Article by Payton Brooks
For those who are fans of football, the idea of not following college teams is not even an option; NCAA football is where the game is really played – played by younger players who are passionate about the sport and who are playing for a love of the game rather than playing for the paycheck. More importantly though, for those who watch USC, Ohio State, Wake Forest, Texas Tech, Penn State and other NCAA football teams, the reason for watching runs much deeper.
In some cases, the draw to NCAA football is a matter of school loyalty. Graduates from Division I schools like Auburn or Florida find themselves setting aside time to watch NCAA football games that are broadcast by ESPN and CBS Sports just to see how the team that they used to watch every week during the season are doing.
In other cases, the appeal of NCAA football is something bigger: the fans of NCAA football know that there are going to be a number of future NFL players out on the field and they want to start thinking about who just might make it to the big leagues and turn pro. Again, many of these NCAA football fans are those who have a love of the game more than a love of college sports; they are curious about the next great talents, the way that players approach the game and what they are able to bring to the sport.
It’s for this reason that, right alongside the pros, NCAA football tournaments that determine the season champions are aired each year. New Year’s Day, NCAA football fans are going to find themselves glued to the TV watching the FedEx Orange Bowl that takes place in Miami and the Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi that takes place in Pasadena, California. In 2009, the Orange Bowl and Rose Bowl will be followed on January 2nd by the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl on January 5th in Glendale, AZ, and the National Championship game – also to be held in Miami – on January 8th.
NCAA football is all about making sure that the colleges and universities that participate in collegiate football have a chance to compete – that the NCAA football players have the chance to show what they are made of and to learn more about playing the game in front of a national audience. The bowl games and the championship game are about letting the best teams within NCAA football to rise to the top.
While most fans of football find themselves watching NCAA football as an opportunity to see the future of the game, there are few cases in which there are as many benefits as those presented to high school starters. High school players who want to be sure that they are able to pursue their dreams will look to NCAA football as an opportunity to see which schools they hope to apply to and play for. For them, NCAA football is something that they hope will be their future in football.
Image Kyle Jackson NCAA Football 2010 by hectorir
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NCAA Football 12
- Enhanced Tackling Engine – Your college gameday experience rises to a whole new level with an all-new momentum-based collision and tackling system that allows you to control a player to the moment of impact.
- Conference Customization – Create new rivalries and alter the landscape of college football forever by realigning conferences throughout college football. Build new 16-team super conferences, create conference schedules, decide BCS bowl tie-ins, and more.
- Authentic Gameday Traditions – Feel the true emotion of college football as your team runs onto the field with new pre-game traditions like the Sooner Schooner and Ramblin’ Wreck, and celebrate big plays alongside school icons like Chief Osceola, Uga, and Tommy Trojan.
- Coaching Carousel – Roam the sidelines as a coach in an enhanced Dynasty mode. Start off as a coordinator or take over as head coach to begin your coaching career. Stay off the Hot Seat as you climb the ranks of the coaching ladder and lead your dream school to a coveted national championship.
- Your Road to Glory – Be an Ironman and play both sides of the ball in your final season of high school while getting recruited by the top schools. In college, fight to keep your starting job and earn your coaches’ trust to unlock extra abilities on the field en route to becoming a Heisman trophy winner.
NCAA Football 12 takes the journey of the college athlete to the next level of depth and authenticity. Experience the pride and pageantry of gameday Saturday with all new enhanced in-game presentation, traditions and school specific crowd celebrations. Make an impact on the field as your team takes down your heated rival on the road to the National Championship. Chart your path to collegiate gridiron glory from high school to college. View larger. Pick Your Path to Collegiate Gridiron Glory NCAA Football 12 lets you experience the rise to dominance of a young, up-and-coming gridiron star hoping to make his way to a college superpower of choice and eventually a national championship. Experience the pride and pageantry of gameday Saturday like never before as you go from high school superstar, to top college player, to head coach in Road t
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Tags: Football, future, Game, NCAA
3 responses to NCAA Football: The Future of the Game
goodluck gettin a win this year. cause it aint gonna happen.
Solid Showing, but not much that’s new,
You’ve probably read better reviews elsewhere, but, nevertheless:
NCAA ’12 is a solid game, through and through, but it doesn’t introduce very many new exciting “back of the box features,” though it does improve on the core gameplay, Dynasty, and Road to Glory modes from NCAA ’11. Without a doubt, the game is MUCH better “shipped” than NCAA ’11 was — which had recruiting glitches, tuner necessities, patches, and all sorts of stuff before it even became playable. NCAA ’12 is solid out of the box.
The changes to Dynasty mode are appreciated, mostly, the Coaching Carousel enhancement which really let’s you live out as a certain type of coach — working your way up from a coordinator where you only control half of the on-field action, all the way to a head coach. The mode isn’t completely flushed out, but it’s fun and rewarded, with a ‘goal oriented’ design that rewards you not just for long term success, but for small in-season successes. Perhaps next year it can be improved with micro-enhancements within each game, like rewarding your team for playing with good sportsmanship, spreading the ball around, or bringing in other players into the offense. Additionally, full conference editing is a great addition, which will allow history junkies to recreate conferences and matchups from year’s past, or replicate future changes. Conveniently, this also allows for better custom team integration.
Other than that, Dynasty mode hasn’t dramatically changed, which isn’t a bad thing — NCAA 11′s dynasty mode was the most addictive that the series has ever had.
Road to Glory is fine, but still lame… it’s not “Road to the Show,” from MLB The Show series, but it’s not bad either. It takes very little work to quickly become the best at your position, and so the challenge really isn’t there, but at the same time, you never quite feel like you’re “grinding” like you do in the expansive, but tedious, Road to the Show.
Unfortunately, some modes got completely left out. Online play is identical, Online Dynasty is relatively unchanged except for the additions made to offline — and the only new additions to online dynasty itself are either locked until August 1st (lame?) or sit behind a pay wall, which is similarly lame. Adding new features but making you pay small amounts for them is really not okay, because consumers are still paying $60 each year — it’s not like we’re only paying $4 here and there for new features like Coaching Carousel, and not paying ~$50 for the features that remain the same from NCAA ’11. I’d appreciate it if EA thought about this mentality more: IF they’re going to charge additionally (on top of the $60) for “enhancements” and “new features,” then it would be consistent for them to NOT charge for the features that stay the same. I understand they’re trying to maximize profits in unique ways, especially in a down economy, but, c’mon, stop nickle and dimming the hardcore customers.
To casual players, gameplay won’t feel changed, but to those who have played these games a lot, you’ll notice key differences. A new tackling engine removes suction tackling, which is a great addition that pays immediate dividends for the game: The game feels more organic than it ever has, which is really nice. Still, this engine makes for a few new ‘skating’ animations, where players see a burst of speed breaking free from a tackle. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s noticeable occasionally. Other than the tackling, the defense has been balanced so you’ll need to mix up zone and man coverage, as opposed to NCAA ’11 where zone coverage was completely useless, so you could play a Cover 2 for the entire game. Zone coverage works and it’s refreshing. The defensive line pressure is effective, the most effective perhaps in the history of Tiburon-engine football games, so you see far more d-line sacks, which is really refreshing. Offense hasn’t wholly changed, but everything feels good… QB’s aren’t as accurate, but at the same time, DBs don’t mirror routes anymore.
Playcalling is still EA’s broken playcall philosophy where the CPU has psychic abilities to read your plays, and then randomly chooses their play based off of what you pick. This is still obvious in any fake situation, any goal line run or pass, and any situation where you’re trying to ‘trick’ the CPU with a clever playcall. It’s all psychic playcalling with built in randomized “mistake” generators, which is lame. But, this is par for the course with EA games and if it’s never bothered you before, it won’t bother you now.
Graphics are excellent. This is the best looking football game ever, probably. Improvements to grass, replies, presentation, and everything else, are much appreciated.
The sound is, still, terrible. Stadiums sound good, crowds are nice although mostly unchanged, but the commentary is the same that it has been…
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|I really want to like this game more than I do!,
Each and every year I have this internal debate about whether I will buy the latest NCAA football game. I have this same struggle when deciding to buy the yearly Madden. The last NCAA football game I bought right away was the 2009 version, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even with its flaws. I’ve since played full versions of 2010 and 2011, and wasn’t wholly impressed enough to take the plunge and buy them outright.
So what led me to buy NCAA Football 12 right off the bat? I can’t explain the reasoning behind it. I just had the itch to fully immerse myself in a college football game. I’m a lifelong Texas Longhorns fan and they had an abysmal showing last year. What better year could there be to buy this game and capture a sense of redemption through a dynasty or a “road to victory” character?
As for the review, now that I’ve played it for over a week I feel as though I can personally provide a decent review. In all fairness to the overall experience of the game, I’m sure I haven’t delved as deeply as most have. In light of this fact, my review will focus on the online matches and the “road to victory” mode.
There are several options available when trying to play online. Most notably is the online dynasty mode. I did not play this mode, but it looks promising and rewarding if you have several friends who want to league play with you. I stuck to the online ranked and unranked matches.
The gameplay mechanics are much the same as past versions of the game. In fact, the controls might as well be exactly identical. Why fix something that’s not broken? Yes, the controls are fine. The gameplay itself could use some work. Even on the hardest difficulty, you can throw hailmary bombs with ease into double coverage as long as you position your receiver in such a way that allows him to get under it and do a straight-up vertical jump for the catch. That’s just plain clunky and ridiculous. And when I say you need to position your receiver, here’s the thing – most of the time your quarterback will underthrow the longball so you have to stop and do a vertical jump to catch it. Very rarely will you catch your receiver in stride unless you make the pass extra early. Why is it so difficult to fix this mechanic once and for all?
The online play itself is also pretty much the same as it always has been. You pick a team, your opponent picks a team, and generally the team with the better rating will have the advantage. I see a lot of Alabama, Florida State, Ohio State (pre-suspension/terminations) users hitting the top of the ranked match statistics. The gameplay experience is hit-or-miss. At times you’ll be paired off with somebody who seems to be from Zimbabwe, seeing that the lag is atrocious. At other times, it’ll be smooth as butter. Overall, it’s an average experience, not great, not poor.
How about that “Road to Victory” mode? This was a mode that caught my attention in NCAA 09, though I believe it was called something different back then. I thought it was pretty cool to simulate the college (unrealistic) experience – it’s very RPG’ish in that aspect. I’m halfway through my sophomore year and I’ve found that this mode is less addictive than it was in previous versions.
One cool yet unpolished feature is the ability to play through your very own high school career. At the same time, Electronic Arts is pushing downloadable content that automatically makes your “road to victory” player a 5-star caliber recruit. This DLC essentially makes your high school career pointless as you can sim through the whole thing and still walk-on to any school and be accepted. If you opt for the high school experience, you pick three schools at the beginning that you would like to play for. Then you simply play 10 or so easy mode games before starting your college career. You earn points while playing and your star caliber rating will go up each time you perform well. While doing this, colleges will eventually offer scholarships to you. Random schools will start trying to recruit you. It’s kind of cutesy, but you can tell it’s a pretty hollow feature overall.
Once you pick a college team, you then have to earn the coach’s trust, beat out a starter for their position, and earn points to put towards improving your player. You do so initially by performing well at practices. Then you beat out the starter for their position (which is very stupidly implemented by the way). To top it off, I don’t know if this was the same as last year’s “road to glory”, but I find the player enchancement mechanics to be dumbed down. No longer do you have to run drills to improve certain skills/abilities. Instead, you go to practice and run plays and earn the coach’s trust, as well as experience points that you can randomly spend for permanent or single game enhancements. The skills you can get vary from week-to-week and…
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