Last year, EA Sports disappointed me by putting out a bug-filled version of a series that had won my “Game of the Year” award two years running. The 2005 version froze to the point that the game was virtually unplayable (that’s what you get for putting a Pitt player on the cover). This year, I got the Xbox version instead. And let me tell you right now, not only have the freezing problems been greatly removed, the rest of the game has improved as well… and I’ve fallen back in love with this series again. And besides, the player on the cover is a “classic” Heisman Trophy winner from 1991, Desmond Howard, Super Bowl XXXI MVP for the Green Bay Packers. That’s a good sign from the very start.
This game is rated on a 0-4 star scale. Also, note that this game is available for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox, but NOT for the GameCube.
Graphics: ****
The graphics have only improved, and considering I’ve been giving out four stars to this series for a while now, it’s not going to go down now. Certainly moving over to the Xbox helped, as the Xbox does have the best graphics of any console at the moment. My favorite graphical feature is the grass-stained jerseys of the players, with those who are involved in more plays getting more stains on their jerseys. It’s just plain beautiful to see the previously white jersey of my Penn State quarterback now looking quite green. The only complaint? The “Rose Bowl” bug. At the Rose Bowl, there’s a huge shadow on the field, presumably cast by the press boxes of the stadium. It’s unnaturally dark on the field, and it makes it hard to see (wouldn’t the stadium turn on the lights?). Worse, when you call your plays, you’ll look at the field and see no shadow at all! Sure, it hardly affects gameplay, but it’s a small nitpick from me.
Sound: **½
NCAA Football has gone the way of Madden: now there’s “real” music included on the menus. Within about 15 ½ seconds of your hearing any of the songs, you’ll most likely rush to the settings and switch to the good old fight songs. I’d much rather hear “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” or “Anchors Aweigh” than rock bands with zero skill playing. Sure, in the past I’ve criticized Madden playlists, and then a song from each Madden game has grown on me, such as Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” in Madden 2004 and Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” in Madden 2005. Trust me, it’s not happening this year. The songs in this game are terrible. Why not let us Xbox owners put in custom playlists? I’d love to blast some REAL football music like I did in NFL Street 2. Unfortunately, custom playlists are not allowed.
As for the announcers (ABC/ESPN’s Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso), they finally have some new things to say. Not everything is new, but they do have some funny phrases and exchanges. They’re probably as good as it gets in the play-by-play business in sports games these days, miles ahead of Madden’s play-by-play. Now I wish they would say good things when I recover an onside kick. They whine and whine when I don’t recover one, but when I do, no comment. Even worse, once, my sister recovered one when trying to come from behind, and they blasted her for giving up and not kicking an onside kick! What game are you watching, announcers?
Difficulty: **
NCAA Football is as hard as you want it to be. You want easy? Put it on Junior Varsity. You want a real challenge? Put it on Heisman. It’s your choice. With some of the annoying problems in last year’s gameplay getting fixed, it’s not as hard on the easier levels, so beginners should have an easier time with this than if they tried to play the annoying 2005 version. For example, you can actually complete passes this year… that’s always a plus.
Controls: **
No! No! No! You can’t do this to me, EA! You’ve taught me for years what the controls are for defense, and now you switch two buttons’ purposes? It’s too late to do that! Don’t betray your die-hard fans by switching the purposes of the A and B buttons (X and Circle on the Xbox) on defense! Fortunately, we die-hard fans can change the controller configuration, but even then, A and B cycle through your players on defense the opposite way that they did in the past, which is still annoying. Also, if you’re like me and use the old control scheme, you can’t showboat down the field, while you can in the new control scheme. Why punish us die-hard fans?
On the plus side, now offense is made easier, as a control change has made it so that your quarterback can scramble (and run faster) and pass at the same time, instead of having to use a shoulder button to choose between one of those two options. This makes offensive play more fun, and also leads to some great escapes from sacks.
And then we have the other control change, which is the right control stick. The right control stick now allows you to juke on offense if you press left, right, or down, and to plow over your opponent by pressing up. I love this feature. It works like a charm. It leads to some show-stopping moments, such as when your player stops dead in his tracks with a juke, the computer player runs past you, missing the tackle, and you then run for a touchdown.
On defense, it’s now used like the Hit Stick from Madden, but it’s far less responsive. You’ll press the stick to try to lay a big hit on your opponent, and about a second later, your player responds. Not good when you’re trying to make an open-field tackle to prevent a touchdown. Sure, it works at times, but other times it doesn’t, and it usually costs you. I don’t want a 50% success rate; I want a Hit Stick that works all the time, and right when I press it.
Gameplay: ****
The gameplay this year is improved even more than in the past. NCAA Football is back in a big way. I’ll split this section up into different parts.
Passing: ***½
The passing game is much better than in the past. The ability to scramble and pass at the same time, as I mentioned in the control section, really helps. Plus, unlike last year, your quarterback throws a lot more passes on the money, and the receivers do not drop nearly as many passes as in last year’s version. The passing game was virtually non-existent last year, but this year, you can pass, and pass well. There are still some drops that are suspicious: there’s a certain play that I ran three times, the same receiver got open three times, and he dropped a sure touchdown three times. He’s a pretty good receiver too. Drops are fine, if they aren’t predetermined, like those seemed to be.
Running: ****
The running game has always been the strength of the NCAA games, mainly because a lot of college teams run the ball an enormous percentage of the time. The option is great as ever, laterals are still in the game, and the ability to juke or run over opponents with the right control stick makes this game’s running even more fun than ever before.
Defense: *
Unfortunately, the defense does need some fixing. It’s not completely dreadful, but it isn’t great, either. First off, there’s that Hit Stick, which works a second after you press it, and of course by the time your player responds, it’s too late. Also, I am sick and tired of having my A-rated defense being picked apart by my sister’s C-rated quarterback and receivers (those are the ratings the game gives them, not ratings I just made up). Man-on-man defense means you cover the man you’re supposed to cover; don’t just stand around! Or don’t run up to the line of scrimmage, then watch the receiver blow past you! I understand if this happens to my worse teams against my sister, but when she uses North Texas (not a national powerhouse) against my created college of Soviet Union, which has awesome players, I should not have my defense picked apart. Finally, one of the most annoying things that happens in this game is when an offensive player is just running into the offensive line, not going anywhere, but can’t get brought down. It takes a long time for the tackle to be made, while in real life you’ll never see something like this. This problem is seen in another part of the gameplay as well.
Special Teams: **½
Kicking and punting are fine in this game. A bonus is that you can now put a man in motion at the line of scrimmage in order to stop an opposing player from potentially blocking your punt. Punt returning is strange; either your punt returner gets slammed right when he catches the ball, sometimes fumbling it or muffing it, or he runs the punt back for a touchdown. One of those scenarios happens pretty much 90% of the time. In real life, those scenarios happen far less, mainly due to fair catches. Speaking of fair catches, the fair catch button isn’t all that responsive, which sometimes leads to my punt returner getting slammed, fumbling, and having the ball returned for a touchdown by the punting team. I like the fact that returning punts for touchdowns is very possible in this game, so there at least is some reason to attempt to return punts (giving a risk/reward factor which may not be realistic, but sure is fun). Punt blocking is still very easy, as is tackling the punter, while blocking field goals is next to impossible. Those two parts of the gameplay need evening out; it should be slightly harder to block punts and slightly easier to block field goals. As for onside kicks, I wish that this game was like Madden, where the angle of your kick is preset, so you don’t have to try to figure it out yourself, as it is quite hard to set up. Also, sometimes, an onside kick will bounce on to returning players’ backs, and a whole group of them will get together, none of which is able to grab the ball. It takes my players slamming their players and jumping in order to eventually get the ball out from there. That, of course, is highly unrealistic. Finally, I’d like the squib kick from Madden; there’s no reason that shouldn’t have been added to this game.
Impact Players: ***
There’s a big new feature to NCAA 2006 known as “Impact Players”, where three players on each team will occasionally get the white circle underneath them pulsing, meaning their skills are greatly enhanced for the current play, as they are “In The Zone”. On offense, if you’re about to be tackled, you can press A, and sometimes you’ll break the tackle, with a cool camera angle showing the broken tackle (sort of like the Power Shots from Mario Power Tennis, though far less distracting than in that game). Big plays are also shown with different camera angles if you make a big tackle on defense with an Impact Player who is “In The Zone”. I like this feature, as it is a nice little add-on to the gameplay. I wish, however, that the Impact Players would change more frequently during seasons. For example, I had a running back for Ohio University who won the Heisman Trophy with unbelievable statistics. He was an Impact Player that year, being 2005. In 2006, he was no longer an Impact Player! I would have thought he would definitely kept his Impact Player status, and that if he wasn’t one, he would have become one! That’s backwards.
Home Field Advantage: ***½
A final feature of the gameplay section I want to mention is the home field advantage, added last year, but as we all know by now, I didn’t enjoy last year’s version very much, not getting to enjoy this feature that much either due to the freezing problems. Now, however, I can enjoy it more, and I love it. The bigger your stadium and the better your team, the more fans will be at your home games. You can then pump up the crowd (with the White button on the Xbox controller) and fire up your fans. This confuses the opposing offense, sometimes getting their receivers to run wrong routes, and the quarterback to throw the ball where they were supposed to have been, thus ending up as an incompletion (or maybe an interception). It really affects kickers, too; I’ve seen kickers miss easy kicks, even extra points, due to my crowd really getting into it. The better your team does, the more fans will come to your stadium to see your home games. This also means you should schedule as many home games as possible. The negative? If you have a small stadium like Ohio University’s stadium, you’ll never get your crowd to be one of the top 25 toughest stadiums in the nation. This game needs an option in the Dynasty mode where if your team gets really good, the university will offer to build you a new, larger stadium which you can customize. That would be really sweet.
Dynasty Mode: ****
Dynasty Mode in NCAA Football games remains one of the best modes in any video game. Period. You can take control of up to 12 teams in a full-fledged NCAA schedule, schedule your games, redshirt players, recruit high-school prospects during and after the season, discipline players who break school rules, move into new conferences, get contract extensions, move on to a coaching job at another school, and, oh yeah- play football games. That’s what’s great about this mode- there’s so much more than just the games, so it doesn’t get boring.
For example, some players on your team may misbehave, and you’ll have to suspend them. What happens if you don’t take enough action? The NCAA will put your school on probation, and you’ll lose some scholarships, hurting your team’s chances in years to come, as you’ll have less-skilled players (walk-ons) joining your team instead of blue-chip prospects.
This year, there are ratings for both your team’s prestige (football quality) and academics. A cupcake like Harvard, who I moved up to I-A football (they’re actually I-AA, which is like the minor league of college football), gets the full six stars for academics, but only one star for prestige. Good teams at football may be worse at academics. Academic quality determines two things: it helps attract prospects who are interested in academics to your school, and it also means that you’ll have fewer players getting in trouble and thus needing to be suspended to avoid possible NCAA probation. If you keep your team disciplined well by suspending players appropriately, you’ll raise your academic level. This adds to the realism of the game.
Now you can recruit during the season as well as after it, so every week presents some work in the recruiting business to do. If you use enough points on players, they’ll get interested enough in your college to come for an official visit, which you schedule, even giving them a pitch, such as the program’s prestige, or its location, trying to lure them into coming to your school. If you win that game, that player will probably become really interested in your school, and eventually commit to coming there.
If your team has some good players who aren’t getting enough playing time, they may want to transfer to another school. You can try to talk them into staying, as you can talk players into staying who want to go pro early. This does take away recruiting points, however, so it is a risky maneuver.
Your school also has an off-season budget: you can budget percentages towards recruiting, training, or academics. Recruiting will help you bring in more blue-chip prospects; training will improve your returning players’ ratings; and academics will make your players not get in as much off-field trouble in the next season.
Of course the bowl games are still in the game, waiting for you after the season, so if you’re a good team, you’ll get invited to the Rose Bowl, but if you aren’t that great, it might be the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl for you. There are also more awards after the season, like best Tight End and best Returner, which give you more chances at filling up your trophy room (but also make it harder to sweep all the awards in one season!).
And of course, after a season, you can import all departing players to Madden NFL 06, and their careers live on… this is the beauty of the NCAA-Madden connection.
Race For The Heisman Mode: ***
This is a new mode to this game, which puts you in the shoes of a college freshman, trying to earn the Heisman Trophy (the MVP award of college football). You start off by picking your position. If you want any real shot at the Heisman, you’ll play an offensive skill position, though good luck if you choose to play defense. Then you run a drill, and depending on how good you do in the drill, your skill level is determined, and you’ll get scholarship offers. If you stink it up, cupcakes like the University of Louisiana at Monroe or Central Michigan will offer you a scholarship, but if you’re awesome, national powerhouses like Texas and USC will give you scholarships. The fact of the matter is, though, scholarships don’t matter, because you can walk on to any team in the nation you want, no matter how bad you are! There is no real bonus to accepting a scholarship, so just pick your favorite team (mine is Penn State).
This mode is all about your player. Your stats are all that matter in this mode, not your team’s quality or anything like that. You can practice the drill you did to start this mode in order to improve your skills (and possibly raise your player’s ratings). You can check out your school’s newsletter, a feature that is only available on a national scale in Dynasty Mode (I would have liked at least a newspaper for each user-controlled team in Dynasty Mode, but oh well). Your player even gets a girlfriend, who may change as time goes on. (A minor bug to pick about this: my player must have trouble getting along with girls, because he’s had eight or so girlfriends in two and a half years. I would think that maybe one of the more attractive girls would have stayed with my player after I proved myself to be one of the best players in the nation.) Your goal is to try to win the Heisman, so try to get as many good stats for your player as possible. I put my player as my starting quarterback, free safety, kicker, punter, kick returner, and punt returner, giving him lots of stats. He’s on the field 95% of the time. Doing well with your team helps your player’s chances at winning the Heisman, but it’s your player’s stats that matter the most for that.
At the end of the regular season, the Heisman presentation takes place. Unfortunately, after showing the five candidates’ stats, the trophy is given out, and the voting is shown, and that is all. A bigger presentation would have been nicer. Plus, what’s with the voters? My sophomore season, I led the nation in rushing yards and TDs, and I think passing TDs as well, plus I set the new single-season record for sacks in a season. That’s not just awesome, that’s unthinkable, as no quarterback sets a defensive record in real life! Yet when the voting came around, a wide receiver on my own team won the award by a huge margin over my player, which was about the margin I expected to win by! I bet it was a bug, because after I started the presentation over again (after quitting and not saving my progress), I then won by a huge margin. Still, I think the voters should vote according to what happens on the field, not by randomly choosing one of the five candidates.
You’ll eventually gain a whole bunch of trophies for your trophy case, which are nice to look at. Once your player plays three seasons, he can go pro early, and you can save him and move him to Madden NFL 06, or you can have him play another year. Then he can again be imported to Madden, or become the coach of your team, and this mode turns into Dynasty Mode, with your player as the coach of your team.
Overall, it’s a fun alternative to Dynasty Mode, though not as fun, as you’re basically only playing the games, and only with one team, as the other off-field activities are all simulated by the computer for you. It’s still something definitely worth playing in this game.
Spring Drills: ***
These are four mini-games which are used in the beginning of Race For The Heisman Mode, as well as during the seasons of Race For The Heisman Mode. They include a power running mini-game, a speed running mini-game, an option running mini-game, and a passing mini-game. You play on both offense and defense, trying to get the most points all-time and more points than your opponent, and unlike in Race For The Heisman Mode, you play as any player in the mini-game, not just your player who is trying to win the Heisman. Something that I especially don’t like about this mode: the dreadful music that I turned off on the menus plays during these mini-games. Somebody press the mute button.
Note: there are modes such as Play Now, Rivalry Game, and Mascot Game that I am not covering here; these modes are simply single-game modes with their own different features.
Replayability: ****
This game can be played for a long, long time. With the freezing problems pretty much fixed (I have had the game freeze twice, but that’s much less than in the last two games), this game ought to last me long after football season ends. Its biggest competitor in the playing time category ought to be Madden NFL 06, another game which I bet will have lots of replayability.
Fun Factor!: ****
Really, college football is more fun to play than pro football. I like pro football more in real life, and Madden’s Fun Factor has been four stars as well in past years, but it isn’t even as high as this game’s Fun Factor is. College football has that awesome overtime system with both teams getting at least one possession. Lots of points can be scored, and if you get to triple overtime, the excitement level is through the roof.
OVERALL: ****
NCAA Football 06 is now the odds-on favorite for my 2005 “Game of the Year” award. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll give Madden NFL 06 and Mario Superstar Baseball their time in the spotlight, but this game is back to its awesome self. If you like football, you MUST get this game. It’s as good as it gets, even better than last year’s Madden NFL 2005, which I played for ten seasons. If you have a choice in getting it for the PS2 or for the Xbox, get the Xbox version; the Xbox has better graphics most of the time with multi-platform games, and Game Informer magazine says the PS2 version has a lot of slowdown to it (I can’t comment on whether they’re right or wrong). Anyway, this is an awesome game, and EA Sports has brought back the NCAA Football series past its previous peak and beyond. It’s better than ever, and it will compete with Madden NFL 06 for the title of the best football game of this generation.
| If you would like to send some feedback
to the author of this submission, please complete this form.
What's your name?
What's your Email address?
How do you rate this submission?
Does this submission belong in Little
Lemmy's Land?
Would you like to see more from this author? Comments and suggestions:
|
