAA Basketball 10 is likewise a fine performer that uses up its eligibility too soon.

NCAA Basketball 10 was developed by EA Sports Vancouver and published by Electronic Arts for the PS3 and Xbox 360 on Nov. 17. Retails for $US59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all game types in both single and multiplayer modes.

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Actually, it’s likely an Xbox 360 Controller for Windows – I doubt they’re using a console to display the video. It’s probably something their production team put together on a PC and gave Pereira the controller for ease of use.

But it is intriguing, I suppose. It also reminds me of how I completely screw up my replays in Madden and NCAA 10 because I’m moving the two sticks like an FPS camera.

Well, alright, maybe it’s a heartwarming story anyway. The jamfest was put together by Pro vs. G.I. Joe, which arranges morale-booster multiplayer competitions between sports stars and service members overseas. Via Xbox Live and a satellite connection, Roethlisberger (git-tar, second from right), and his offensive line – Ramon Foster (guitar, left), Willie Colon (vocals) and Trai Essex (drums, looking like he’s playing on easy) took their Guitar Hero 5 skills up against the Army’s 336th Military Police Company.

Afterwards, Big Ben orated:

To be able to interact with these guys and enjoy it – and I could see the joy on their face – and get to beat them a little bit in some Rock Band. It’s a lot of fun.

Facepalm.

Madden NFL 10 cover boy Troy Polamalu didn’t play, but he did show up in grass-covered sniper camouflage (yes, really.) I bet Hines Ward’s eyes got real big when he saw that, thinking that getup would be perfect for his next out-of-nowhere blindside hit on Keith Rivers.

NFL Super Bowl Champion Steelers Connect with Soldiers in Iraq for Guitar Hero Competition [Ripten]

I’m not saying we confuse the realities, necessarily, although anyone who’s completed his third season of a dynasty in any simulation can be forgiven for wandering into an alternate reality. “My star linebacker, Rocky Doss, was lost for the season with a broken leg today,” my friend Dav, playing his fifth season as Air Force’s head coach, told me a few years ago. “And honestly, I really felt sorry for the guy. He was in the second game of his senior year.”

Andy Hutchins, who writes The Arena sees things in just such a way. I went to him a week ago with this Greatest Sports Moments idea. He immediately rolled off an AP-style lede, complete with a quote. And to be fair, if I took Northwestern to a national championship, I’d probably be hallucinating, too:

The nation’s top two scoring offences entered the BCS National Championship Game expecting pyrotechnics. But it was Tim Vincent and the Northwestern defence that proved more explosive, leading the Wildcats to a 17-14 win and their third straight national title.

Vincent, the NCAA’s all-time sack leader, harassed Oklahoma’s signal callers all game, sending two to the sidelines with injuries on his two sacks, and the Wildcats’ defence gave up no points after the first quarter, holding the Sooners to just 143 yards of total offence.

“I’ve been a part of three special teams and three special defenses here at Northwestern,” Vincent said. “What this defence did tonight makes this the sweetest win we’ve had.”

So in this spirit, I asked around for some folks’ top moments in sports video gaming. They follow below, with mine going last. Of course, feel free to share your own in the comments, and I’ll excerpt some of them into this column in an update later today.

Steve Noah, Operation Sports (MLB 09 The Show)

I like to create myself in a lot of games, just to see how accurate the game is, compared to my real life, uh, non-existent professional career.

This time it was baseball, playing MLB 09 The Show. Building myself into a cyber-steroid emerging uber-talent was hard. But after a few years, I was eventually plugged into the starting lineup of the San Francisco Giants. Even though I had a great average with good power and speed, I wasn’t what you’d call clutch.

It seemed like every imaginable time I had runners in scoring position, during the season or in the playoffs, when the team needed me the most, I would choke, crumble and let them down. Every single time. I’d dribble it off the plate, pop it up or just strike out at the most important time of the game.

That is, until Game 7 of the World Series. Steve Noah, “Mr. Choke Job” himself, stepped up to the plate, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth with one out, trailing 6-3. It was something kids daydream about when growing up. On a 3-1 count, the count that I would usually jump all over, only to see disappointment, I hit a 390 foot home run to win the game! I was jumping up and down, screaming and yelling like I actually did this in real life. Like I was a kid again, like a professional baseball player, living a dream. OK, maybe not. But damn, did it feel good, and to do it against the Yankees was icing on the cake.

Commenter “Michael Dukakis” (MLB 08 The Show)It all began as a baseball conversation among friends. With two Mets fans, two Yankees fans, and a Red Sox fan no matter how civil the discussion began,it always quickly devolved into something similer to the Dawn of Man scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. So as our “discussion” continued it came to a bet. Me and one of the Yankee fans 1 on 1 MLB 08, $US10 to the winner and of course, bragging rights. I, the Mets and he of course, the Yankees.

Before I was even settled in the La-Z-Boy a Derek Jeter home run makes it 1-0. No biggie, Carlos Delgado immediately homered and I was right back in it. The 1-1 tie held until the top of the 8th, when Jeter smacked a two-run double (Pixelated Aaron Heilman, my starter, was just as bad as his counterpart apparently).

Mariano Rivera began warming up, due to face the bottom of my lineup. My first two batters were retired on strikeouts. But a walk to a pinch-hitter and a base hit gets me in business. Rivera goes to full count on my next hitter and then walks him. That brough up Carlos Beltran, with the bases loaded.

Now this was a year ago so I can’t quite remember the exact pitch sequence, but I remember the last pitch. Oh what a shot it was, clearly into the virtual parking lot. The gloating and $US10 mine. That is my greatest sports video game moment … and sadly, probably one of the biggest wins any Mets team has had in quite a while.

Jim Harris, Operation Sports (NHL 94)

As a teenager growing up in Winnipeg in the early ’90s, to say we were preoccupied with NHL 94 would be the understatement to end all understatements. We played it when we were bored. We played it when we were avoiding homework. We played it to determine our social standing and our own sense of self worth. My younger brother and I were especially transfixed. We spent hours and hours battling it out in one fictional seven-game series after the next.

Having played the game so much, we were essentially equally skilled. If we played 100 times, he might win 51 games to my 49 (but I’d probably win six of the 11 ensuing fistfights).

One particular seven-game series still stands as my favourite sports moment. Having gone back and forth over the course of a particularly tense series, we finally entered Game 7. Much to my chagrin, my brother got the best of me that game, building up a comfortable lead over the course of the first two periods. When the horn sounded to end the second period, the taunting began. He started ripping into me like only a younger brother could. I was finally getting my comeuppance.

Then something strange happened. Singing a happy victory song at the top of his lungs, he danced his way right out of the room. After a moment, I realised he’d mistakenly thought the game was over. At that point, I did the only thing that was right to do: I turned down the volume on the TV and played out the third period against an absent opponent. I called my brother back into the room to politely alert him to his oversight, just as the third period wound down.

As I recall, he didn’t take it too well …

Owen Good (Hardball!)

This is from 1992, after my freshman year of college. By now I had been playing Hardball! on a Commodore 64 with a Wico Command Control joystick for close to five years. We’d gotten it from our next door neighbour, who was the software buyer for the catalog showroom store in town. He’d been sent a bunch of samples and regularly passed them along to us.

Somewhere around my sophomore year of high school I began keeping box scores on notebook paper in a three ring binder. I could routinely log a 10-run, 20-hit game against the computer, and with the right pitcher, toss an 18-strikeout shutout.

But never a no-hitter. I was Hardball!’s Dave Steib – the Toronto Blue Jays pitcher who twice took a no-hitter to the final out only to lose it. In this case, I was convinced the game’s AI was rigged to assure you never threw a perfect game against it. Repeatedly – it must have been half a dozen times, minimum – I would record the first 26 outs and get to two strikes on the game’s final hitter, who would then drop an unplayable flare just over the third baseman’s head. No matter where positioned the infield or the outfield, they couldn’t get to it in time.

So that summer in 1992, I sat down to play Hardball! on a Saturday. I took the Champs’ screwballer, Pepi Perez (with the deceptive 5.47 ERA) up against the All-Stars (the only other team in the game.) Sure enough, I powered through the first eight innings without a runner reaching base.

In the ninth inning, after getting two outs, I figured the perfect game had been proven an impossibility, but I was not going to waste a no-hitter. So I decided to pitch around the final batter and see if I could get the next hitter.I threw every ball out of the strike zone, just to see how committed the game was to screwing me. The computer swung at two pitches and looked at the rest, running the count to 3-2. I delivered the final one low and outside, absolutely intent on walking the computer.

It hit the ball directly to my third baseman, who didn’t have to move. He caught the ball for the final out. I’d finally thrown a perfect game in Hardball! I turned off the computer and never played the game again.

Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

Driver Joey Logano will go round and round in the Modern Warfare 2–themed stock car, moving at high speeds at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, viewable on ESPN2, aka The Deuce.

“This is the perfect race to have Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the car because it is the last race before the holiday season,” Logano said. “GameStop gave me a copy last week, and it is an unbelievable game. It should definitely be at the top of a lot of Christmas wish lists this year.”

Sure, I guess that makes… sense?

Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 hit the Indie Games channel. While it does not feature actual, licensed college lacrosse teams, it does have the title sponsorship of the sport’s top magazine in the United States. The game costs 400 Microsoft points, and lets you choose from 60 teams (or create your own side) in single-play action or in a simulated season of up to 14 games with a two-round championship. It features Xbox Live and LAN support, stats tracking and more.

“In the 12 years we’ve been publishing Inside Lacrosse, there is one topic that’s been addressed in letters to the editor, probably more than all the other individual topics combined: When is someone going to produce a lacrosse video game?” Bob Carpenter, the Inside Lacrosse founder, said in a statement announcing the game. “Producing a multi-million dollar game just isn’t going to happen for a sport our size, so this Indie format – particularly when it can be played online against others – is the way to go.”

The game is the product of a year’s worth of development begun by Dundee, Scotland studio Triple B Games and Carlo Sunseri, a Pittsburgh-area businessman and lacrosse coach. College Lacrosse 2010.

Marty Schottenheimer, Jerry Glanville, Marv Levy and Herm “You Play to Win the Game” Edwards join the opposing cast in Quick Hit, which focuses on game preparation, playcalling, and player and franchise advancement as opposed to arcade running and passing action.

The coaches will head teams whose personnel and tactics conform to the types of teams they led in the NFL. Levy and Glanville, for example, would probably direct fast-paced offenses, the run and shoot for Glanville and a no-huddle pro set for Levy. Herm Edwards just plays to win the game. Hello?

OK, kidding. Quick Hit has had to put together more than 100 individual deals, the vast majority of them past players. (It’s limited to using five current players by the NFLPA). These four coaches will add depth to the season simulation, said Jeffrey Anderson, the Quick Hit founder and former CEO of Turbine.

“Our users tell us they love testing their football skills against the true style of real coaches. We’re all about coaching and strategy, and these four new coaches will bring even more authenticity to the single player experience,” said Jeffrey Anderson, CEO at Quick Hit.

The game is free and open for signup to the general public.

“The quote is classic Greinke — honest, surprising, funny — and probably as good a way as any for him to mark a day on a national stage,” writes The Kansas City Star. It’ll also boost his nerd appeal — already stratospheric, since he toils for a small-market franchise where statistical analysis is the only thing keeping a fan interested as the team approaches its inevitable mathematical elimination.

Unfortunately, the Star goes no further in sourcing out Greinke’s online life. What class? What level? Has he done nothing but grind since season’s end? Actually, considering who is his girlfriend, I hope the answer to that is yes.

Greinke Proves He’s the Best in the Game [Kansas City Star, thanks mrlogical]

Image via Beyond the Box Score

In that image you can see the four different designs survey takers were asked to consider. All have the 2K Sports 10th Anniversary branding which has graced the boxes of NHL 2K10 and NBA 2K10. This tipster sent us other screenshots – including one of the NDA (which of course the tipster broke by sending this) so I’m inclined to believe this is real.

It is not, however, confirmation of the official cover athlete or the box’s final design. However, asking survey takers how the box cover makes them feel about purchasing the game is a strong indication 2K Sports has settled on its man.

Longoria is a two-time all star in as many seasons in the league and was the 2008 rookie of the year on a Devil Rays team that won the American League pennant. He just picked up his first Gold Glove.

That would be ESPN NFL 2K5, the last and best of an uncommonly good crop of football games in the first half of the decade and, perhaps not coincidentally, the last one before EA Sports inked its exclusive licence with the National Football League. Certainly, the stupefyingly good value 2K5 delivered on an unheard of $US19.99 price tag moved the needle on its high regard. But reviews of the game still said things like “the best-looking football game ever made” and “the most entertaining show in video game football”.

This coming week will see the last glut of AAA releases in this season’s sales cycle, and then it will be on to the question of Game of the Year. Sports titles are like the offensive lineman in modern Heisman voting. Just being mentioned would be honour enough, because the prize is completely inaccessible to your class of performer.

Maybe 2K5 did the best of any sports game, judged among others, in its year. It’s impossible to say definitively. I dialled up Brandon Justice, a producer on the 2K5 team to ask him where that game fit in the larger context of 2004’s top titles. Five years later, you can still hear the pride when he quotes the game’s feature set, as if he was back on the team going head-to-head with the Madden franchise.

“People are out there today talking about whether Madden 10 is overall a better product (than 2K5),” said Justice, who later worked on Madden and now is the director of design for Quick Hit Football (profiled September 19). “Five years later. They’re just now doing features that 2K5 did first — and not doing them as well. They now have online franchises; we had that mode. We had SportsCenter presentation with a highlight reel; they’re just now doing that kind of thing.”

But the feature-packed game wasn’t put out there to take home a statue, Justice said. It’s not to say that is the sole motivation of any past game of the year, but such artistic recognition is at least in the mix for your typical AAA adventure. Not so with sports titles, which seek a more product-oriented recognition, Justice said.

“Ironically enough, trophies matter little to the sports crowd,” he said. It’s very much focused on sales and beating direct competition where it exists. “Our main mission in 2K was to beat Madden’s score. Whether it wins sports game of the year or not, Madden’s still going to sell millions of units every year. More than anything else we just wanted to make a good sports game. And having worked on the Madden team as well, those guys have the same spirit. You want to crush the competition, and make the best product out there.”

In 2004, NFL 2K5 couldn’t afford to think about taking on Half-Life 2, Halo 2 or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. That year’s Madden also went out to wide acclaim; just beating it would take best-in-class effort.

But it’s also a little pointless, Justice said, for a sports game to shoot for anything outside best-in-class accolades. A former games writer himself, Justice said the criticism operations of major opinion leaders just aren’t set up to give sports titles the same exposure as shooters, RPGs and other traditional genres.

“Every magazine I’ve worked for, they have a sports guy,” he said. And, working for IGN, he remembers plenty of sports copy being handed off to freelancers. “Everybody plays Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Fallout, Gears of War, but you really have to find someone who’s into baseball games, and then he always reviews it.” Inevitably, when that outfit polls its staff for game of the year, few voices speak up for a sports game because few have played them.

“You’ve got one or two voices voting for a sports game,” Justice said. “A lot of time it’s a question of volume.”

Could a sports title ever win Game of the Year? My gut feeling says the opportunity has passed. Criticism of video games is increasingly considerate of a game’s narrative, and a sports simulation fundamentally has none. And sports deal with creative limitations specific to existing rules of a game, plus the veto authority of a licensor who may not buy into daring creativity.

David Littman, a producer on EA Sports’ NHL title — taking 19 different sports game of the year awards in 2007 and 2008 — points out another basic limitation of sports games. “These big action games have huge worlds to explore, while sports games take place mainly inside a confined stadium,” he told me.

Plus, he said wryly, “Sports games don’t have guns. People seem to like guns.”

True. Shooters also don’t have to outdo themselves every year, lest they be branded as just a prettied-up roster update. The innovations in a sports game, year-to-year, may seem small, but comparing versions three years apart, the way one would Halo 3 to Halo 2, or Grand Theft Auto IV to San Andreas, and maybe a sports title’s advancement would look more profound.

“NHL 10 and FIFA 10 are two of the highest-rated sports games ever on this console generation, but FIFA 09 and NHL 09 were also among the highest scores,” he said.

Littman’s right. This year FIFA 10 and MLB 09 The Show became the first sports titles in the current console generation to post a Metacritic score of 90 or better. (NHL 09 and 10 both got 88.) From 2000 to 2004, every single Madden and 2K football title on every console got at least a 90.

But it’s not to say that we’ll never see a truly revolutionary sports game again, or that when it does come, its excellence will go unrecognised. There’s no way NFL 2K5 could have won Game of the Year five years ago. But it still enjoys a fame that’s outlived those that did.

“Do you really think, five years from now, you’re gonna hear ‘Is Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 4 as good as Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 3? Will Halo 6 people really say, ‘Is this as good as Halo 1?’” Justice muses. “I don’t think so.”

Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears on Saturdays.