NFL Head Coach 09

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The most compelling aspect to this game, for me, is the detailed progression you make if you create your own head coach character. It very much has a RPG feel to me, because the choices I make with my progression directly affect the way my team performs on Sunday. I'll highlight the best things I like about this game:

1. The Draft. Throughout the season you send out your scouts to evaluate the various prospects. Want to concentrate on an overlooked small-school guy? You can. Then you bring guys in for individual workouts to unlock more player information so you can decide if they are a good fit. Then you go through the draft, trading up or down to get the guy you want. It's exciting to put in the work and snag a potential superstar with a late-round draft choice.

2. The level of detail and control. This game accounts for EVERYTHING that a head coach deals with. Player attitudes. Injuries. Offensive/Defensive schemes. You can create your own plays. You can call the plays in the actual game. You deal with signing free agents and resigning players. Will you progress through the draft, or sign big free agents and pay their hefty price? You can hire/fire assistant coaches. I could go on and on. If you are a huge football fan, you can pore over the numbers all day, and because you build your team from the ground up, you get heavily invested in the outcomes.

3. The out-of-game announcers add to the narrative. The stories that Adam Schechter tells about the potential draftees really add to the realism, about the off season antics of the Heisman hopeful or the sleeper RB at a tiny school. It's great.

This game is not perfect. There are some bugs. But overall, it's an amazingly addictive game with a ton of potential. If you are a hardcore football fan, get this game, take control of your hometown team, and lead them to the Super Bowl!

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Let me first say that this game does have some issues, but EA put out a patch that fixed some major problems (2 min. offense and injuries). Could the game have been better? Of course, but I find the game very fun and totally addicting. If you are a diehard football fan I can't see how you wouldn't like this game. If you feel the need to control the players every move then play Madden 09! (Common sense goes a long way in life) Just like real NFL coaches, you have to suffer through some dropped passes and fumbles that your over paid players put you through. The game is a little slow in reacting to your button inputs, but you get used to that. It's not a button sensitive game like Madden, so it doesn't matter. The longer you play the more you understand why certain things happen. Your head coach (I chose to create my own) and your staff all have skills that they either already have or that they need to learn over time. You earn "skill points" by winning games. You develop these skills over time and it truly affects everything on the field. As far as graphics go, I think it really depends on what view you are using during the actual game. You can change views easily with R2. The "cinematic" view looks very good, but I use "overhead" also to really see the x's and o's in action. I highly recommend actually playing each game instead of simming them. You learn more about your teams' strengths and weaknesses that way, and more importantly you can increase your teams' "play knowledge". This is a crucial part of the game. Each play is either "unlearned, learned or mastered". Your players' success has everything do do with their knowledge of the plays. My only real complaint about this game now is the fact that once you start a game you cannot save it until it's over. Lastly, I would suggest you increase the skill level slider (for both your team and the AI) all the way up on the running backs. The standard default for the running backs have them doing some really random and unskilled things.

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Playing for several hours a day, a season should take you a couple weeks minimum. This is not an action filled game. While there are some flaws, you definitely get a feeling of accomplishment after putting together the right team and going on an extended winning streak without cheating. This is especially true if you start with a bad team, like I did with the 49ers. I almost got fired in my first season, but I saved it by winning a couple games at the end and finishing the otherwise disappointing season with some flair. Don't get discouraged. This is an addicting game if you give it a chance.

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You really must be a die hard football fan to enjoy this game. I can see the potential for a limited crowd to enjoy this, but it requires quite a bit of patience and dedication to become fully involved. The actual game day coaching is so painfully boring that it almost feels like they focused all their energy on behind the scenes stuff. I was hoping for a more interactive experience when calling plays, but it gets so repetitive and robotic that it can put you to sleep. There is no excitement to be found anywhere on actual game day. I suppose the nuts and bolts of coaching are realistic here but calling plays should be the most fun part, and here it is very lacking. Even the crowd noise seems built to make you sleepy, it's kind of a low humming noise like watching golf on television. A definite improvement over 2008, but still a ways to go.

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Jury is still out on this game for me. I've owned the game for a week now. Created my own coach and it gives you a rating on the level of difficulty for that particular team. You can start in the 2008 preseason or being at training camp. I always elect the offseason. Contract situations are all actual. However unlike the current NFL rules when you make a trade you still get a cap-hit.

You have to be very careful with your Cap because during the offseason EVERY freeagent will be presented to you to get in on the bidding for. If your team has a lot of needs the temptation is to sign everyone that fits that need. Likewise you have NO idea what it's going to cost you to sign draft picks AND no idea what it's going to cost to sign players to fill your roster just before camp starts. The GM will sign undrafted rookies and free agents to fill your roster before camp as long as you have enough Cap space.

Fatigue plays a major factor with your players and I think age has a bearing on it.

After each game you go through a normal practice week and are presented with items you can work on. However, you are not necessarily given items to help you learn and develop new plays in your playbook. This season I have a lot of rookies and rookies at the same positions are given the same plays to work on. I've even worked on the halfback one day and the O-line the next and the plays were mostly the same. How successful you are depends on what plays are unlearned, learned or mastered. On an unlearned play the guys are like well, "where do I go, what's my assignment." Even if it is learned each player has a level of knowledge of that play. There's even a percentage for Mastered. The QB may have it mastered but the wideout may not. So practice is critical. However, you are not necessarily going to get to practice the plays you want to run in the game. That needs to be fixed.

The first few times you try the game the learning curve is very high. Not that I don't know the sequence of events and the variables in coaching and team building; it's more the structure of the game; and what works and doesn't work.

One thing I'm getting tired of rather quickly is emotional reaction. Too frequently during a game your are asked to give a calm or excited reaction to a particular play. Your reaction impacts your rating with everyone from fans, media, owner, staff and players. It breaks focus on what's going on on the field. And because the game as one reviewer said is not very fast when you press a button it adds to the frustration. I'm ready to call the next play.

I miss my office from the original version. I miss the staff meetings. I want advice from my people like in the original. That's the way it is in the real world. In this version it seems your staff only have one function and that is to develop and impact the performance of your players by how much skill and special skills they possess. After wins your coaches earn skill points that you can spend to acquire new skills and advance skills you and they already have. How skilled you or your assistant coaches are impacts your players.

I want this game to be great. I want it to be a challenge. I'm thinking it might wind up being too much of a headache to enjoy.

One last thing. If this is true then I'd be done with the game. It almost seems like the outcome of each game is predetermined. In some games it seems like I'm dominating then all of a sudden my guys can't do anything right. Up by 21 then can't move the ball or stop the opponent. Then move the ball and fumble at the opponent 10 as your going down to win. Another senario, can't do anything right at all and get blown out of the building. Whatever you call won't work. It's as if the system says the score of this game is going to be 31-21 and there is nothing you can do about it. You get your 21 points early then the system says that's it.