NCAA Football 2007 (PS2)

Once again my favorite time of the year has come and gone, it's that god awful too early in the calendar year release of NCAA Football by EA Sports. Now I complain every year as the release date gets pushed earlier and earlier, rosters become more and more incorrect and features are not finished properly - but its not like I'm not going to play this thing until the night before next year's release.

Anyway, I don't ever post reviews until after the game has had a chance to sink in and be properly evaluated. I can't play 2 games on Varsity mode like most reviewers and then sing "Praise EA Sports" to the same tune as "Praise Jesus" - I gotta have a chance to find stuff I don't like and then bitch incessantly.

I'll start off blunt to kind of get things in gear - NCAA 2007 is the best version of the game since 2004. NCAA 2005 was awful - WR's couldn't catch anything but a deep ball vs. triple coverage and the L2 "Big Hit" button was out of control. I mean, there was absolutely no reason to use any other button but. NCAA 2006 was marginally better...as long as you played on Heisman. Boz will argue that from the comforts of his settings on All-American and there's nothing wrong with that - AA was fun, Heisman wasn't realistic but at least it solved some issues with AI defense. But back to the review before I race off on the history of the franchise.

This year EA Sports has refined features introduced last year, as in they've fixed their forced-upon effectiveness. EA's idea of a new feature is to make it be the highlight of the new game - such as Homefield Advantage & Impact Players last year. Last year both were brutal - Heisman was the only way to solve the inhuman impact players, and turning off HFA not only fixed brutal gameplay but it actually made WR's catch the ball a lot better. This year the big push is for Momentum - and again, it's overdone and you can't turn it off. A novel idea, however you're now faced with the dilemma of needing to win the opening coin toss so that you can move down the field and score on the first possession in order to maintain momentum for the rest of the game - its retarded and awarded horribly.

What happens is that when you make a big play, stop someone on defense or something you're awarded +1 momentum, which awards +1 OVR to all your players. When you reach the maximum +5, your team is now juggernauts. Coming from me, an Ohio State user, when I score my first possession I take a 95-rated Troy Smith, toss a TD pass that gets him to a 99 OVR anyway, and now with momentum I increase his stats even further - I'm sure you follow me here. The problem is, random shit gets awarded much more than things you would expect. It's not horrible, but should be a nice feature next year when EA actually takes the time to implement it correctly.

Some other new features are "Jump the Snap", OL slide protection blocking, smart routes, defensive hot routes & precision passing. "Jump the Snap" gives meaning to the guys who play on defense as a down lineman - you can time hitting "X" enabling you to put an offensive lineman on his ass. I love this feature - I don't use it, but I love it. Lost was the art of a cadence in video football, and finally EA has brought it back. Slide protection is a handy tool to use. Last year when hot routing a running play (for example), you'd send the RB to the opposite side - however the OL would still be under the same blocking scheme. Last year 3 down lineman could crash the line and exploit mentally retarded OT's - this year you can actually set your line to adjust to DL's moving different directions. Smart routes are the addition of WR's adjusting to what you're doing as a QB - kind of what Madden '04 brought with the Playmaker control. Defensive hot routes are making their debut after 2 years in Madden, giving you the option to change assignments prior to the play (blitz, zone, & spy), and precision is what NCAA has done for the last 3 versions - only now they're importing the given name from Madden.

Dynasty mode is as close to perfect as it ever has been. Last year's statistical errors are fixed for simulated games (if you're unaware QB's would routinely throw for 75% accuracy, 30+ TD's and less than 5 INT's), the awards appear to make more sense, & recruiting is more realistic as far as the number of 5-star recruits are down. From simulating multiple seasons I can say that I'm yet to get fired for winning too much as I once did last year, and the AI-AD's seem to be displeased with your performance at pretty realistic times as well.

Last year they had "Race For the Heisman", this year they have a Campus Legend feature that focuses on your school work and other aspects. If you know anything about me you know I won't so much as fire this feature up, so let's assume it's another bad port of dynasty mode like last year's feature was.

Online play is still only ranked for All-American games, which is something I don't care for but seems to be the synonomous choice. I find it incredibly difficult to not put 50 on the board against the AA defense, but I guess that's probably seen as me bragging so whatever. I am an NCAA fanatic and dedicate waaaaaaay too much time to this game, so take my level preference with a grain of salt. The same trophies are in from last year to attempt to achieve and they still have levels for people to manipulate as they attempt to become...I dunno, whatever people do that do that stuff.

Online Clubs are a new feature, however being as I don't ever play ranked games I see no reason to do so. From what I understand, you start with so many people and can add more members by...I dunno, forget I said anything.

The rivalry games feature is still incredible and an outstanding addition to the game types, however the classic moments have apparently been axed. Come to think of it, I think they were axed last year as well. Anyway, ya - the rivalry game continues to kick ass and the mascot game continues to not ever be played. The pennants and user profile features are the same which kinda sucks, I'd love the day where you could save your user profile with online statistics on it. I'm 28, married and have a 5 month old child - the only games I get against other users than the AI is online...so the user profile is useless in its current state to me.

Trying to think what else I should say - the deep pass is still too easy to user catch against double coverage, the running game is more realistic in that you can run sweeps and off-tackles instead of running dives and bouncing to the outside, defensive players react to the pass & run better (no more HB Direct when you needed a first down), and the best simulation this year appears to be geared towards Heisman settings. That about covers it!

Now I've spent a lot of time pointing out things I don't like, but seriously - this game rocks. If NCAA 2004 was a 9.8/10 (it was, I just wrote that on my original site of pigskin-gaming.com), NCAA 2007 for the PS2 comes in at a healthy 9.5/10. When ranking new games I don't take off points for lack of originality - I mean, if people are going to buy the shit every year regardless I'm fine with just fixing things that don't work right. 2004 was 2002 & 2003 done perfectly with the addition of online play - it was outstanding. I feel like 2007 is a healthy combination of 2004 & 2006 - just a few minor things remain that either haven't been fixed yet or they don't plan on fixing.

Either way, NCAA Football 2007 a must-buy.

Links
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