NCAA 2004: On Equal Footing With Madden

Author's Rating:

Pros: EA Sports has done so many things to make it the true college experience

Cons: Anything would be nitpicking

The Bottom Line: 
Last year's game received 5 stars from me, and this year it's better.

Author's Review
I was what you'd call a commuter college student. I graduated from San Jose State, the true commuter school. I wasn't into partying and hanging out at school all day long and I didn't live in a dorm. And now, I look back and gather that I should've done more socializing in school. One particular event I always kick myself for not signing up for was the NCAA '98 tournament. They had a school wide tournament for gamers who had solid game at the PS1 version of the NCAA game. My game was tight that year. I could've been a contender, but I didn't sign up and now I sit here at my computer and wallow in my sorrows for a missed opportunity. I told myself that I would never miss out on an opportunity again in my life and I haven't. Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad. Maybe college wasn't even that bad. But for some reason, not playing in that tournament has always been something I regretted.

Fast forward 6 years, and I wish I could go back to school simply because my game is tight again. I thought about not getting the new version of this game. Actually, I think about that every year. Playing this game simply gives me less time to play Madden. However, this game is so good now that I don't mind sharing my time between the games and since I put that fifty dollars in EA's pocket twice, I'm sure they don't care either. Actually, I think that's part of the reason they release the games so closely together. NCAA is the warm up for Madden, the main course. But in that warm up, we get so into the game, it becomes on par with Madden. Ok, maybe I shouldn't work for EA's marketing team. However, the main reason why this game is so fun is that EA is able to duplicate a college atmosphere that I sort of missed. I can only imagine going to see my San Jose State Spartans struggle against every team in Spartan Stadium with all the thousands (10 on a good night) of fans wearing the blue and gold. Seriously, where the game scores is in it's duplication of the Saturday experience of college football.

The announcing team of Lee Corso, Brad Nessler, and Kirk Herbstreit is good for a video game. They do tend to repeat information, but for the most part, their energy makes me keep the volume up, rather than in Madden, the announcing is so bad, you simply turn him off. The reason I bring up the announcing first, is that with college football, announcers more so than in the NFL are there to fire up the people watching the game, as is the environment in college stadiums. College fans are way more "rah rah" than most any other style of fans. That's why 100,000 people can pack the stadium to watch the Michigan Wolverines play football. The threesome do that. They have long introductions of the game, and although they are rather repetitive from game to game, they do make it feel special, rather than just another computer game.

The atmosphere is awesome. When the other team punts, you'll hear the crowd yell, "block that kick". If you have a 4th and short yardage situation, the crowd will boo if you send the punt team out there and cheer if you send the short yardage package out there. The stadiums are really well done as I played against USC and was in awe of the LA Coliseum. And yes, I heard that annoying USC marching band song. "This, is the only song we know."

The graphics are on par with any football game I've seen out there. Obviously, because of the PS2, it won't look as pretty as it might on the XBox or Game Cube, but the way NCAA used to work is that they would use the old Madden graphics engine. I'm not sure about how much better the player models are on Madden, but there are times when I think this game looks better. There are a few animations that are jaw droppingly gorgeous. In this year's game, when your QB rolls out, the camera pans to the angle at which your QB is rolling out, rather than just keeping the same angle for every passing play. Also, this year, on the draw play, the camera draws backward like it would on a pass play, only to then pan forward when your running back does get the ball. It does this because the time you'd run a draw play is during a passing down, and this fakes out the defense, thinking it's a pass play. On the play action pass, the camera makes the defense think it's a running play, only to draw back when it's a pass. These three new nuances are incredible to football gamers.

As for the gameplay, it plays pretty much the same as the past few editions. The actual game speed has increased from last year and that's a plus, especially in the running game. The running game is where you can move the clock and get good chunks of yardage. But it's not easy. Depending on what the defense plays, you're either going to break off some nice yardage, or take three steps and get lit up like a Christmas tree. On the passing side, I think the gameplay is the best it's been. It's mostly based on timing, although if you have a one on one matchup on the outside, you'll still be able to hit that long bomb. It's like a chess game with the defense trying to jump into the passing lanes. Most of my interceptions come from trying to thread the needle, only have a linebacker sit in a zone waiting for me to throw. Outs are always a good pass play, but if you're on the run, or if you're doubled on the outside, you might as well throw the ball away. The defensive backs aren't idiots anymore. In past games, defensive backs would simply follow receivers and knock balls away if they came their way. This year, they are much smarter in watching routes and coming up with big plays. If you have a good defensive backfield, you'll pick the ball off more so this year than in any edition of the game. Your linebacker will not lead your team in interceptions any longer.

I've written too much about things other than the meat and bones of this game. The real reason to get this game has to do with the robust dynasty mode. The dynasty mode is what the franchise mode is to Madden. However, one can argue that the dynasty mode has even more charm than the franchise mode. Here is where you feel like a coach, recruiter, and all around college football fanatic. Before the season starts, you are given the option of red shirting players. To red shirt is to make that player ineligible for the season and saving a year of eligibility in the process with hopes that the player will come back the next year bigger, faster, stronger, and smarter. You can only red shirt a player one time during his collegiate career. I only usually do it with bright eyed freshman who you recruit and is way back on the depth chart at his position. The next thing to do before the season is to make your schedule. You're given a default schedule (the first season will mirror the college season), and you can simply keep that, or make some changes. In my dynasty, I decided to take Notre Dame, simply because I wanted a college where recruiting would be simple. Had I taken San Jose State, I would've had to play this game much more than I hope to and with my schedule of kids, marriage, and work, that time just isn't there. I added one game against a Division II opponent simply to get my feet wet.

EA Sports was able to work with Sports Illustrated this year and this new feature makes your dynasty season feel that more special. Every week, you basically wrap up the week in magazine cover style fashion with the top 25, statistical leaders, conference standings, and Heisman candidates. And if you have the benefit of a Sharkport and download rosters from someone who has the time to input all the player names, it adds even more to the feature. It's very cool to see a player's name, say Eli Manning rather than QB# (whatever Eli's number is) for Ole Miss on the cover of the weekly magazine.

After week 8, you'll see the dreaded bowl formula that was created to basically come up with the two best teams. That bowl formula screwed my Fighting Irish out of the championship game as even though I was undefeated, so were Oklahoma and Ohio State, and because of things like strength of schedule, I was playing for third place. I think I actually finished second. All the bowl games are there at the end of the season as well. Pretty cool to see the Tostitos logo in the middle of the field while beating Maryland to secure my undefeated season.

After your season is over, you will lose all your seniors, but could possibly lose juniors as well. If you're player has a good enough season, he could take the big bucks of the NFL and leave with eligibility remaining. If you also have Madden, you can actually export the draft class in NCAA, and import it into Madden. At the end of your first Madden season, you'll have the actual NCAA players in your draft. And like I said earlier, if you have the Sharkport and used someone's roster settings, you will even have the right names. Awesome feature. What I find fun is that you can create future college freshman, or juniors if you want to have them come from junior college and throw them into the recruiting process. I usually make myself, my two sons, and a couple friends and see where they land. This time, I only got my youngest son, but recruited all of us very hard. Here's how the recruiting works. You have a set amount of points to put toward recruiting players. You'll see who likes your program and is an easy sell, and who might not want to go all the way to Indiana simply to play football and will be harder sells. If you have a player who wants to leave early, you'll use these points as well to try to entice him to stay. The recruiting stage goes through 5 weeks. Every week, you'll target your players, and you'll get some and lose others. After the week, those you have targeted who still haven't decided will receive a scouting report. Maybe that running back you're targeting is even faster than you first thought. Or maybe staying closer to home isn't as big a deal as you thought. You'll have to change your style in recruiting that guy. Maybe he wants to play more right out of the gate.

After the recruiting is done, you'll have to rearrange your new roster and see where you did well or screwed up. You can even see where your recruiting class ranked against everyone else. You might have to cut some player from your team as well.

Another great feature in this year's game, and it will be included in all the EA Sports games, is the Sports Bio. Basically, it tracks how long you've played and some milestones in your season. Based on what you've done (beat rivals, beat a top 25 team) you will receive special NCAA cards. It's not really the cards that make you want to reach higher levels of your Sports Bio, more of the satisfaction of how well the game thinks you are performing. I took my memory card with my Sports Bio and used it with Madden, and simply because of how well I'd done in NCAA, I received bonus Madden cards. Again, not to say that the Madden cards are anything special, just that knowing the games are compatible is awesome. And if you're an online player, this version of NCAA is the only one that you can go online and challenge other players. EA has only created that feature for the PS2 version.

I am now in my second season of my dynasty and am well on my way toward my goal of a national championship. This game is extremely addicting, and right now, I'm enjoying it slightly more than the newest Madden. Just wait until the NFL season starts though because I know I'll be all over Madden at that time. But I'm still going to be playing this one. Hey, have to get those kids into the NFL.