GAME DESCRIPTION: Turn the tide in your favor and control momentum like never before with NCAA Football 07. Storm ahead early or come from behind late with drive-stopping sacks, key turnovers, and clutch first down conversions on your path to the first-ever BCS Championship Game in Dynasty Mode. In the new Campus Legend mode, you must remain disciplined to maintain a high GPA and improve your character and intelligence on and off the field. Grab your text books, strap on your helmet, and experience the true year-round passion of college football with NCAA Football 07.
Key Features
* Build Momentum: Capitalize on your window of opportunity as big plays, defensive stops, trick plays, and special teams keep you in a constant struggle for momentum. Track the overall tempo of the game via a new Momentum Meter™ that changes with every exciting play.
* Campus Legend: Live the life of a student athlete and become enshrined in your school’s hall of fame at the end of your career by balancing your time wisely between studies, practice, and social events.
* All-New Spring Game: Decide which underclassmen get the most reps during the annual Spring Game, then designate your Impact Players for the upcoming season.
* New Spring Drills: Hone your skills with 11 new and challenging mini-games focusing on all aspects of the game, including Rush the Quarterback, Passing Distance, 40 yard dash and more.
* All-New ESPN Integration: Get the latest sports news with real-time updates from ESPN Radio, and track all your latest EA SPORTS Dynasty™ information via ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com.
* New Ways to Play: Utilize new gameplay mechanics like Jump the Snap, Slide Protection, Smart Routes, Defensive Hot Routes, and Precision Passing to gain every advantage over your rivals.
* New Kicking Mechanic: All-new analog kicking controls give you total command over every kick.
* More Authentic Playbooks: More than 100 new formations on offense and defense will keep your opponent guessing with trick plays like the “puntarooskie” and Nevada’s “Pistol Formation.”
EA SPORTS
PLAY: EA’s best work has been their football games and their NCAA version is the one that has been consistently the most entertaining. With a plethora of teams available, and other great extras, the NCAA has more depth and all the same cool playing features of Madden. It was the best of both worlds.
EA had more time to work on the NCAA release and it is definitely much better than the Madden release for the 360—however The 07 version for the Xbox 360 isn’t as good as the 06 version released on last-generation platforms. Unfortunately we are still waiting for the next generation football releases to be great.
Thankfully, EA has tweaked the Madden engine in all the right places. The controls, for the most part, are the same as the previous version on the last generation consoles. There are new additions that add to a positive experience. One such addition is on defense where you can jump the snap, which is an all or nothing proposition, where if you time it right you can get a huge play—but if you guess wrong it’s a five yard penalty. I found that it works best when it’s third down and inches and you have yet to stop the offense. It doesn’t take long to get right back in the swing of things if you are familiar with previous EA football releases. The one change that wasn’t appreciated was the kicking game. Now you use the right analog stick and you have one shot at making a good kick. It adds some pressure—but it’s not the best set up. Even if it was on the left stick it would have been better.
One negative is the AI. You can take on all levels of competition and still win. It does get progressively harder but the AI doesn’t seem to really change their method. There is a momentum meter that unfortunately doesn’t seem to have much of an impact except on the crowd. What might have been a great addition is to add a star under one more player when the momentum meter was full.
The reason anyone buys a game like NCAA is the Dynasty mode. The problem is that the 07 version is too simplified. What happened to all the cool extra features that were available in the 06 version such as practicing, Race for the Heisman, Campus Legend, the spring games, and simple drills that add points to your players abilities? Instead we are given the ability to recruit. It hardly makes up for what we are missing. With recruiting there are certain states that are a pipeline of players that are more interested in playing at your school. For instance, the University of Kansas has five states with players interested in play at Kansas; Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and California. But that doesn’t mean every recruit is a lock if they are in your pipeline. Some are ranked number one in the nation and you have to be a great team to get those kinds of draft picks. It takes time to win respect. Also you can decide who to redshirt—which comes with absolutely no explanation and takes away the value of that option.
NCAA FOOTBALL
GRAPHICS: If you have an HDTV you may wonder when a football game is going to look solidly next-generation. The stadiums are gorgeous—even with the occasional clipping. The players look very good. The light shimmering off player helmets is amazing.
The weather isn’t as remarkable as you’d expect. Weather effects should blow our minds—think Oblivion—and they are merely unremarkable. It would be great to see water puddle on grass fields and mud appearing on shoes.
The menus are redesign for this edition and much better utilized as they fold open to the right allowing you to see all the menus like a family tree. You even get a picture of your school to admire with pride.
SOUND: Brad Nessler does a good job. The sound of the announcer is amazing—as if you are in the crowd. It brings a great atmosphere and sense of being there.
FRANKLY: Why wasn’t the ability to recruit and redshirt added with all the amazing features that were in last year’s Race for the Heisman? Those questions linger and hurt the overall experience of the 07 version of NCAA Football. Then again, when EA releases NCAA Football you can almost smell the leaves falling and the cool air and the roar of college fans everywhere. It gets you ready for the season—there may be no more anticipated game for football fans. It was a bit of let down to find a game that has taken one step forward and a half a step back. Irregardless, we haven’t been able to tear ourselves away from it.
+ Richie Wright
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