Among my circle of friends, it’s heresy to play as any other team besides the Lions during a virtual season of Madden NFL. Choosing to play as the Patriots elicited whooping calls, and selecting the Bears was grounds for excommunication. NCAA Football, on the other hand, was fair game. There are plenty of local and Big Ten teams to play as, and rivalry days resulted in hours-long tournaments between our digital alma matters. Because the game didn’t need to keep up-to-date with the latest players — the NCAA prevents actual player names from being used — the games could be owned for years and still feel pretty relevant.
I hadn’t purchased an NCAA Football game since 2007’s excellent iteration, which brought some deep seasonal play and accessible controls. The learning curve was excellent, even if the game became incredibly easy after a few virtual weeks. It still had the feeling of the great 16-Bit Sega Genesis Madden games; quick games and faster scoring was its epitome. But, it was eventually time to retire that version. Moving onto NCAA 10 or 11 meant improvements to controls, visuals, and more.
Even after playing those, though, some of the magic of the first few next-gen NCAA games seemed to have been lost. The focus became more about relearning the game and its annual control changes than about the college football experience. The heart of the games seemed to have been taken away in favor of an already-great gameplay, which resulted in being removed from the actual fun of being a college football fan. EA Sports seems to have realized this, and with this year’s iteration, NCAA 12, the heart of the game seems to have been brought back to life.
Like I noted above, the biggest improvements to NCAA Football weren’t centered around gameplay. Sure, when I played through the first quarter of Texas v Auburn the new tackling improvements were great, especially after coming off of FIFA 12‘s similar improvement. The realistic animations of athletes crashing into each other, especially in the replays, was exceptional. The new “Smart Zone Coverage”, which sort of let the DBs get a little more of an advantage defensively, seemed a little awkward as they tended to slide around a bit instead of backpeddling. At the same time, it did help create a less breakable defensive plan, so the Zone might actually be usable in multiplayer this time around.
The quarter ended with a 7-7 tie between the two teams, as Texas somehow managed to drive down the field early and rush in a 25-yard blast past my stud defense. I blame the chatter going on between me and the EA rep for distracting me. (At least, that’s what I’ve been telling everyone.) I was really happy with how the camera tagged my players this time, allowing me to keep all of the defensive plays under control. And really, this felt like the most solid defensive outing for an EA football title yet; I don’t think there will be the blowout wins as much as there used to be, but I also didn’t want the game to be as easy as in the past.
In all, the tweaks were welcome, but weren’t the focus of my enjoyment. I wanted to see the real college football experience. The pageantry, the rivalries, the importance of a great coach. The game now had four giant improvements that look to make it a must buy: coaching carousels in dynasty, dynamic conferences and scheduling, pre-game traditions, and playbook creation.
The coaching carousel seems extremely interesting, as coaches not only can start as coordinators and work their way up the team’s (and national) ladder, but they also affect the way that certain players actually play. After a coach is fired, the rumors begin, candidates pop up, and contracts can be negotiated. It’s a whole new element to the meta-game of what goes on behind the scenes.
Custom conferences are a great improvement over past outings, letting you add up to 16 teams to any conference in the league. Pull Notre Dame, Missouri, Syracuse, and Pitt into the Big Ten to create the super conference that we’ve always wanted, or gut the SEC — it’s all up to how you’d like the league manipulated. Also included is the ability to re-align BCS and bowl games, so that the Rose Bowl is always a Conference USA v WAC game, for instance. There’s still no option to do a proper tournament, though, which is a little discouraging. When I asked the representative, all he could tell me was that he thought it was because of the contracts that EA has with both the NCAA and the BCS.
Pre-game traditions are now added in so that the pageantry is there when the Gators touch the infamous head-on-a-platter before their FSU rivalry game, and the entrance music plays when U of M busts through the team banner at the beginning of a home game. Chills, baby. CHILLS!
While I didn’t get a chance to spend time with it, the custom playbooks seem like an awesome enhanced feature. Up to 15 plays of each type can be added together to make your ultimate book of tricks, resulting in a new level of customization and personalized play.
Overall the game played really well, and seems like will continue to be my preferred football experience over Madden NFL. Come July, when NCAA 12 releases, it looks like we’ll finally be able to run a college football program like we want to, without the boosters and free cars and tattoos, of course.
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