It's a fairly safe bet that football fans aren't exactly foaming at the mouth in anticipation for the next installment of NFL Gameday or it's collegiate counterpart Gamebreaker. In the early days of the PlayStation, the game was one of the best available on the console. However, in recent years the game has gone from being the star quarterback to the lonely kicker. Dubbing this year 'The Year of the Comeback Player', 989 hopes to regain its glory and place on the field.
Although I wasn't able to play both games for very long - they hold a lot of promise. From what I could tell the game has been revamped to give a better playing experience. One of the things 989 has implemented to make the game more dynamic is the inclusion of over 300 tackle animations. Whereas most games show you the same tackle with every hit, Gameday (and Gamebreaker) shows a different looking tackle every time. Player models have also been spruced up, play screens are easier to read - there have been some nice changes in the off-season.
Long time Gamebreaker fans will definitely notice a difference in the commentary. For the first time ever, Keith Jackson will finally have someone to talk to in the booth, fixing the boring commentary which has been one of my major complaints about the game. Fight songs for some of the bigger schools will also be heard, although I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for LSU's fight song, Hey Fighting Tigers, to finally be in the game (psst, 989 - hint, hint).
While it's a major improvement over last year's game, the game is far from perfect. The biggest problem I had was the passing. Getting the ball off was easy, but connecting with the receiver -even when he was wide open - was very hard. Out of the maybe five passing plays I ran, only about one or two were actually caught. Hopefully this will be fixed before the game releases this fall.
