We like how the end stays home, but still seems shocked at how fast that thing with the helmet and pads carrying the ball moves past him anyway. In news seemingly designed to excite us personally in an extremely inefficient marketing campaign, NCAA designer Ben Haumiller confirms not only the smarter defenses seen in the demo, but that this year will be a stellar year for lanky freakboy running quarterbacks.

BH: If you are looking for a unique experience with a team that runs an offense you will only find in college, Georgia Tech is the way to go. The flexbone playbook received a huge overhaul this year, and there are a lot of plays that have been added this year that allow you to run the full flexbone style offense. Baylor is a school that a lot of people around the office have had fun using. Nevada is another fun school to use, the Pistol offense can be very effective.

Oh, that’s the spot baby. Keep doing that. Yeaaaahhhhh, that. Protection? Not necessary with you, NCAA. We’ll get together, make a baby, and call it Conquerpants Swindle. It’ll be the most beautiful thing ever created.

A few observations and outright belly-rubs for the demo, now downloadable on XBox Live:

It’s Tebow. Yes, the player is GENERIC DUAL THREAT WHITE QB OF NONSPECIFIC NAME. But if there’s any evidence fo the loving caretakers slather on the franchise, it’s the animation of Tebow, who runs the QB power play in the precise manner as he does in real life: shoulders forward, bouncing off of tacklers, and falling forward for three yards like an albino sequoia timbering earthward. Legal issues of player compensation aside, it’s beautifully done. (The players even seem to throw like the players, though our virgin eyes might just be excitedly reading that onto the general animations of the game.)

Yay aggression. The big and ever-so-slightly intrusive new game feature is a quick check chart allowing you to check whether you want your team to play aggressively, conservatively, or somewhere between the two. You can choose specific options here, too: go deep if the play breaks down on passing plays, for example, or whether to always go for the pick or the strip on defense, etc.

The interface pops up once or twice too often for our tastes, but being an ADHD button-masher means slapping the “B” button to get the thing off the screen becomes second nature after a few games. It does yield results, however, and could be great fun–especially when you play your neighbor who decides to ball out all aggressive-like and ends up dying in a hail of play-action passes, screens, and draws. We put the Florida D on aggressive, and three drives yielded “INT-80 yard TD–Fumble recovered by OU, then long run on aggressive but ineffective attempts to strip the ball.” We’re a bit ambivalent on the feature, but it works like hell, so give them credit where credit is due on that.

Ever closer to reality. The gameplay itself continues to warp closer and closer to actual gameplay. We cooed out loud when Sam Bradford was hit on a play mid-throw and the ball, rather than fumbling out or mysteriously rocketing towards the pre-determined receiver anyway as would happen in previous editions, actually floated in the air like a lame duck and into a throng of DBs and wideouts attempting to pick it. Passes were batted down, but only when we hammered the ball on throws: slants worked, but only when our receiver had position. The deep ball is no guarantee, but if you set it up and take control of the receiver, you’ve got a sporting chance (as opposed to the automatic life-fucker it could be in previous editions.)

The most improved bit seems to be on flow plays, especially in the run game. Blocks happen not as static poles you weave around, but as evolving fights that may or may not be there on the play. Weaving OU’s running backs through the Florida defense was beautiful, since you actually had to read the play to salvage positive yards on a play. These are all individual tweaks, yes, but collectively they bring the game another step closer to channeling reality through your XBox.

ERIN ANDREWS NAKED ERIN ANDREWS NAKED. She’s in the game, but only as a sideline reporter in the demo. But we’ve heard that she’s naked in the real game if you enter BLOGGER DESPERATELY SEEKING PAGEVIEWS in the cheat menu.

Another reason video games > Real life. You’ll be able to play a full 32 team playoff. Rock.

More ways to blow a play completely: Two minute quarters didn’t really give us much of a chance to set up plays, but work out of a formation enough times, and the AI begins to tip you to tendency plays, i.e. running the HB Iso to set up play-action passes out of the same set-up. They work, and unlike some editions of the game they have play-action pretty well balanced between “OMG Instant 6″ and “WTF 15 yard sack and injured qb.” Also, it’s fun to tell the computer to eat ass and pick a play with a green “1% tendency” flashing over it. You’ve been Hal Mumme’d, Xbox.

Also new: a defensive key feature where you can tell your defense to look for a certain play. It’s a simple and intuitive control, and yet another way to you can allow Deonte Thompson loose in the secondary for a 45 yard TD as we did in one demo game. Like most fun fripperies in the game, it’s not forced on you, so if you don’t like it you can play the whole thing without ever messing with it at all.

Player Lock: Playing from one player’s perspective the whole play from a rear view, as opposed to getting vertigo seeing it from the player’s helmet. Handy on defensive line, disastrous in the secondary unless you really like totally missing easy picks and watching wideouts run past you taunt-farting you the whole way.

And yet: There’s more. There’s a whole “Road To Glory” feature where you’ll be able to have Kirk Herbstreit talk about you to Erin Andrews on the phone, which will be interesting once because the computer characters a.) do not have sex, and b.) Kirk does not, on the 17th time through, start speaking in an easter egg track about the time he and John Cooper robbed a convenience store in Indiana just for the thrill of it. Also, even more timesucking detail in recruiting if you want it, and online group dynasties (EDSBS will have its own league this year,) and tons of other shit you may or may not choose to use. It’s all disgustingly detailed and lovely.

Finally: They have camera flashes, nets behind the field goals that mean more ad cash for the game, and windsocks blowing on the field goals to tell you the wind direction. Also, the timer on the play clock begins audibly ticking when you get deep into false start territory. That’s the spot, EA: right there on the subtle, non-intrusive game-feature spot on our belly. Yes, just like that. We’re like a Great Dane, and will just lie here all day while you do that.

They ran over a nail called “Stanford.” My that sounds like an indie rock album title. And we fell into a hole called Oregon State. We’d like nothing better than a Fat Tire to spice up our day, or preferably eight of them consumed over four hours of video game play, a possible necessity after getting warm and fuzzies seeing all the MTSU logos in Franklin this weekend. Coach Bovo Pustule did so much with that NCAA 2003 Dynasty: five national titles in a row, four Heismans, and all done by on Heisman level, no less. Why he ever walked away from such success, we’ll never know.

Maybe he was tired, or maybe his wife threatened to divorce him if he didn’t come to bed, or maybe he just got a copy of Splinter Cell and forgot about the red-mulleted wizard of Murfreesboro and his magnificent team. Whenever we get the preseason guide to Florida football done and put to bed, we’ll live the dream and get back to
what’s really important in life: kicking the shit out of Sun Belt teams by fifty points week in and week out before a three point victory over Ohio State in the national title game.

On-Screen options: Press Y for team celebration/Go join the mascot to celebrate!/Press B to stalk sideline reporter.

Erin Andrews will join the cast of NCAA ‘10 for this year’s edition of the game that effectively spelled the end of our personal growth and development as a human several years ago. (Let’s be frank: it was scheduled for cancellation anyway.) She will do the sideline work in the game, and will be featured in a major mode in the game.

What that mode will be is unspecified, but if you’re thinking something along the lines of “Boonga Boonga,” you’re a terrible, sick person who needs some sunlight. You also will not be able to grind up behind her like Rey Maualuga did, though if you could in the game, an extra real bonus would be Rey vomiting up a six pack on her shoulder in celebration. [/superparanoiddraftguys!]

And now for the requisite page-whoring of typing Erin Andrews’ name twelve times in a row:

ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS ERIN ANDREWS .

[/envious of teams that beat MFT last year, stabbing pastward]

We have had NCAA 2009 for two days now, and are overjoyed to say that for once, the recently updated update of a game monkeyed with mercilessly does….does not suck. It doesn’t suck at all in fact, and despite the embarrassing number of hours we played the good-not-great NCAA 08, it will easily surpass its predecessor in hours logged. Our XBox360, just like yours, keeps track of all of that for us. Our XBox360 is an asshole.

Cardinal points follow:

Die, nine-foot-tall linebacker, die. One of NCAA 2008’s most grating tweaks was the hyperbolic pass coverage of opposing defenses, both yours and the defense’s. A 5′10″ middle linebacker with a 74 rating would, with bowel-twisting frequency, go on his toes when your qb dropped back, accelerate into the air like an anime character, and pick off your perfectly lofted crossing pattern. If this wasn’t galling enough, the character would sometimes do this from impossible angles, or after “recovering” from a play-fake bite, or even soaring from the bench trailing little Nintendo stars on his way to ruining the clean slate you thought your were finally going to post in a game BUT NO NINE FOOT LINEBACKER MUST GET HIS.

The nine foot linebacker has been euthanized in NCAA 2009. Amen and hallelujah; one of our first tests was to take a PA pass and then, almost without looking, dart it into the middle where Tacopants’ brother Flautabritches the assface magical linebacker would be. No Derrick Brooks imitation here: having eaten the playfake after five straight runs, the space was exactly as it would be on the field. That is, terribly, terribly open for business. Flautabritches, eat hot death.

Balance, re-established. The eternal sway in any offense/defense oriented game in video game sports is between oversized, stingy defense and bombs-away offense, something video game designers seem to struggle mightily in establishing. (For a precious span of a few years the Madden franchise had a handle on the proper dynamics of the NFL, but given the anemic offenses/python defenses of the pros, this is perhaps an easier task.)

If NCAA 2009 bends toward any particular point of the compass, it’s to the offense and to the pass. Picking up Missouri or Texas Tech, it’s easy to rangefind at all three levels of the passing game, especially the short routes, which wideouts gobble up like so much exam week Adderall.

On day two we ran Mizzou and went intentionally short for a half to see if we could execute the ultimate test of passing facility: running a possession offense with mostly passing. We held the ball for over three minutes plus throwing little four and five yard patterns before scoring on Texas, meaning either the passing might be a bit too easy for our liking, or EA knows something we don’t and Will Muschamp’s defense will be baffled by the three yard curl route this year. The former is more likely.

The tradeoff comes with the fact that plays unfold even more realistically now: sure, you can actually hit the open notch between the corner and the safety in a Cover 2 spot now, but unlike in NCAA 2008, taking control of the safety means you can actually knock the hair off a wide receiver who attempts to do that, either knocking the ball loose or more. Rushing the passer with four down stiil seems like an impossibility, but we’ll wait until we’ve logged some time with LSU’s nine-deep collection of earthmovers before going so far as to say it is still an improbability here.

Online dynasty. The evil this could bring into this house is too much for us to contemplate. Already confronted with the ultimate distraction machine that is the internet, tempted on two sides of the video game coin by NCAA’s solo mode and GTA IV, the possibilities of time spent on an online dynasty are…well, rude awakening doesn’t do them justice.

We’re avoiding it. For our own good.

Initial impressions, summarized: Yay, actual spatial depth on the field, ability to beat one on one coverage, and occasional unblocked blitzer not mysteriously caught up in universally perfect blocking, actual named rosters available for import, mascot celebrations, ability to return kickoffs more than once in a purple horned moon, TEBOW MY GOD TEBOW, and smoothed-out graphics that in HD give you an uncontrollable erection that even belt-tuckage may not help.

Boo: Life-destroying dynasty mode, defensive line immobility, and not much else. ONE HUNDRED INITIAL COCKTAILS TO YOU, EA!!!!

In the meantime, consider the preview of NCAA 2009, where home field advantage turns your pre-play route display into a bad trip.

EA Sports is allowing fans to vote for the mascot who will appear on the cover of NCAA 2009 for the Wii, a dubious honor since if the Wii edition of NCAA is as much of an epilepsy simulator as the Madden franchise is, the game will shovel piles of suck in suckhell forever.

(If you haven’t had the chance to play it, its bizarre controls force you to conduct Bernstein’s exact hand gestures from guiding the New York Philharmonic through Mahler’s Fifth. Our favorite move: the “Throw The Goddamn Thing Into the Ficus Plant” move. Never say we don’t know how to throw the ball away when danger nears.)

We cast a vote for Albert, but noticed something previously unseen: SEC mascots are all remorseless killing machines or hammered redneck militiamen with guns. Remember: as a conference we’ve got the only mascot that’s actually been on a killing spree. Toss out the genteel Commodore, and we’ve unveiled the iconic representation of all the Southeastern United States values: fangs, an unstoppable killing urge, little in the way of higher brain function, and a facility with firearms.

Miami receiver Kayne Farquharson has plenty of experience playing in Blacksburg against Virginia Tech. Hell, he can even control the weather there, since the only time he’s played there is a as a participant in a game of PlayStation football.

Farqurharson, who has never played a game at Virginia Tech, said he has a pretty good idea of what to expect Saturday from playing the video game NCAA Football 08 on Playstation. He feels it’s just as intense when playing on the road in cyber games against the Hokies.

“I got an idea,” Farqurharson said. “On the Playstation, you got home-field advantage. You press L2 [button] against the team and the joystick will rattle. The screen will shake. … The joystick vibrates. They scream hard. They scream real hard. That’s the closest I’ve been to Blacksburg.”

This could explain so much about Miami’s offense this season…someone grab Patrick Nix’s playbook, stat! If our theory is true, the audible calls should be something like “LEFT STICK D-PAD UP CHECK!” For variation, we imagine they toggle back and forth between XBox and PS3 setups.

Also, if this qualifies as experience, we’ve got vast experience at the following jobs: professional guitarist, ping-pong player, mercenary-for-hire, assassin, government operative, Italian plumber, zombie slayer, charismatic Sim, builder of cities and entire civilizations, and as defender of humanity against a cruel race of unstoppable parasitic aliens. Oh, and as the Heisman-winning qb for the six-time NCAA champion Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders. Not many men can throw for fifty TDs and run for 40 more in a season, but we’re not normal, people.

(HT: The Great Barstoolio)

It was a far piece better than Sega’s “College Football National Championship,” mostly because it was simpler and you couldn’t win every game by running the toss sweep with Jerome Bettis. (Damn you, Cuddles Swindle. Damn you and Jerome to hell.) You got scouting reports from Bill on each team. You got 360 degrees of replay. You got, as you might have guessed, glorious amounts of passing yards. And of course, it also featured, per video game rules of engagement, an unstoppable Bo Jackson bent on destroying the world with his cleats.

1. Vibrating codpiece. Seriously, we don’t know a soul who dares play without the assistance of a vibrating codpiece. Let ‘em mock all they like, but no one gets more shock and awe from massive, teeth-rattling on-field hits than he who owns the official EA Sports Vibrating NCAA 2008 codpiece.

If it doesn’t have the EA Sports logo, it’s not ‘in the game.’

Camelbacks are for pussies. Go straight intravenous for the long haul, especially when your Kent State Golden Flashes have finally clawed their way into the national title game in year three, and you’ve been playing for 13 hours straight. (Thank god for 300 pound fullbacks who can run a 4.3 40)

Ride the Raptor. We’re serious, here. One could not make up a four-hundred dollar chair loaded with 12 buzzing motors, embedded stereospeakers, controllers installed on each arm, and plush padding for “HOURS OF EXTREME GAMING.”

The Raptor. It could save your marriage, gamer.

Sure, you could donate it to UNICEF or some other bunch of do-gooding, skinny-child collecting global salvation types. Or you could take $400 dollars and buy the biggest button activated vibrator this side of the Hitachi Magic Wand, plug in your video game system of choice, and kill two birds with one stone by putting the old lady in it and scoring in multiple arenas simultaneously.

Headband. Don’t laugh. If you’re gonna be a champion, you’re gonna need a headband, Charlie. There’s no getting around it. You’ll never make it past Varsity level without one.

Don’t forget the headband. It’s key.

Oh, and Noel Devine? We don’t know his speed rating, but judging from this it’s somewhere between 93 and “HOLY SMOKING HELL.”

But before you carry on for much longer than two minutes with your newfound digital paramour, be sure to join the EDSBS NCAA 2008 league set up so lovingly by commenters Wooderson and Class of 2007. It’s open to all platforms (except the Wii–apologies, but you’ve still got bowling, right?) and open for business time as we speak.

We will be playing on there as soon as we drag ass down to the nearest Best Buy and purchase the hot ivory glowing sex toaster monster with the luminescent and bewitching green eye some people call an XBox 360. Then…it’s business taaaaahhhhhme.

Oh, and lest you forget: Christmas comes twice tomorrow when Phil Steele comes to EDSBS Live.