Coach Gennero's last words were "win or I'll die"
Ok, time for a new post and I figure I might as well write up my
review for NCAA Football 2006. Now, this is only after one day of play,
but I've played every NCAA game since Bill Walsh College Football so I know what to expect out of these bastards.
Graphics
I'm going to be honest, the graphics don't impress me compared to
previous versions. There is only so much one can do to make it looks
better on the X-Box over the previous years. The gameplay still suffers
from some serious aliasing
which makes the stadiums and field look like crap. The players are
generally moving fast enough that you don't notice, but on those static
items, it really gets on my nerves. The actual player models look about
the same. The players still look like they have enormous
heads during the coin flip, and their eyes still look like Paris Hilton
in that night vision porno of hers. They have some type of studio show
with Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso doing their thing
that looks like it came straight from the original playstation. It just
looks BAD. They all look like they have some weird type of tourettes
that causes them to turn into really blocky "things" in addition to
shaking uncontrollably. I couldn't watch it more than once. That being
said, it is still one of the best looking football games out there. If
you have NCAA 2005 a 7/10 in graphics, I'd give NCAA 2006 7.5/10. Some
improvements here and there, but for the most part, it looks the same.
Gameplay
It warrants mentioning I only played NCAA 2005 for two weeks before
I put it down and never returned. NCAA 2004 I played for about 11
months before I got bored with it The reason? Gameplay. The X-Box
version of the game was incredibly buggy. You couldn't run curl routes
or crossing patterns with any confidence because you were looking at
about an 80% chance of the pass just bouncing off your receivers hands
like were involved with type of woodchipper accident the previous
series. Even playing as the All American teams vs Harvard on the
easiest level you'd have trouble completing more than 50% of your
passes unless you just went deep over and over again, and the only
people that are allowed to do that and retain their dignity are little
girls. Not to mention recruiting was broken, with over 25% of the 4
star and 5 star athletes not signing with anyone, with no explanation.
And then there was the sloooooooow dooooooown. If you left it on the
NCAA Camera (default), you'd run into some insane slow down when
running up the middle. It was like bullet time in the Matrix, but on
accident. A real pain in the ass that prevented me from playing the
game after more than a few weeks.
That being said, the gameplay problems seem to have been fixed. I'm
not longer afraid to throw crossing routes. Heck, even screens
sometimes work. I haven't made it all the way through a season, but I'm
told recruiting is fixed too. I haven't spotted any slow down, besides
one time while showing a cheerleader during a cut screen. I think the
game just freaked out when they saw the freakiness that is the
cheerleader models
As to new features, there are a few. One of the things they have
been pushing is the impact player, which is kinda cool I guess. They
highlight in white, and they are more likely to break a play open. Meh.
What is nice is that players (not just impact players) are less likely
to just fall over when they get hit. When two players hit in the open
field, you can hitting A and hope to push through the tackle. If you
have a player like Michael Bush, you can really knock the crap out of
some people. Dave mentioned the fumbles, which I think is a nice touch.
If you have the ball in the wrong hand (i.e. on the right side of the
field with the ball in your left hand), and you try to cut in like a
moron, you are going to fumble if you get hit. Make sure you hit that R
trigger to get the ball in the right hand before you get hit. The
change of juking to the right analog stick took a second to get used
to, but it's a nice change.
One feature that I love is that they've changed scrambling with QBs.
In the previous games, you'd hit Y to bring down the receiver icons and
then you can run, and then you'd press Y again to see the icons, and
pray you can figure out who to through to before you get drilled. Now,
if you hold down A you'll scramble. You can even throw out of a run,
but your accuracy is obviously going down. With a QB like Brohm it's no
big deal because he's a pocket passer, but someone like Vince Young you
are almost unstoppable at that point. In fact, many people won't play
Texas online because so many people will just go hail mary and either
scramble or throw deep over and over and over. But used by gentleman,
it does add some fun to playing QB.
Special Teams seem to be slightly improved too. I think I was lucky
to average 3yrds per return in 2004 and 2005. I've already taken on to
the house against UK after a shanked punt that the blockers out ran,
and I've had a nice 60 yard kick off return against Cincinatti before I
got ran down from behind. Still no way in hell will you ever block a
kick though, and lord knows I can't figure out how to do an onside-kick
The defense is still a bunch of cheating bastards. Against Cinci,
their "impact player" is one of their DE - Adam Roberts I believe.
Magically, the dude was always on the side that I was running to. And
they also magically shifted over to that side too. You can audible the
run to the opposite side, which makes me laugh, but it still pisses me
off to see that. I've called for a play action pass from a jumbo set on
3rd and one and come out to see the defense in a freakin' Dime package.
The moral of the story: always choose a running play as an audible in
addition to your playaction pass in case the CPU cheats you like this
and then fuck them right up the middle of the gut.
Other Enhancements
There is other stuff in there, that I really just don't care about
or really doesn't make the game that much better. There is "the race
for the heisman" mode, which is a bit goofy. You create a player, run
through some drills, and get recruited. And then you have a dorm room
and girlfriend that get better as your heisman trophy hype grows.
Seriously. Speaking of drills, they have a slimmed down version of the
drills in Madden. There is a passing drill with no pass rush. There is
the same rushing drill from madden (one blocker vs two LBs and a
safety). Plus they have an option drill, and something called oklahoma
which is basically just slam against people. It's worth playing with
Louisville if you are used to just trying to out run people to the
corner on running plays.
Something that might be cool is that now you can enter rosters for
Division I-AA and the all-time teams, but I don't know if anyone is
making any progress on actually entering them. I don't think there is a
Louisville all-time team, but I obviously haven't unlocked all the
teams. You can also use the random name feature to fill in names if you
want, which I think is nice for the Division I-AA teams.
Wishlist
This game still has some massive room for improvements. My biggest
pet peeve is the sideline. It is barren. It looks like the sideline
from Necessary Roughness with 7 players and two coaches standing around
in addition to the 11 guys on the field. No camera men, no equipment
guys, no security, no field goal kicker warming up, no graduate
assistants whose sole job is to hold the wire to the coaches headset.
It just looks stupid. Hopefully with the next generation consoles they
won't using all the extra polygons making the players dimples look
better, and use some on the ambience. And not to mention the mascots
still look as dumb on the sidelines as they did in 2004 and 2005,
complete with them being a good five feet from the goal post when they
"bang their head against it." I haven't played a team that fires a
cannon, so I can't tell you if the cannon dissapears sometimes and it
looks like smoke blew out of the ass of a cheerleader.
The Create a School is exactly the same as NCAA 2004. Same logos,
same crappy stadiums with the same crappy back drops. And you still
can't create a small 4,000 seat field. The Bellarmine Nights playing at
Joe Creason Stadium just look dumb in a 20,000 seat stadium. I'm not
asking for much. A little more logos to choose from, some better
options on how to color the damn things would also be a nice touch.
There also is no Division I-AA playoff. I know, cheap, but whatever.
Especially if you are creating Bellarmine. It would be nice not to have
to replace Houston in the C-USA or something when you create them. And
once you create a playoff mode, there is no reason why a playoff for
the I-A teams wouldn't be possible unless the NCAA wouldn't let them
put that feature in.
And realistic weather. Sure if it is snowing people slide more, and
if it is raining people drop more passes. I want to see real
snow...accumulating. If you played those stupid "College Classics,"
they had the Notre Dame - Penn State "Snow Bowl." Well, in the game it
looked like they were playing on about 1cm of snow. Just stupid
looking. Puddles, changing weather, day games turning into dusk, dusk
into evening. Puddles forming ala the Florida State game. All that good
stuff. Players on the sideline getting cold. Is that too much to ask
from the X-Box 2?
Will that Conclude your order?
So there you go. Worth $50? You bet your sweet bippy it was. Can't
wait to see the improvements on the X-Box 2? Fuck ya. And they better
not just add some gay ass "you be the ref" mode or something.
And for those who made it this far, a little something-something,
you know, for the effort: If you look under the EA Sports Extras you
can find a demo of March Madness 2005 that lets you play as UK, North
Carolina, UConn or Kansas. So there you go
Posted by Phil on July 13th, around midnight |
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