Granted, I know that most of you are not football fans or sports fans, and that's fine. However, it would be a shame for me not to review these two games, considering how big a fan I am of both franchises (and what if a fellow football fan happens to visit Lemmy's Land?). I intend to answer a couple of practical questions as well:
1. If you have NCAA or Madden 2003,
is it worth buying the 2004 version?
2. Which game really is better, EA
Sports' version of the college game (NCAA) or the pro game (Madden)?
These games are both rated on their PS2 versions, although they are both available to GameCube and Xbox owners (sorry, Nintendo fans, no online play available, and the GameCube's graphics of these games are said to be the worst of all three consoles' graphics). These games are rated on the typical 0-4 star scale, and I will also announce a winner (or a tie) in each category. I will be going deep into the gameplay, and I will be using football terms, so this may be confusing if you are not a football fan.
Graphics:
NCAA: ****
Madden: ****
The graphics may have been awesome in the 2003 versions, but the 2004 versions simply blew me away. The first time I played NCAA 2004, I thought I had bought a next-generation system. The graphics blew me away. The grass (or turf) looks very realistic. The stadiums are much improved. My hometown's stadium, Heinz Field, is one of the biggest improvements I've seen. Outside used to look like a poster of Pittsburgh, but now it has a 3D effect to it. Now the stadium looks true to life. It's brilliant, as is much else in this game.
Madden shares many of the same compliments.
Madden even adds tattoos to players, and the faces of the
players look just like the real thing.
The only complaint I have is about Madden's coaches... they walk like they're
in a western movie, with their arms about to pull out guns from their pockets.
Improve that and I won't be able to detect any major problems. Even the
fans look better from a distance, although up close they do show their
2-D paperness.
Edge: Even
Sound:
NCAA: ***1/2
Madden: 1/2
This is probably the biggest gap between the two games. First, we'll start out with the announcing, probably the most important part of the sound. NCAA's announcers (Nessler, Corso, Herbstreit) are probably the best ever in a game. They are very fluid, giving you the effect of watching the game on TV. They have a sense of humor, and they get upset about play-calling (and make fun of you if you have a poor offense or defense). Bonus points for Nessler giving a reference to one of my favorite songs (at halftime of the national championship he said, "You could feel it coming in the air tonight."). Okay, I'm really not giving any bonus points for that.
As for Madden, the announcing is bad,
to be nice. Al Michaels, considered one of the best announcers ever,
is horrible when it comes to tone of
voice, as he will sometimes shout something and then say something in a
normal voice. For example: "Tonight's game is against THE PACKERS and THE
JAGUARS." Also: "The final score: Green Bay (noticeable gap) 28. Jacksonville
(noticeable gap) 0." Madden, the game's namesake, may annoy you, as he
annoys many people, even football fans and fans of this game franchise.
I am one of the few that actually likes John Madden the announcer, as he
has a lot of humor, most of it unintentional. One of the few bright spots
of the announcing in this game, Madden will make comments as he would in
real
life, commenting on stuff like players
getting excited before the game rather than which team has an
advantage. It's funny at times.
As for the menu music, NCAA gives you fight song after fight song, in random order (except that you will hear your favorite team's song first, and you will hear your favorite team's songs more often). Madden gives you a mixture of hard rock and rap, or what I like to call "cool" music. This is the really popular music, but I'm not too big of a fan of it. Some of it is really annoying. I was more of a fan of last year's menu music, featuring Good Charlotte and Bon Jovi, but popular Blink-182 is in this game, and I'm sure that would be to the liking of some people. It's not to my liking, but trust me, the menu music is very unimportant when it comes to the overall game.
Edge: NCAA
Difficulty:
NCAA: **1/2
Madden: **
Difficulty in sports games is usually a variable. You can set your difficulty at will, from easy to very hard. I go with the medium setting, as it gives me the best feel to the difficulty. In NCAA, right away I realized that the game would be more difficult. There is a big emphasis put on defense. You can't play shootouts with Hail Marys on every play, throwing long pass after long pass. If you can't run the football, you won't win at NCAA. You've got to have a balanced offense, unless you're really good at running the football (no team can win by merely passing on every play, unless your opponent goes to goal-line defense). What's more is that the polls will not give your team a high rating just because you're undefeated. If you're not beating good teams, you won't move up in the rankings, even if you win by 50. You've got to play against good opponents, and you've got to play well. Probably the best sign to the fact that the game is made more difficult is that I have lost three games to the computer, whereas in last year's game I lost one (I quit the game before losing, giving me zero losses, but I really lost it).
As for Madden, the game is also not
super-easy to win at. However, the passing game is perhaps a little too
easy to use. Every pass seemingly goes
right to your receiver, and every time it gets there, if no defender
breaks it up, it will be caught. NCAA
adds more realism with some passes that go totally awry and occasional
drops by receivers. Madden makes passing a lot easier, but on the flip
side, it's harder to play defense, which makes up for the ease at time
on offense. Running the ball is harder in Madden, as are two-point conversions.
I have come close to losing once in Madden, though I have played fewer
games in Madden than in NCAA.
Which game has the better difficulty level? I'd say NCAA. It gives more of a challenge. If your team is not good, you will have a hard time winning, which is a realistic reflection of your team's skill level. You'll have to play flawless football in such a situation. While Madden also gives somewhat of a challenge, I'd say NCAA gives the better mix of challenge yet not too much of one.
Edge: NCAA
Controls:
NCAA: ***1/2
Madden: ***1/2
While the control system is sophisticated, it does give you control over everything in this game. Minus half a star for both games for changing the main control of throwing the ball away / tucking the ball in and running. It used to be Triangle for your quarterback to tuck the ball in and be able to run with the running controls (otherwise he can't sprint or run at all, as the buttons are used to throw to the receiver with the corresponding button). Now that button throws the ball away, for an incomplete pass. While it can be changed in controller configuration settings, I threw quite a few of these by accident before changing it, and my friend once would have had a first down if he had changed the controls (instead, he turned the ball over on downs, as it was fourth down). Minus another half a star to Madden for not having any lateral button. In NCAA you can lateral, which is risky but sometimes sets up a huge play (it's also a desperation move if there are precious few seconds remaining in the game and you need to go the whole way on the play). With no such control in Madden, you can't do this. Otherwise, both games have great controls, though these were the two problems I wanted to point out (but they're not big enough to make the control ratings bad). However, let's add back that half a star to Madden because of its Playmaker control. With the right control stick, you can do extra things like controlling multiple players at once, or having other players block for you.
Edge: Even
Gameplay: I will now go into a full-blown breakdown of all parts of the gameplay. This is about as deep as I'll ever go, though I'll try to keep each mini-section brief.
Passing:
NCAA: ***
Madden: ***
This is very hard to say. I'll try to make this as clear as possible: Madden makes passing easier. Your passes will be on-target, and your receivers will catch them. "Hail Mary" long passes will be caught and taken for touchdowns more often. However, NCAA is the more realistic of the two. Like in real life, your quarterback will sometimes throw a totally off-target pass. And like in real life, your receivers will drop passes, especially when hit. Drops in Madden are very rare, while in real life, even the best NFL receivers drop easy catches at times. Overall, both passing games are great, and they're really hard to compare.
Edge: Even
Running:
NCAA: ****
Madden: **1/2
The running game in NCAA is fantastic.
It's about as realistic as it gets. You have the option plays (where
you can run with your quarterback or
lateral to your running back) and the normal running plays. Running is
such a key part of winning. I really
don't think you can win many games against the computer without having
a running game. As for Madden, there
is more emphasis on the pass than on the run. Like in real life,
powerful running backs like Jerome
Bettis are hard to bring down. However, the blocking does not seem to
work as well in Madden as it does in
NCAA, hurting the running game. It's a lot harder to run in Madden,
sometimes to the point where you may
want to pass non-stop, which is a little unrealistic.
Edge: NCAA
Defense:
NCAA: ***1/2
Madden: **1/2
NCAA gives you much more control over
the defensive backs than in Madden, letting you intercept or knock
down passes more easily. This is part
of the reason why passing is no sure thing in NCAA, and it seems a
lot more realistic than the constant
30-yard bombs seen in Madden. Madden does give you Playmaker
control, letting you control all the
players at once to tell them if you think your opponent is running or
passing. Warning: if you guess wrong,
you could get burned. Overall, NCAA gives better single-player
control, and I'd have to say it makes
the games more realistic (not a touchdown on every single drive).
Edge: NCAA
Special Teams:
NCAA: ***1/2
Madden: ***
NCAA has a slower kick meter, making it a lot easier to make kicks. This makes up for the fact that Madden's kickers have stronger legs overall. Blocking punts is no longer a gimme in either game, especially not in Madden. Punt coverage is better in the games than it has been before, but Madden's punt coverage still has problems. NCAA's problem is that punt returners will occasionally have a hard time picking up a ball on the ground. If the punt returner touches the ball but does not get possession of it, it's anyone's ball, and this leads to some problems at times. I'd give NCAA the overall edge in this category as well.
Edge: NCAA
Dynasty/Franchise Mode:
NCAA: ****
Madden: ****
Both of these modes are superb, even
better than they have been in past years (that's really good!). NCAA
has new features that reflect some
things that have been going on recently in the college football world.
Your coach can be offered a job at
another school, offered an early contract extension, or even fired
before the end of the contract. Your
school can be invited to a bigger, better conference if you have a
great year, or even kicked out of your
conference if you have a terrible year. Also, when recruiting, you can
give a "pitch" to your recruits. This is how you want to promote your school
to any given recruit. You can go with Program Prestige (if you're a really
good team), Location (if they live near your school), Playing Time (if
they're desperately needed to fill a hole from graduation), or Coaching
Style (if you run the ball a lot, a running back will like you). Recruits
will want to go to your school based not only on performance and where
your school is located, but also by position, reflecting your style of
play. If you run the ball a lot, lots of offensive linemen and running
backs will be recruited. If you are a great defensive team, lots of defensive
players will want to go to your team. In the same way, you won't get many
quarterbacks or wide receivers running to your school if you run the ball
all the time. You can also talk players into staying if they want to leave
for the NFL early, but it will cost you recruiting points (points that
help you recruit more players). There's no guarantee they'll stay, either:
I had three players from my Penn State national championship team decide
to go to the NFL early, even after talking to them. Surprisingly the best
defensive player in the nation stayed at Penn State after some "convincing".
Also my Heisman running back at South Florida and my other
running back who broke the single-season
rushing yards and TDs records at Oklahoma stayed after some
talking. (Oklahoma played one more
game than South Florida during the regular season, which is why the
South Florida won the Heisman [college
football MVP] with lesser numbers, as the yards-per-game totals for
the USF RB were better than the totals
for the OU RB.) Sports Illustrated covers and pages will tell top
stories from each week of the college
football season.
You can still set up your non-conference
schedule, and you can control up to 12 teams (I control 6 and my
sister controls 6). There still are
28 bowls, which is nice if you are a lesser team that can't compete for
a
national title, that way you can still
win something. There are still 11 conferences (and 4 teams that are
independent of any conference), and
you've first got to win your conference before you can win the national
title (unless you're independent).
If you do not beat good teams, you will not be ranked high, even if you
go undefeated. This is much better than in last year's version, where I'd
pick a team before a season, go
undefeated, and be ranked very high,
even if I was beating weak opponents from a lesser conference like
the WAC (Western Athletic Conference).
A nice thing about the video game over real life: teams from lesser
conferences or even independent teams
can win the national title, while in real life it is almost impossible
to do so. That requires beating good teams, however, and lots of them.
Your players that graduate can still be saved and ported over to Madden
2004's Franchise mode, to be selected in the draft.
This brings us to Madden's Franchise
mode, which includes a new Owner's Box feature. This lets you set
prices for stuff like food, souvenirs,
tickets, and parking spaces. You also can advertise through TV, radio,
newspaper, and billboards, and also hold Fan Appreciation Days to boost
attendance. You can relocate your team to another city, you can destroy
your stadium and build a brand new one, you can improve your stadium with
stuff like arcades and massage seats, and you can hire and fire coaches
(retired NFL players can show up several years later as coaches!).
You can still control any NFL team for
many seasons, and this means winning games to get to the Super Bowl, but
also doing stuff like trading players, signing free agents, releasing players,
drafting rookies out
of college (including players that
you import from NCAA 2004), and getting all of your players under the
salary cap, which is the most money
you can spend on your players' salaries (and naturally better players
demand more money). This prevents you
from being George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees and buying championships
(unless you turn the salary cap off, which I did in past years' games,
but not this year).
You can put players on the trade block,
which then lets you see what other teams will offer you for your
players before you try to trade
them. If you don't like your team's roster, you can have a fantasy draft
before the start of your Franchise. Then you can draft whatever player
you want to be on your team, but of course, computer teams will be picking
the best available players, so you can't just stack your team. This is
what I did, and I ended up with an awesome offense, while also having a
terrible defense. This is where NCAA ought to help me in future seasons,
as I'll draft players from my colleges, which I know can help my team win
(if they don't get drafted by other teams, of course!).
Which mode is better? It's too hard
to tell. They're both so awesome. They are modes that will last a long,
long time, as each new season brings
a brand new world of games and decisions. They're both a sports fan's
dream.
Edge: Even
Create-a-Team/School:
NCAA: ***
Madden: ***1/2
Both games let you create your own team,
choosing from a custom logo, making your own uniforms, and
customizing your own stadium. Madden
is the more detailed of the two, though making your uniforms is
more confusing in Madden than in NCAA.
Also, one of my sister's created schools in NCAA will freeze the game any
time she tries to play a home game, prompting her to make her team independent
and schedule all of that team's games on the road. That's a strange bug
I can't figure out. One problem in Madden: you can't play Owner's Box Mode
with a created team. That's a bummer.
Edge: Madden
College Classics Mode (NCAA only): ***
This mode lets you replay 20 classic football games from the last 20 years. You'll start with a certain team with usually 4 minutes or less left in the fourth quarter, with the score and down and field position and timeouts all preset, according to the way it was in real life. Sometimes you'll try to recreate a victory; other times you'll try to change history. Either way, winning the game unlocks both classic teams for use in Play Now mode. Bad things: two of these challenges are way too hard without cheating. Another thing: if you lose, you have to wait for the game to load back to the College Classics mode and then load the game again (which takes quite a bit of time). It would be nice to have a restart option on the pause menu, letting you restart a challenge if you fail (saving a lot of time). It's still quite a fun mode, and I've had some things happen that are stranger than the things that happened in the real games.
Situation Mode (Madden only): ***
This lets you set up any type of game situation between any two teams with any score imaginable. This is a lot of fun for practicing comebacks, or maybe even giving an opponent a head start if you're the better player. This mode would be perfect for NCAA, as I'd love to play college football overtimes without having to play the four quarters beforehand (college football OT is a lot more exciting than the pros' OT, and it translates a lot better into the video game).
Tournament Mode (Madden only): ***1/2
This mode is great if you've got a lot
of friends and you want to set up a tournament without any thinking.
When I play NCAA tournaments with friends,
I have to come up with the matchups and rules myself, and it's
an "unofficial" tournament. It would
be nice to have an official tournament mode in NCAA as well, so this is
another thing NCAA needs to add in the 2005 version.
Two-Minute Drill (Madden only): **1/2
This is a nice little mini-game Madden
has that lets you take control of a team for two minutes and try to
score as many touchdowns as possible
(getting the ball back at your own 20 each time you score, which is also
where you start the game). It's a fun little sideshow, though not much
more than that.
Football 101 (Madden only): **
This lets you practice plays, then earn
points for Madden cards based on how well you perform the plays.
This is another little sideshow, mainly
useful for getting some Madden cards, but once it's finished, you
can't get any more cards from this
mode, so you probably won't be playing it anymore.
Mini-Camp (Madden only): ***
This mode contains 10 or so mini-games,
which let you practice different parts of your game, be it passing,
running, kicking, pass defense, or
run defense. These are fun games, and this is available in Franchise mode
as well. In Franchise mode, you can improve your players' ratings, which
gives you more incentive to
play it.
Practice Mode:
NCAA: **1/2
Madden: **1/2
This lets you practice any offensive
play against any defensive play, with any teams you want. You can also
practice kickoffs and play on offense
without a defense, and you can play on either side of the ball (offense
or defense, except in offense only mode, where you must be on offense).
This year's version allows you to practice anywhere, so you can visit any
stadium you want, even if that isn't your home team's stadium. You can
also set up weather at will this year. This year's Practice mode also will
show if any penalties are committed, which will sometimes tell you why
your wide receiver couldn't catch that pass (he was interfered with, in
the case that a penalty is called).
Edge: Even
Online: I do not have the online stuff, so I cannot review this mode. I apologize for any inconvenience here.
Replayability:
NCAA: ****
Madden: ****
You can play for 50 seasons in NCAA,
and at least 30 in Madden, probably 50. That's a lot of replayability!
Let's also remember that there are other modes besides Dynasty/Franchise
mode, which I forget sometimes. That means you've got tons of stuff to
do. These games will last me a long time, probably until next year's
version before they get old (as NCAA
2003 did).
Edge: Even
Fun Factor:
NCAA: ****
Madden: ****
You saw this rating coming. These games
are so much fun. Just imagine... Junktown vs. Ohio, in NCAA.
Junktown scores a touchdown with only
seconds left to get up by 3! Wait, Ohio recovers a short kickoff! The
field goal is good, and we're going
to OT! Both teams score a touchdown and extra point in the first two
overtimes, and we're going to triple
overtime! Ohio scores a TD! They miss the mandatory two-point conversion
(you can't go for an extra point in the 3rd OT and later)! Junktown has
to go for it on fourth down... the throw to the end zone... incomplete!
Ohio wins, 44-38 in 3 overtimes! This is what college
football is all about!
Edge: Even
OVERALL
NCAA: ****
Madden: ****
Both games are the new definition of
"college football video game" and "pro football video game",
respectively. Answering those earlier
questions:
1) If you have the 2003 version of either
game, the 2004 version will give you more features, updated
rosters, and a better gameplay experience.
It's worth the money, especially if you liked last year's version
of either game.
2) Which one's better? Well, it probably
comes down to what you like better. If you like lots of bonus modes
to go with the normal games, you'll
like Madden better. However, I feel NCAA gives the more true-to-life football
experience, with more polished gameplay, on both sides of the ball. It's
real football, and video game football at its best. NCAA Football 2004
is this year's best football game, giving the NCAA Football series a repeat
victory.
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