I’ve always purchased a football game to go along with my new console purchases. I bought Madden 93 with my Sega Genesis, Gameday (the original) with my PS1 and Madden 2002 with my PS2, but I broke that ritual with my Xbox 360 purchase 2 weeks ago.I had played the Madden 08 and NCAA Football 08 demos on Xbox Live and came away less than impressed. The talk of bugs and issues in each game didn’t make me feel much better about them either so I was happily surprised when my rented copy of NCAA Football 08 showed up in the mail.
One of my biggest complaints with the demo was the speed of the game and how slow the QB’s moved in the pocket. Neither one of these complaints applies to the full version. To be honest, the game speed seems almost perfect to me. I have no problem following the ball or the plays during the game.
Besides the beautiful graphics, smooth framerate and detailed stadiums, the best feature of NCAA 08 is the running game. It is finely tuned to near perfection. The offensive line does a good job of picking up blocks and opening up holes for your backs, and the responsive right-analog stick makes juking easy. This is where the speed of the game really shines. You can see holes develop and due to the smooth and clean graphics, runs up the middle aren’t a jumbled mess. The elimination of “Mario-running” is icing on the cake. Your backs will now “get skinny” or try to move behind or around your offensive lineman instead of running in place.
The passing game is well-done but not perfect. It’s kind of hard to lead with soft/lob passes but using the right-analog stick to direct your passes helps. Luckily, the receivers don’t drop everything thrown at them like they did in the PS2 version. There have also been a bunch of new catch animations added. The more I play the game, the more comfortable I find myself getting with the passing game.
Defense is well-done and gang-tackling adds an entirely new element to EA football. Not only does the game look more realistic, but it makes playing defense much more realistic too. I love having one defensive player slow down a running back while another defensive player takes him out. I know the 2K series has been doing this for a while, but it’s nice that EA finally caught up.
I’ve never been a big fan of the analog kicking game but don’t really have any complaints with this year’s version. It’s responsive (except online) and intuitive. That about all you can ask from the kicking game.
There are some negatives to the game though. First of all, the play-calling screen is light-years behind the last-gen versions. I don’t know what EA was thinking, but when you have only 25 seconds to pick a play and the only way to get to it is by moving the selection box onto the play and hitting “A” it becomes a bit ridiculous. I should be able to hit any four of the face buttons on the controller to select any of the 4 displayed plays.
While some people may think using Auto-Strafe is cheating, I’m no longer the joystick jockey I once was and hope this makes it back into next year’s version. While they’re at it, add referees to the game and the option to view the line-of-scrimmage along with the first down line on the playing field. Finally, I’d like the ability to make offensive line adjustments like they last-gen versions allow you to do.
As mentioned by many others, I have seen the super-DB AI and poor CPU QB play. One of the advantages of playing online is that the QB problem completely disappears (unless the person you’re playing is terrible) and the DB AI is not as good if the other player takes control of his players in the secondary (like I do). There’s talk of a patch coming sometime during the first two weeks of December and I’m hoping the rumor turns out to be legit.
I have to admit that I’m glad I was talked into trying NCAA Football because despite its flaws, it’s still a very fun football game. Also, the two online games that I’ve played were smooth and lag-free. I have high hopes for 09.