NCAA Football 2008

Remember NCAA 07 on the X-Box or PS2 last year? Total control over your team in legend mode, the ability to see who was coming at you from the sides and a game speed that gave you the chance to bust out huge plays fairly easy?

All that is gone. Taking from Madden 07 last year on the 360, EA has made it so you are able to only control your player. Need to make a huge stop in the 4th quarter but you are the quarter back? To bad, its up to the AI. All you can do is what your position can do, the rest is out of your hands. Through the SuperSim mode, you can jump right back to playing your guy again but watching some un-ranked team score 42 points against Texas, you start to wonder if it is balanced at all. While this does lend itself to the feel of playing on a college football team, it gets really old really fast. The total lack of control outside of your position gets very frustrating.

Though this is the largest sticking point for me, the game is probably awesome for nearly everyone else. The controls are solid, the hits look hard, the speed is set well and with a little luck and some skill, you can make huge plays. So far I have only gotten into college mode with a running back and a quarter back but you can test the waters of what ever position you want in legend mode during the high school state play offs. 4 games to get a feel of your position, how the plays work, the supersim works and is a good training period.

Frustating, though, is the lack of a college feel to the game. Gone is the dorm room from previous versions, which I felt lent some to the college experiance in 06 and 07. There are no shots of fans in the stands, no more crowd meter, no shots of the mascot cheering on the side lines and no cheer leaders. The actual "college" aspect of NCAA 08 is non-existant. It plays very similar to Madden 07 on the 360, atleast in terms of giving the feel of being a star.

Where the feel of the game is lacking, the actual game play is decent enough. As a RB, you will run into opposing players you never see coming thanks to the limited third person view. The camera does a decent job of staying with you but on plays where you go in motion, the camera gets lost and you can not see your player for a few seconds. Running the ball is well done with a host of options of getting around players, but I found, at least playing at Texas (ranked 5th in the polls for this game with a A ranked offence), your offensive line doesnt make holes very easy and your TEs and WR dont hold blocks for jack shit. I'd guess that about 35% of the time, you will be taken down in the back field before you can get going. As a QB, there is an option for calling audible at the line but the plays are limited. The coach called plays are mostly stock and dont vary much and plays will be called that dont make sense for the situation, atleast how I would call them atleast. You will see the same play called through out the game and it will fail every single time.

The graphics are good, the frame rate never suffers and the stadiums look fantastic.

All in all, though, NCAA 08 doesnt FEEL like a college football game. It feels more like a football game that is set in college but the college aspect if left alone. You dont get any thing cool during pre-game, such as seeing the impact players warming up from previous versions and the commentary is pretty much the same as it was in previous versions. EA did not add a lot of depth to the game what so ever. While I know that it is a video game and not supposed to feel like the real deal, I have felt that previous incarnations of the game did more justice to college football this this one.

EA still has a lot to learn, it seems, to putting out a solid football game on the next-gen systems. When I would rather go back and play 06 or 07 on a xbox or PS2, that is not a good sign.

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Feel of a college football game: 2/10

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I posted this review on some forums I visit a while back. Actually, it was July of last year. Anyway, I re-read it and my review still sticks. EA sports has not been able to make a really solid football game for the 360 yet. People buy Madden because its Madden and because there is nothing else out there to choose from. I, though, have been playing NCAA Football for a long time, much like I have Madden and EAs NHL series.

What I have seen since their, failed in my opinion, attempts to bring a next gen football game to the 360 is a disturbing move away from what worked so well for the games in the past. I don't know about most people who play but I play for the "feel" of being a college or pro athlete. While some of the things in the NCAA series, such as studying and what not, seem a little over board, I enjoyed them. Having a dorm room, events to pick, crowds cheering on game day and so forth. I miss those aspects of previous versions and I wonder if they will be brought back.

I did, though, really enjoy the addition of 4 high school play off games to test your position and get a feel for the game. That was cool. Also, being able to take screen shots from your big plays and have a slide show of them at the main menu was kick ass. I hate hate hate hate the close up third person view EA has started using. Having no fucking clue who or what is on either side of you is frustrating.