To grab the file, follow these steps:

• Go to the NCAA 10 Main Menu
• Click Xbox Live
• Click My NCAA Online
• Click EA Locker
• Click Media Center
• Search for the file OS COACHES NAMES FULL VER 2 uploaded by ACEMAB194.

A dozen OSers contributed to building the file less than a week after its commercial release. They worked with the default roster on the retail game and created no players. Dynamic Updates will change the players' ratings as they progress through the season, but not their names or other information.

In addition to the verisimilitude, named rosters cuts down on announcer repetition. Without a name to call, they default to typically identifying players as "the senior," etc. Gus Johnson saying "the soph-a-more ...!" gets a little old after a while. This should help.

Again, this file is for the Xbox 360.

NCAA Basketball 10 Community Rosters (360) - Get Them Here! [Operation Sports via Pasta Padre]

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 offense 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 offense, 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 offense 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 color 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 offense suddenly becomes a turnover because the indicator goes gray 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 ass 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 offense 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 offense 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 offense 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 offense 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 centers 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 favor 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 offense 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 offense 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 $59.99 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.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Announced back in June of this year, NBA Unrivaled is Tecmo's entry into the basketball video game market since 1992's Tecmo NBA Basketball, the basketball companion to Tecmo Super Bowl. Like Tecmo NBA, Unrivaled features cut scenes and exaggerated special moves, making it more NBA Jam and less NBA Live.

Unlike the game from 1992, however, NBA Unrivalled features all 30 NBA teams with top players from the latest rosters, full 5-on-5 arcade gameplay, and full 1080P HD support.

NBA Unrivaled drops on Wednesday on the Xbox Live Arcade in North America, Japan, and Europe, with a PlayStation Network version coming in the near future.

This package delivers Lousiville at Pitt's Petersen Events Center (Big East); Michigan State at Illinois' Assembly Hall, one of 47 such-named arenas in the Big 10; Texas at Kansas's Allen Fieldhouse representing the Big XII; Florida vs. Kentucky in Rupp Arena (SEC); Cal at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion, because only in the Pac-10 do they play in pavilions; and of course, Wake Forest whistled for a charge against Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium, because for no other ACC team is such a call ever made. Larry Rose must be an unlockable classic ref in this game.

Loved
Under control: Honestly thought I'd hate the controls, considering this is five-on-five basketball with not a joystick in sight. But getting the hang of them - specifically knowing how much space your juke moves take up, so you can finish a dunk or pull-up jumper - you can run some entertaining, mostly arcade ball with occasional flourishes of realism. (Though, dunks and drives to the basic seemed to be a little too easy, allowing you to brute-force your way out of trouble most of the time.) A blue ball button controls both quick passing and your jukes (by flicking it in one of four directions) and so sometimes, you'll make a crossover when you want to kick out to the nearest man. But the offensive setup capably handles the most difficult part of video game basketball - ball distribution. Pressing and holding the blue button allows you to select a player to receive a pass, in case you have a man free on the wing and the AI isn't highlighting him. And a clipboard icon allows you to call basic plays, like a pick-and-roll or isolation. Defense, I didn't like how your man instantly became a step slower as soon as you switched over to control him. It made defending in transition - and the computer is much better running and gunning than running set plays - a total crapshoot. After a while you learn how to play a guy off the ball, get him in position, and pick up easy steals and blocks, which are your main forms of active defense as the rest is handled by AI.

The Full Package: Like Madden, EA Sports shoehorns as much of its full console experience into this device as possible. You have a season, playoffs and a quick game mode at three levels of difficulty, for both AI and how fouls and penalties are called. At the easy level, backcourt violations, going out of bounds and three-second violations are nonexistent, and they give you breathing room to run your game without turning your learning process into nonstop punishment. In season mode you can go right up to 12 minute quarters and 82 games if your commute is that long. Trades and roster management are enabled, but the former is more like "move players as you wish," because there is no trade AI. (Hello, Dwight Howard-for-Nene trade!) Three-minute quarters for me produced enough results in the 30-40 point range to be satisfying.

Hated
Some Inconsistencies: My wi-fi access is on by default, and I was struggling with some bad framerate drops until I switched it off on a hunch. That seemed to help but there are still some inexplicable lags that make this finesse game feel a little clumsy. Although this is a device and not a game limitation, it feels very cramped playing on an NBA halfcourt with 10 guys on this size of a screen, from the broadcast angle. You can switch to a baseline view that magnifies things but I found the constant camera zooming and movement to be a little dizzying. Contesting shots and going for rebounds, especially in traffic, left me wondering whether I'd grabbed the miss or recovered the ball after a block. Marv Albert's commentary isn't helpful in telling me, either, as misses are either "Comes up short!" or "Off the mark!" or "Rejected emphatically!" His presence lends authenticity but is very, very repetitive. And finally, there were some puzzling AI sequences at the lower difficulties, especially in the final possessions of a quarter, where the opposing team would do things like pass the ball between two guys, repeatedly, or hold the ball until a 24-second violation sounded the horn.

NBA Live has enough of a learning curve, and a large enough price, to be a serious purchase and not an impulse buy. Those who enjoy video game basketball can pick it up easy enough. But you should have a lot of time or desire to play it on your mobile for you to see value in the title, because it requires exploration. It's clear NBA Live on the iPhone is also meant as an entry product to get you to think about its larger sibling. Ultimately, it succeeds, and does so without resorting to fun-size cop-outs like three-on-three, or dumbed-down controls.

NBA Live by EA Sports was developed by EA Mobile published by Electronic Arts for the iPhone and iPod Touch on Oct. 23. Retails for $9.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all game types and difficulties.)

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

"You hear that," Dougan, a producer in EA Sports' Vancouver studio, said after humming the tune "and wow - that is college basketball."

EA's college hoops title, even though it's in the second year of a competition-free, exclusive license arrangement, is taking a huge bite with this year's presentation. Full broadcast immersion - the package of real network announcers, graphics and music - has been on a sports gamer's wish list for a long time in many titles. NCAA Basketball 10 will be the first to dip its toe in the deep end of those expectations not once, but twice this year, presenting its games in the broadcast style of CBS and ESPN.

In season mode, "if your team is that good," of course, says Dougan, your weekday games will be broadcast with ESPN's Brad Nessler and Dick Vitale, using that network's signature key graphics, screen wipes, and music. Play on Saturday or Sunday, and maybe you're the over-the-air national game on CBS - called by Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery, with that network's visual package.

It gets better. If, say, you're North Carolina, playing down in the Maui Invitational, ESPN has the rights to that tournament in real life, and it'll be presented as such in this game. In the conference tournaments, you know how sometimes the broadcasts trade hands? For example, the SEC's semifinals are on ESPN but the finals are on CBS? NCAA Basketball 10 will switch accordingly. "We wouldn't be able to get approval otherwise," Dougan said, "and we wanted to do our best to make our broadcast partners happy."

It is a hell of a stab at sports immersion, taking on the guise of two real-world networks where no game has fully rendered one before. It's even ballsier considering there's no competing title, and that the Johnson-Raftery team not only had to come in to build that audio library from scratch, but the game will end up competing with itself as both will be measured against Nessler and Vitale's experience and deeper soundfile.

"To do one network's broadcast package is hard enough, and we had to do it well," Dougan said. "We're not going to be the first ones to do it for EA Sports and not nail it. We don't have that option. And here we decided to do two."

Creating the graphics wasn't as simple as dialing up a point of contact in Bristol, Conn. or New York, and asking for the network's files. "The way their systems work, their art doesn't translate well for us," Dougan said. "So we had to recreate it, based on references provided by them, or we just got it off tape. That's the overlays, the popups, the 3D screen wipes you see when they cut to a replay or the guy at the foul line."

Those wipes are both unique, not only in visual content, but in the space and time they take up on the screen. Keep in mind they're branded with the logo of the team in the game. And there are more than 300 in NCAA's Division I.

"And every broadcast package has multiple size logos. And then you have to times that by two," Dougan said. "It was a nasty challenge."

It gets so pointilistic, Dougan said, when a player comes to the line in a national broadcast, the networks usually throw up his vital stats, which include his college major. NCAA Basketball 10 had to build in a randomizer to give players a major for just such a presentation. "We've got the guys in there who are communications, or undeclared. We've got biology, performing arts," Dougan said, chuckling. (If you create a player, he will get a major but it'll be assigned by the game, you don't get to pick it.)

When tournament time comes, Dougan said, the graphics will incorporate bracket progression and other tournament specific details, entirely done in the branding of CBS, the Final Four network since 1982. And that ...

Well, that brings up the number one question:

"No, it's not in the game," Dougan said. "We do not have ‘One Shining Moment.' "

The misty-eyed melody CBS always plays at the end of the championship game, to a reel of the tournament's best highlights, is the one iconic feature of March Madness not present in this build.

"That's something we really wanted to do, but you'd be surprised how much the dude wants - or how much that song actually costs," Dougan said. "But yes, what would be the ultimate, is if we had a video highlight montage with that song."

I asked if this broadcast immersion was a proof of concept for other EA Sports titles; Dougan didn't want to speak to what other EA Sports teams were doing (though they do work together EA Tiburon helped out with the Lucas Oil Stadum build, the site of this year's Final Four in Indianapolis.)

But he made clear that, even though 2K Sports is no longer a competitor in college basketball, it doesn't mean College Basketball 2K10 has no competition. It is the last major sports title to release before the holiday season, when gift givers are considering not only which sports game to buy, but which game overall.

"You look at where we are, NCAA Basketball isn't as popular as, say, Madden," Dougan said. "But we're still competing with it. We're competing with other sports video games, or even Call of Duty. If someone only has $60 to spend on one video game, we need to give them something that's going to drive a purchase."

The double-broadcast package was arduous - taking up 60 percent of the development cycle, he guessed. But it was worth it.

"This is something we need to provide people, in order to grow our game and market."

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

Earlier this week, Pasta Padre found a forum post - since taken down - in which a 2K Sports representative questioned whether NBA Live 10's massive patch that went out this week deserves the praise it's getting for using community feedback. The 2K guy more or less called B.S., and said there was no way devs could have rolled out something based on community feedback and pass certification that fast, unless they were working on it prior to release. Which would imply EA Sports knew it was sending out substandard code. (Pasta Padre points out that the NBA Live 10 demo went out early, and so community feedback on the game could predate its full release.)

EA Sports has responded with an NBA Live 10 blog that features, among other things, 20 screenshots of NBA 2K10 being sold on Craigslist, all with some reference to NBA Live 10 being the better game. Other testimonials from fan email include direct shots at the competition, including this gem: "I can't stop playing this game i am hooked, good bye 2k garbage."

If Metacritic is a judge of things, the games are neck and neck - 2K10's 83 to Live's 80 - for the first time in years. And it's the first time Live has seriously challenged 2K in quality on the current generation of console. The fact this comes during NBA 2K's gala 10th anniversary year is probably frustrating to them. But he who makes the first game without framerate drop or patchable bug, throw the first stone.

While both sides might want to cool it, and focus on their own game, both of which have issues to be patched, they seem to be taking this very personally. Next year, I'm sure both shops will remember what those corksuckin' icehole bastiges on the other side said and did, and it'll be an all-out battle for the crown. That's good old-fashioned competition. Just so long as no one gets run over by the Schlitz malt liquor bull.

EA Strikes Back With New Blog [Pasta Padre]

Dynamic DNA, now in its second season, draws on analysis provided by Synergy Sports Technology, and breaks down the trends, tendencies, streaks and performances of players across the entire league. That's be incorporated into your own NBA Live 10 gameplay, both in how these players and teams perform and how the announcing team calls the action.

Just as important, a huge patch has rolled out and is now available for for owners of the Xbox 360 version, and will be available on Thursday for PS3 players. It delivers a multitude of gameplay fixes and enhancements drawn from community feedback during the game's first month on the market.

Most notably, backdown postures have returned with a click of the right thumbstick, returning a more familiar presentation of post play to the game. A lockdown perimeter defense feature also has been added, plus better touch on keeping your defender in front of his man.

The entire list of enhancements and fixes, according to an EA Sports news release, is below.

Enhancements:

• Auto-switch to PG on defense after a made basket
• Enabled rim stuffs. Now when you try to dunk in traffic, there's a chance you'll brick the dunk.
• Tune nets to make them a bit less stiff
• Added more variation to "get back" animations after made shots. Less "skipping" back.
• Disabled the canned scenario steal that happens when you rip the ball from a player who is sizing up. Instead, we allow actual collision with the ball if the defender performs a steal while a ball handler is making a dribble move. Makes for a much more read and react, twitch game on defense.
• Improved Freestyle pass animation selection to prevent guys from bursting into a sprint while passing on the move.
• Backdown button is back. Enabled right thumbstick click to toggle between face up and backdown postures.
• Disabled the turnaround jumpshot that would play if the shooter is facing away from the hoop when outside of 18 feet. So instead of a turnaround three, players will pivot and shoot a regular jumpshot.
• Minor tuning to shot and layup percentages.
• Improved responsiveness and AI's usage of off ball cuts.
• Stop the rebounder from running up court too early after securing a rebound
• Improvements to reception logic, specifically square up catches
• Improve player reaction to loose ball situations
• Left analog passing improvements: Update analog angle metric to consider the receiver's destination so you can lead the receiver with the pass
• Improved the logic of when to play a standing reception vs. a moving reception based on the receiver's momentum and position on the court.
• Added the ability to "lockdown" perimeter ball handlers (by pressing into them) and force them into a protect dribble state.
• Ability to shoot "runners" on demand by driving toward the basket, neutralizing the left analog stick and hitting the Shot Button. Works inside of 18 feet.
• Improvements to user on ball defense. Made it easier to stay in front of the ball without "slipping off" when you move your left stick toward the ball handler.
• Anti-cheese code. Prevent users from being able to take off ball control of players and run them under the hoop for the cheap pass and dunk.
• Inbound flow improvements. Allow the inbounder to move to multiple (closer) locations along the baseline after picking up the ball.
• User control over shot contest vs. block. Tap of the Block button will always yield a contest animation. Regular press will always jump to block.
• Several improvements for end of game AI logic. When the AI is ahead, they'll do a better job at recognizing time and score and use more clock. If they're trailing, they'll accelerate the offense.
• Improve AI logic for pump fake biting. AI defenders will be smarter about defending pumpfakes according to difficulty level. Previously, the higher the level, the more often they'd bite. Also, if user is pump faking multiple times in succession, the AI will stay down.

Bug Fixes:

• Smooth out some of the gameplay by tuning blend times for passes as well as some various fixes for blend pops across the board.
• Exploit fix. Fixed bug in shot calculator that would make stepback jumpshots that crossed the 3pt line have unrealistically high FG%s.
• Fixed sliding and warping during standing rebounds
• Addressed issue where defenders would sometimes watch the ball fall off the rim. Increase the allowable distance for a teammate to come help.
• Player Lock fixed. AI teammates will now make decisions on their own when user is player locked off ball.
• Put the ball handler into protect dribble if the on ball defender attempts to crowd him. Previously, the ball handler would not recognize the defender and just expose the ball.
• "Rocket dunks" fixed. Fixed a bug that was causing dunks to speed up by 30% and added code to have dunks retain the shooter's on-ground velocity, preserving his momentum after takeoff. Also applies to layups.
• Various post play fixes, including the case where two guys would stand next to each other while one of them was posting up.
• Addressed a potential exploit where it would be too easy to pass to cutters for dunks. As part of this fix, we now allow ball collisions on passes when passing into the paint.
• AI Stagnation fixes: Ball handler would sometimes not properly pass to receivers in a play. Also, we allow the ball handler to "improvise" if we detect he's been idling for too long.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes an off ball cut animation wouldn't properly settle into the correct spot.
• Restricted the post up and under move to within 12' of the basket. No more ridiculous up and under heaves from deep.
• Fixed an issue where off ball post players would sometimes quickly go in and out of post battles, significantly cutting down on jitter.
• Fix for big men waiting too long to outlet the ball after rebounding
• Fix for fidgety box outs. They should kick in more reliably now.
• Prevent user passes to teammates who will be out of bounds or to teammates in the backcourt after they've crossed the timeline.
• Improve goaltending calls
• Fixed ball physics for blocked layups/dunks. There was a mirroring issue that was causing the ball to shoot off in the complete opposite direction of its intended path.
• Fixes for animation oscillation on defense (i.e. jittery movement)
• Fixed a bug that would cause certain off ball movement animations to not mirror properly
• Series of small fixes to prevent balls from hitting the floor during rebounds.
• Fix for shooting fouls not properly getting called on collision layups. This will yield more realistic free throw attempts for both the user and CPU.
• Put in a fix to mitigate the excessive turnovers inside the paint, specifically after pulling down an offensive rebound. Gives users a little more time to pass out or attempt a shot when they get in congested areas in the paint.
• Smoother ball handler post up entries. Sometimes guys would "pop" into place.
• Fixed issue where players would sometimes "freeze" in an off ball post battle before receiving a pass.
• Fixed bug where the "check assignment indicator" would draw on one of your own teammates in LIVE RUN games.

Unfortunately, CBS's Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery are a bit thin and generic in their commentary - but in their first year, it's to be expected, as they don't benefit from the kind of dialogue library built up that Brad Nessler and Dick Vitale have. This is too bad because Gus in real life is constantly talking, making his bursts of excitement not as jarring as they are here. And from what I can hear, Raftery's adding personality and not much more.

As far as the play itself goes, player movement seems fluid and natural, although there is a conspicuous slide-repositioning of defenders during the free throws. The passing system seems to involve the off-the-ball player control introduced in this year's NBA Live 10 - or at least I hope it does. It was one of that game's stronger points.

Of course the graphics packages look great, picture-perfect with both ESPN and CBS's broadcast presentation. Plus, I like watching Al Skinner throw a temper tantrum as Michigan starts putting it to Boston College.

NCAA Basketball 10 First Gameplay Videos [Pasta Padre via GameSpot

As detailed earlier, the set is a sports locker with shelf space for 25 games inside. It also comes with a combination lock for your front door latch. A poster, Kobe Bryant figurine and, of course, the game itself, are included. Only 30,000 were made, this one is No. 986.

This was unboxed - why else - for sports gamers to drool over, but we won't be keeping it. Only the outer seals were broken, but the whole package is going into our charity item warehouse. Later this year someone will be happy to claim it in the name of a worthy cause, with thanks to 2K Sports for a well made game and a worthy shrine to it.

More than just table overlays and title graphics, EA Sports is including signature wipes and other elements specific to both networks.

Our lead screen artist had to create 2 sets of broadcast specific logo sets (that are used in different overlays and wipes) for every team in the game. That's over 600+ unique pieces of art for logos alone! You'll see these logos in various overlays like National Top 25, player stat pop ups and team/player montage wipes (to name a few).

So, you can see this was nowhere near as simple as swapping colors or logos.

People who watch college basketball are used to seeing and extracting info out of the score overlays and montages during the games they watch on ESPN and CBS Sports. We had to nail this functionality and be true to the broadcast in order to make it authentic and easy to gather info and make changes based on that information. It is also a lot of fun knowing that the stats showing up in the ESPN or CBS Sports broadcasted game you are playing are a direct result of you playing a game or working through a dynasty. ESPN and CBS Sports are recording and surfacing YOUR stats, YOUR team's averages, YOUR work.

NCAA Basketball 10 - CBS and ESPN Presentation Packages [Inside EA Sports via Pasta Padre]

Last year's version of NBA Live finally helped the franchise pick itself off the mat in the next generation of consoles, where barely acceptable offerings had trailed NBA 2K10's best-in-class effort for years. This year EA Sports Vancouver pushed the focus to team play rather than flashy individual performances and animations. The product is a clean, accessible game with a strong underpinning of realism, and a level of player control that sets it apart.

Edit: In the interest of accuracy, the opening sequence does not use the word "revival." Instead it's "arrival." However, the sentiment stands. It's a revival of the franchise.

Loved
Everyone's under control: Whatever your style of play, the ability to custom-move off-ball player with a trigger-button-stick combination is a strong positive. This isn't a command to an AI, this is you physically moving one player while another has the ball. It creates lots of catch-and-shoot opportunities at the perimeter and do-it-yourself plays that are more technically satisfying than run-and-gun basketball. They're also more efficient - sometimes a little too efficient - than some of the set plays you draw up. You also have the "dynamic quick play" button which basically tells your hottest (or nearest) scorer at the moment "get open." These wielded in combination with the quick pick-and-roll's improved control, give you an impressive sense of power getting the ball in the basket, without ever beating your man off the dribble or going one-on-one. It rebalances the focus on team play and easily does the most to recommend this game.

Fancy passing is no passing fancy: In addition to the above, freestyle passing allows you greater directional control over where you whip the ball, even in traffic, rather than hoping the game AI doesn't send it to an unintended man covered up on the play. With this and the trigger/button direct-pass mechanism, there's almost never a reason to flick A/X unless you're just bringing the ball up. Like Magic and Bird, the controls make the assist cool again. Hell, it makes the outlet pass cool. More importantly, with a clampdown on speed and what you can get away with taking the ball to the hole, NBA 10 places a greater premium on spacing and open shots, and with the passing controls, it gives you the tools to create those opportunities.

Dynamic DNA: It's back again with another layer of fine-tuning and a year's worth of data to build upon. Not only do you get players whose performance is broken down by attribute score and tendency, you're presented with a thumbnail scouting report of your AI opponent in every game and the means to go much deeper in your franchise mode. By no means do I study player or team tendencies of the NBA, but I could sense that, in certain game situations, bad teams defaulted to type, superstars tried to take over (sometimes succeeding), and many other AI choices that seemed to be based on the game's breakdown of players, and not a coaching directive. You get the Lakers down by eight late in the game and Kobe's going to start bombing away, I assure you. Yeah, that's an easy call for any AI to make, but I swear that players who would prefer drives to one direction would hit a point in the game where they would take whatever was in front of them, suddenly defense got a lot easier, and that point at which every team in the NBA makes its run had passed.

Dynamic Season: This is fast becoming all the rage in games, and I don't know who exactly innovated it. But once the season gets going NBA Live 10 will allow you to drop back in time and replay any game on the schedule. That's different and that's a plus. Right out of the box you can pick key moments from the 2008-2009 regular and postseason, and almost immediately I started playing the epic Bulls-Celtics opening round series from the playoffs. It's not integrated into Dynasty Mode; but diehards can play along with their favorite team and change history for any disappointing result in real life.

Hated
Tone-deaf defense: Compared to 2K10, there's less subtlety in the distance your player covers when you move the stick even minutely, and playing man-to-man defense really exposes this. I overran a lot of plays and couldn't quite find the touch necessary to keep from being beaten off the dribble constantly. The standard ball-you-man fundamental, to cut off passing lanes, is hampered by an imprecise way to engage and stick to your man. In defending a shot, getting your hands up seems to have no effect, unless you keep them down, in which case you can count that bucket. It's the cross borne by defense in a game style that largely entertains with scoring, but the defensive controls doesn't feel as responsive as the offense. As such, it is more work and less fun in NBA Live 10.

Setting boundaries:: Again, pointing to the lack of finesse in player motion, there seemed to be some real AI issues with the boundary lines. Passes to the corner can be a faith-based affair, because your man will sometimes set up with a foot over the line and sit there. It does not happen all the time, but it's often enough to be unacceptable. There were also some backcourt violations that defied reality - I had a player run back across the timeline to take a pass in a kind of reset-the-offense way, even though we'd already inbounded the ball to that side of the court. The upside, I guess, is you can work this to your advantage. Sideline traps work often enough to feel like an exploit. Just call a double team, get the hands up and wait for the opposing ballhandler to step out of bounds. I got to the point where I did it on three straight possessions in a Finals game.

Who's (play) calling?: If you're not familiar with what basketball looks like beyond screens, picks, and drive-and-kick, calling set plays in this game will still be a puzzle for you. I'd order a play that had Nene posting up and he'd stand there, facing the basket, while Chris Andersen was backing down his guy and everyone had a full-color pass icon overhead. So I'd wonder if I was supposed to start the play by passing to someone else first and if so, who. Some icons are grayed, some are not. Pretty sure this exposes my lack of proficiency and familiarity with the game, but hey, I don't study the triangle-and-two in my spare time. The game touts playcalling that was advised by NBA scouts for added realism, but the execution was nowhere near as intuitive as NBA 2K10's, where icons on the floor direct you every step of the way. Plus, there's no practice mode in Live to try this out. Your games are your practice.

Postal Disservice: Down on the blocks you are on your own this year, big fella. The trigger/right-stick combos that formed your post-up offense are gone and replaced by ... nothing actually, which is a curious choice for a game featuring Dwight Howard on the cover. It's now entirely handled by the CPU whether your player posts up or not, and much like defensive engagement, I never got a feel for what automatically got me backing my guy down, ass to the basket. My advice is to wait for your swingman to do it on his own and then pass to him, maybe even direct him there with the off-ball control. But taking away post-up is going to leave some feeling really exposed, especially since the game's tightened up on what you can get away with in the lane and in traffic this year. Without the assuredness that you will actually stick your big ass into the defender and not face him head on and start running, interior play feels arbitrary and can make you look silly at times.

Sure, that's a lot of red ink up there, but on the whole, these are problems you can overcome or work through. NBA Live 10 is still a very inviting game. The crowd reaction is exceptional and the atmospheric difference between a regular season tilt - even a tight one - and the drama of the playoffs or the Finals, is quite palpable. To motion your man to the top of the key, shedding his defender as if you'd called for a screen, and then bury an overtime jumper provides a cathartic feeling of satisfaction. And the ability to order up this emotion in a quick play game is a definite plus, indulging the prototypical hoop dream of playing for the title, even when all you want to do is just play one game.

NBA Live 10 will deliver great moments and, especially with Dynamic Season, the individual games you want to play. The long haul of a season's worth of play is a different measure. With a direct competitor in 2K10 the first, if not only question for many is simply which one wins this year. But it is not a zero-sum proposition. I do consider NBA 2K10 to be the better package of the two, but NBA Live 10 is no less a worthy and enjoyable game in the presence of competition than it would be in the absence of it. It may not be a triumph over its rival. But in delivering a strong game for a second straight year, NBA Live is seeing the revival EA Sports wants it to be.

NBA Live 10 was developed by EA Vancouver and published by Electronic Arts for Xbox 360 and PS3 on Oct. 6. Retails for $59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all game types in singleplayer mode and tested online multiplayer.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

To continue the metaphor, NBA 2K10 delivers both. All sports titles face a justify-your-existence question of what to offer every year beyond a roster update. NBA 2K10 has been such a clear leader that it's almost exempt from such what-have-you-done-for-me-lately questions, and has the luxury of refining its visuals and presentation. That's not to say the game doesn't add new ways to deliver, and experience, the performance art that can happen any given night in the NBA.

Loved
Where Basketball Happens: So much of a sports game review fixates on what's new in a game, but the guts of it still have to be there, and NBA 2K10 shows restraint in its gameplay tinkers. This year's update focused more on nailing down animations for players' signature moves and even facial expressions, rather than how you manipulate them. But the most conspicuous control is how your speed burst works. You have a finite supply of it, and not only can it run out over a single play, going to the well too often will deplete his overall stamina. You cannot sit on the trigger in this game and expect to get away with it for long. This brings some useful balance, especially to run-and-gun multiplayer games. Shot selection is more of a key this year as the game seems to have tightened up on on the ease of shooting. That could also be because of changes in shooting animations, as your point of release means everything to whether the ball goes in. Otherwise, the control scheme remains solid and caters to your preferred style, whether that's set plays versus a more freelancing approach, or basic player manipulation vs. more advanced shooting and post play. If you prefer to make things up as you go along, you can still have a great time in NBA 2K10. My only gripe is that players seem slow to get open on their own, meaning you'll need to do so at least through a quick play from the menu or draw the defense and kick it out yourself.

This is a presentation of the NBA: I halfway expected to hear a 4th quarter announcement that any rebroadcast without the express written consent of the NBA is prohibited. Out of the box, the commentary of Kevin Harlan, Clark Kellogg and Cheryl Miller is much stronger and less repetitive than the competing title from EA Sports. Although the season has not started yet, when it does their remarks, supported by on-screen graphics, will reflect what's taking place in the league, such as recent big performances, slumps, etc. I'm assuming. The point is that the game will serve you up - even if it's just for a one-off matchup - more than the current rosters but the current state of the league and its players. This may not as technically detailed as NBA Live 10's Dynamic DNA, which will break a player down to his tendencies, not just his skill strengths. Gamers who can make use of that information will have to make the choice for themselves; what 2K10 has done here is good enough for me.

That's My Player: This is a compelling mode of play, one that really makes you want to be a better player and learn the game. But you really have to know what you are getting into because you will be judged very strictly in it. In My Player, you are starting off with a rookie rated near the bottom in everything and only slightly better in some core positional attributes. Then, through conditioning drills and scrimmages in a summer league you build yourself into a draftable talent. Or not. Most everyone will head through the NBA Developmental League first. I just don't see how you can accrue the points necessary to make an NBA roster right off the bat and even then, I'm not sure what good it would do because your playing time would be minuscule. But back to the development - your success will depend upon knowing your position and how it contributes to a game. And I mean, if you have no organized basketball experience and are only a casual spectator of the game, it will be rough on you. You need to pay attention to your teammates if someone's calling for a pass. You've got to proactively set picks. You've got to call for the ball only when you're open and even then, you'll be bitched at for doing it too often. You need to do these things more than you need to score, because the development places a premium on being a good teammate. Even burying an spot-up jumper will get you tsk-tsked for taking one too soon, with an attendant reduction in teammate grade. All this said, I know I am a bad baller, so even if I was frustrated I didn't feel like I was being judged unfairly. And I can see that for someone who knows and loves basketball, how the challenges offered and won by My Player stand out not only for this sport, but among all career modes of pro sports gaming. If you're not 100 percent sure you know what you're doing in the game, you should stick to the team mode, unless you are really committed to using My Player to teach yourself video game basketball in a very granular, intensive way.

Multiplied multiplayer: The first two days of the release I could not connect to the 2K servers at all. As of the weekend, the problems appeared to be solved, but this was still an unfortunate black mark against a game going out the door packed to the gills with multiplayer modes. The most intriguing of these is the Team-Up, where you can form or join a crew and run ball in a virtual league against teams comprised entirely of other users. If you don't want to commit to that you can create a pick-up game for a single instance only. My preference trends strongly to singleplayer in sports titles and getting my ass kicked online in this game definitely reinforced that. But the game's deep multiplayer offerings, along with its season simulation, once again make it this year's winner.

Hated
Fritzy framerate: Certain shots during cutscenes, or certain gameplay sequences - especially going into heavy traffic with everyone breaking back to the rim - dropped the framerate quite noticeably on my 360 version. It may be, unfortunately, because of the superior character modeling combining with the crowd animations and background to overwhelm the console. 2K says it's working on a patch, but others have noted that even 2K9 still had its own framerate stutters in some of the same situations.

Information overload: The game triples the number of plays you can call this year, breaking them out by the five positions on the floor plus a menu for calling quick picks and isolations. Unfortunately, the menu deals in floor positions, not which player's number is being called. So if you're running automatic substitutions and don't know everyone on the floor by name and position, you might find yourself in the dark about who you're dialing up. It's petty to gripe about greater options, but it can feel like a big one when you're getting run out of the gym by a superior opponent and trying desperately to think of something that will work.

(No) thanks for the advice: I did not care for the Stephen A. Smith-esque cartoon figure who appears in your season sim and who pretends to be a mentor in My Player. No, his voice isn't as obnoxious as Screamin' A, HOWEVAH, I found him to be condescending to the point of discouragement in My Player, and I could have just taken the pointers in a bullet-point text box. For someone who's pretending to have a close relationship to your player, he needs to have a real face, or at least a more recognizable voice. I'd respect what this guy says a lot more if I knew who it's coming from, instead of someone who passes off another player's quotes as inspiration.

The little things that NBA 2K10 does right could fill a review twice as long as this, but of course they should get a nod here, for pushing the whole enterprise over the top and again delivering this year's NBA choice. Your crowd will chant MVP! when a star player on a hot streak comes to the line for his and-1 free throw. When this happens in the playoffs, it just feels right. The off-ball players' animations, usually where you see forced or sped-up repositioning when the AI has to move them, are very refined and build that overall sense that you're watching an NBA telecast. The players and the coaches' features are mesmerizingly accurate - I loved any cutscene with George Karl in it and could instantly pick out Stephen Curry - a straight-up rookie - from the standard camera angle.

NBA 2K10 represents the brand of choice among hardcore ballers and reputation counts for plenty in both real-world professional basketball and its virtual counterpart. Outside of My Player and the multiplayer modes, the game delivers more subtle changes than profound to your experience. When it's in control of a game, a winning team maintains that lead, and focuses on execution. That's NBA 2K10.

NBA 2K10 was developed by Visual Concepts published by 2K Sports for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Wii. Retails for $59.99 USD (PS3 and 360) and $49.99 (Wii and PC). A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all singleplayer game types and tested multiplayer quick play mode.)

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

This I honestly did not know. EA Sports is bringing in two different major networks' signature voice talents and graphics packages for a single title. Color me impressed. That's seriously delivering it's-in-the-game verisimilitude. If they have a DLC package of Jim Thacker and Billy Packer and the old Jefferson Pilot ACC broadcast graphics from 1978, I'll go camp out for my copy like it's January back on Tobacco Road. Now I'm humming the jingle again ... Sail with the Pilot ...

Of course, in the real Final Four, you're hearing Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg. But Raftery and Gus Johnson supply more than their share of verisimilitude for EA's upcoming college hoops title.

By the way, Gus. "Survive and advance"? That also was coined by Jim Valvano in the same year.

Apropos of nothing, Kobe Bryant looks a little like Lt. Daniels from The Wire in these shots.

NBA 2K10's Draft Combine released Thursday for the PS3, a week after it went out to Xbox Live. The $5, 362-megabyte package is thought to be unique. Whereas everyone releases a demo, Draft Combine delivers a standalone game experience of its own as well as one teasing the full release, and then integrating into its gameplay. Draft Combine's impact - read: the money it makes - is far from being known. But a preseason game of this type can make a lot of sense for sports publishers. For if leagues increasingly have no offseason, why should their video games?

"The jury's still out on this," said Mark Goodrich, senior brand manager of basketball for 2K Sports. "But I would not be surprised if, say this is a roaring success, we start asking ‘What could baseball do?' and ‘What could could hockey do?' and what makes logical extensions there."

Draft Combine is an extension of NBA 2K10's single-player career mode, new to this year's version of the game. This will be the second year 2K Sports hasn't produced a college hoops title, so "My Player" takes the place, and expands on, importing draft classes from the 2K college game. Draft Combine is set in the offseason period during which college talent visits the NBA's cattle call to showcase their talent and improve their draft position. Gamers create a player, customize his attributes, take him through a series of drills, scrimmages and workout games, and produce a draftable player who will then be imported into the full game once it releases Oct. 6.

Eric Boenisch, the lead feature designer for NBA 2K, said Draft Combine's genesis is purely borne of game design; it wasn't conceived of as marketing content, although Goodrich said he and his team were delighted to have it as such.

"One concept we wanted to is this My Player career mode, which we're doing in NBA 2K10," Boenisch said, "but we were wondering, ‘How can we give this to fans without them waiting until the release date?' We came up with the Draft Combine, where we can show off the gameplay, and allow people to start their careers early and continue that on."

Boenisch said his team "kicked around the idea for a few months" after NBA 2K9's release last October, eventually coming up with the game out now. It did not have its own separate cycle, per se, but was instead written concurrently with the rest of the NBA 2K10 content.

"You never want to do anything to hurt the full version of a game," Boenisch said, "but by making Draft Combine a part of the My Player mode, things really worked hand in hand in our favor."

Draft Combine's counterparts are, roughly speaking, something like last year's Fable II: Pub Games, definitely not a sports title, but one that allowed players to begin the full title with gold carried over from the downloadable game. In sports, this year's NCAA 10 Teambuilder was a free experience and not tied to downloadable content. But it, too, allowed its fans to tinker with their game experience and get fired up for the release.

Pub Games so far has proven to be a one-off, not really a proof of concept to the rest of the industry. And maybe Draft Combine will too - Boenisch says there are "no promises" that it will continue for future releases too. But at least the idea adds another dimension of the reality sports gamers prize.

Pre-season and draft activities are increasingly important to the major sports as they search out ways to market themselves and extend paying-fan experiences. Baseball's Hot Stove League is the original offseason intrigue, and observing the day its pitchers and catchers report for spring training is a celebrated tradition. When you think about the NFL's scouting combine and draft, covered in greater intensity than their NBA counterparts, both motive and opportunity would exist for EA Sports to do something similar in its Madden NFL series, with its Superstar mode.

In fact, it would not surprise me to see EA, in NCAA football, take its Road to Glory into some sort of preseason DLC. The player creation, high school playoffs and signing day in NCAA 10 could conceivably be stripped down to a game the size of Draft Combine, maybe even with room left over for your player's first college two-a-day practices. All of the preceding is speculation of course, but you'd be a fool not to think EA Sports is at least examining the trend.

And here's a big reason for that: Goodrich pointed out that leagues now dictate the earliest release date for a title, both to forestall a first-to-market arms race among competitors, and not to overshadow the league's debut itself. So preseason content is a bonus because it can get the title out ahead of that window without violating that league's edict.

On the flip side, anything licensed by a league is going to surrender a percentage of its sales to that league. So creating this kind of DLC is not the kind of no-brain moneymaker that creating solid original IP would be, Goodrich points out.

If preseason games become a new feature, create-a-player modes, such as Draft Combine, are the most suited to the experience. They allow you to do ahead of time all the dirty work in visual customization and attribute management, so on the day of release your virtual phenom is ready to storm the league. But the barrier to the acceptance of this kind of game experience is the superstar mode itself, in which you are fixated on the performance of a single player and not the entire team - which has been the norm in sports games for three decades.

Boenisch acknowledged that some in sports game forums have found Draft Combine difficult, albeit compelling. He chalks it up to the team-vs.-player mode disconnect.

"It's a different way to play the game; it's the God-mode," Boenisch said. "You always control the ballhandler. But in this experience you're locked on to your player. If you're the guy trying to grab a rebound or set picks, some people need a few games to adjust to that. But it allows people a different way to play the game."

And it allows publishers a different way to play their game. Both Boenisch and Goodrich acknowledge Draft Combine's dual marketing/gameplay role, and so its success will necessarily be judged on how well it fulfills both purposes. If downloads of Draft Combine dive off a cliff after Oct. 6, it's not a good thing for them; but it's not necessarily fatal to the concept.

"There's still the fundamental issue of how much did this cost to make, and if we lose money, is it then an acceptable marketing expense - did we see that parlay into sales of the regular game," Goodrich said. "If the game is well received, and is viewed as enhancing the 2K experience, then we'll have a strong case for looking to next year. But it's too early to call the ball."

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