It is clear from this year's editions of the EA Sports football games that the two series are headed in separate ways. One improved its gameplay big time over last year's version, while the other made small improvements in its gameplay over the 2004 version, but found a way to actually decrease in overall quality from last year! This is a bit confusing... how can a game decrease in overall quality while improving its gameplay? What kind of technical problem could be so large that it could hurt a game like this? That question will be answered later, as well as a couple of others:

-Which of these games becomes my early favorite for 2004 Game of the Year?
-Which of these games is worth buying if you own last year's version?

To make things clear, NCAA is the college football game, and Madden is the professional football game, and the 2005 versions are released in 2004 (it can be quite confusing when looking back at older games). I will be spending most of this Comparison talking about the changes (or lack of changes) from last year's versions, as I have covered most of the basics of the gameplay in the Comparison of last year's versions. This Comparison is based on the PS2 versions of these games, but there are also very similar GameCube and X-Box versions of these games as well (the GBA versions are drastically different).

This Comparison is based on the typical 0-4 star scale, with 0 being pathetic and 4 being excellent. I will also include +'s, -'s, and ='s after the scores, referring to whether this version is better (+), worse (-), or about the same (=) as last year's version.

Graphics:
NCAA: **** (=)
Madden: **** (+)

NCAA's graphics are practically the same as last year's, still spectacular. Madden's, on the other hand, are improved even more off last year's awesome graphics. You can see muscle detail on players' arms. You can see so many details in the jerseys. You can see quarterbacks' hands have blisters and cuts on them. It looks so real, it's unbelievable. I can't believe how much they managed to improve the graphics. They were already some of the best ever. Now they're even better, and that's saying a lot.

Sound:
NCAA: *** (=)
Madden: ½ (-)

NCAA's sound is pretty much exactly the same as last year's. Same songs, same announcing, same sound effects, everything is the same. This is a little annoying, when you've played last year's game hundreds of times and heard these phrases thousands of times already.

As for Madden's, the only good thing about the sound is the Tony Bruno Radio Show, which is in Franchise mode. A radio host named Tony Bruno hosts a radio show and talks about the actual things going around the league, which is a great touch. This would receive three stars if I were reviewing it itself. However, there are other factors involved, like the announcing done by Al Michaels and John Madden, and the menu music.

The announcing is still terrible, almost the same, with Michaels still having trouble getting the tone of his voice right. He was excellent in "Miracle", and he's great on Monday Night Football, but he can't do Madden NFL 200x announcing. EA Sports needs to bring back Pat Summerall, the ancient play-by-play announcer who was the announcer through the 2002 version. He is my (and many others') pick for the best play-by-play announcer of all time, and he was excellent in the Madden games. He desperately needs to come back.

The menu music is worse than last year's version, and that's saying a lot. The only song I really liked last year was the Aussie rock group Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl", but the rest of the music pretty much stunk. It's worse this year. Maybe I'm just sour to rap and male punk rock, while others probably like it. If you like video game background music best of all, you probably won't like it.

Controls:
NCAA: ***1/2 (-)
Madden: ***1/2 (=)

Both games now force you to use to the L2 button if you want your quarterback to scramble, which is new to most of us classic EA football gamers who are so used to pressing the Triangle button instead. I've grown used to it, but it's a shame you don't at least have a choice to change the controller configuration so that you can still use Triangle for quarterback scrambling purposes. Madden failed to include the ability to lateral (R2 in NCAA). Why can't we lateral in Madden? In the NFL last season, the New Orleans Saints almost made the playoffs due to a play in which they completed several laterals on a 75-yard, last-second touchdown (but their kicker missed the game-tying extra point). Other NFL series include laterals, so why not the top-selling one? Fortunately, Madden now includes the "Hit Stick", which is using the right control stick for the purpose of slamming your opponent when playing defense. You can force fumbles, injure your opponent, and really embarrass them (or get embarrassed yourself if you miss, which actually happens quite often). This is a really fun addition to the game, especially making defense more fun to play.

But besides the aforementioned problems, both games' controls are very good, which explains the 3 ½ star scores despite some of the things I said in the above paragraph.

Difficulty:
NCAA: *** (+,  as in harder)
Madden: ** (=)

NCAA's difficulty was raised by making passing more
difficult (receivers aren't as good) and by making the
ratings of players matter more. You can't run all over
a ranked team with a terrible team, as I used to do.
You'll have to fight for every yard if you're the worse team. You may need some luck to stop a better team's offense. This can be frustrating at times, and it meant that I lost games at a much higher frequency, but I prefer it. I like having the extreme underdog feeling, like I have hardly any chance at winning, so if I do win, it's meaningful. I haven't gotten something to this extent out of a sports game since the NES's Ice Hockey, in which if you played with the USA against the USSR at a higher difficulty level, you'd find yourself in the fight of your life just to stay alive in the game, and to slowly come back in order to win. Of course, it is possible to win these difficult games occasionally, and since your goal usually isn't to win all of your games with a bad team, losing a few games doesn't really hurt your team that much. This is assuming you're using poor teams against great teams, of course, which I love to do. If you use great teams against poor teams, then you're not going to get this type of excitement out of NCAA.

In both of these games, you can set your own difficulty level, but NCAA is overall a harder game. In Madden, if you select the Pro difficulty (average), it's just about average difficulty. It's pretty much right on, whereas in NCAA, selecting the Varsity difficulty (average), is more like pretty hard. I actually prefer NCAA's harder difficulty, proving to you that I don't hate all hard games, as long as the gameplay is solid.

Gameplay:

Instead of going into the separate sections of gameplay like last year, I'm instead going to focus on the changes in the gameplay, as if I don't mention it, it's probably not changed from last year's version (and I of course have given a description of the gameplay in my Comparison of last year's versions).

NCAA: **** (+)
Madden: **** (+)

Both games' gameplay have been improved, Madden's gameplay more than NCAA's. NCAA does include a sweet new feature having to do with home field advantage. On defense, if you are at home, you can continue to tap the home field advantage button to pump up the crowd, which can do crazy things to the offense, like make them unable to change a play effectively, throw off their players, and make the camera and that person's controller shake. You can also quiet the crowd if you are at home on offense, in case they get too excited. Of course, if you're playing in a small stadium, this feature is rather useless. You can also check out matchups before the play, and also see which players are good and bad by just pushing the right control stick, as well as get to see who's rattled under the pressure and who's composed (and who's average). It's also a nice touch that you can help out your team and occasionally hurt the opposition by using timeouts, as things such as these raise composure ratings (and composure is mainly helped and hurt by the crowd, the score, and the player's overall rating).

Madden's gameplay is improved even more. Now defense is of major importance, unlike past years' offense showcases. The Hit Stick makes it possible to force fumbles in crucial situations, making comebacks more possible. Defensive backs play coverage much better. If you want to make an interception, it's best to take control of the player you want to intercept the pass, and this makes playing defense even more fun. Before the snap, you can change what each and every player on your team is going to do on the play individually (instead of several at once). This may sound cumbersome, but considering it only takes one (or sometimes two) tap of the right control stick and then the change player button, it's really easy. This means that you can send defensive linemen into coverage, or blitz defensive backs in a hurry. This is a way of making last-second adjustments when your opponent calls a surprising play. One problem: if you use the right control stick right as the play is called, trying to change what the player is going to do on the play, he will dive as if he was going to make a hit, as that is also the Hit Stick control. It's a very minor problem, however, nothing much.

Madden's special teams are somewhat improved, somewhat worse. I like the new onside kick, which lets you accurately kick without needing to totally guess how to kick it right. Now it's much easier to control, while still challenging to recover (the way it should be). Also, squib kicks are included, so you can now kickoff the ball along the ground, which makes it tricky for the receiving team to pick up, and makes it harder for them to return it all the way (but don't think they can't, as I had a computer team once do so). Problems: extra points are unrealistically hard, as if you mess up your timing by less than a second, you miss a gimme. These should be incredibly easy, with the only way to miss if you really try to miss, as these are made at over a 99% rate in the NFL. I make about 75% or less of my extra points, which is way off. Punt returning is also next to impossible, as 80% or more of the time, your punt returner gets nailed by three guys, usually fumbles, and the fumble is returned for a touchdown. It's a joke. If you don't fair catch in time, you give the other team seven points, so you'd better either tackle the punter, block the punt, fair catch, or get your punt returner out of there. Still, despite these problems, the gameplay is improved to the point that it is even better than it ever has been, and that's saying something. It's brilliant, and these minor problems don't knock it out of a four-star rating in this category.

Dynasty/Franchise Mode:
NCAA: **** (=)
Madden: **** (+)

NCAA's Dynasty Mode is nearly identical to last year's version. Sure, there is now a ranking of the "25 Toughest Places to Play", but considering they don't change every week (every year instead), they are only interesting once per year. I do like how your players can commit rule infractions, and then you must think about punishing them and how long to punish them, in order not to get in trouble with the NCAA. This is nice, but that's about it. Everything else is just about the same in this mode.

Madden includes the Tony Bruno Radio Show, where this radio guy will interview players and coaches, talk about what happened in the previous week, and give opinions and stuff like that. It makes the mode seem more realistic, giving you the feeling that your games actually matter, which I like. There are also team newspapers as well as the USA Today, which offer stories, predictions, and players' reactions towards the team, which can be comical and also informative (trading these players can be a good idea at times). You also get Emails from players, coaches, equipment managers, even the radio host. You'll hear some idiot players complaining that they're not playing, and you can then laugh at them, trade them, or play them. If you keep them on the bench, their skills will go down, like real-life whiners who complain and then stop trying hard. Then you can also have players who improve their skills by getting more playing time and putting up some stats. You can even change players' positions, which I really like. For example, a quarterback named Kordell Stewart has many receiving skills, so I made him the Packers' star receiver. He wasn't much of a quarterback, but his speed and good hands made him a good receiver, one that I could rely on. That is a very nice touch. This is necessary if you want to use players at unnatural positions, because you can't just go and make Brett Favre (a quarterback) your starting wide receiver unless you actually change his position, thus changing his overall rating (he may be 95 as a QB, but only 36 as a WR). Playing time can improve these ratings, but the player needs to actually do well at the position to get improved ratings. By the way, if you change a player's position and want to change him back, he'll go back to his original rating at that position, so you can't harm them by doing this. All of these touches make the Madden NFL 2005 Franchise Mode the best of its kind in any sports video game ever, and I've played a lot.

Freezing Problems:

Both games have problems with freezing. Believe it or not, this unrated category is the very reason NCAA Football 2005 goes down in quality and overall rating this year!

-NCAA: Certain created teams can't play games. That's all there is to it. The game freezes if you start a game with them. Why? I have no idea. Also, if you try to hit the X button at certain times, trying to bypass an unnecessary cutscene or screen, the game may freeze. This happens especially at the end of games, right after you've beaten your opponent and are staring at the final score. What if you don't want to watch the players walk to the huddle while the clock runs down, and you're trailing, needing every second? You either lose or freeze the game. This is such a pain, and it takes away some of the replayability and fun out of a game which is a follow-up to a couple of the most replayable and fun games I've ever played. No, NCAA 2005 isn't a bad game, or even close, but it gets hurt to quite an extent due to these technical problems. Now, are these problems I myself am having, and no one else? Nope. I searched and found topics on Internet message boards with others having the same problems as me. With the choice of hoping NCAA 2005 doesn't freeze on you, or playing Madden 2005, what will I choose? Hmmm.

-Madden: Madden isn't without its freezing problem, but it is one my sister figured out how to fix. If two players use the same created playbook against each other in the same game, the game will freeze before kickoff. Fortunately, my sister thought of this, and we figured out how to stop this. Unlike in NCAA, where freezing is either unstoppable or very hard to stop from happening, you can control this problem. This stopped Madden 2005 from being hurt the way NCAA 2005 was hurt, which is very fortunate.

Replayability:
NCAA: *
Madden: ****

NCAA's freezing problem really stops me from continuing to play it, while Madden's replayability is off the charts. If not for the freezing problem, I bet NCAA and Madden would be neck-and-neck just like last year.

Fun Factor!:
NCAA: ***1/2
Madden: ****

NCAA still is a lot of fun to play, though that freezing problem stops it from getting four stars. Madden? Well, it's one of the most fun games I've ever played. Again.

OVERALL:
NCAA: ***1/2
Madden: ****

For the first time since I started buying NCAA Football games, a NCAA Football game does not get four stars. This also means that NCAA 2005 will be looking at awards like "Most Disappointing" instead of "Best" in my annual game awards in late December (but why do I think a Mario game will win "Most Disappointing" yet again?). Madden 2005, meanwhile, knocks out NCAA at the top of this year's football video games race, and will be looking at a potential #1 rating from me for 2004. If you own the 2004 versions, buy Madden 2005, but skip NCAA 2005. If you don't own any EA Sports football game but want them, buy Madden 2005 and NCAA 2004, or buy both 2004 versions (if you want to move college players from NCAA to Madden's NFL draft).

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