NCAA Football 2006 Game Review

By Hugo Guzman  |   Tuesday, August 02, 2005  |  Comments( 0 )

College Football
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Looks like EA Sports' NCAA 06' football game is a hit once again with the hard core video gamers out there. I took a trip to www.maddenmania.com's NCAA 06' forums to find out what the diehard fans were saying about this game. Here's a sample of what I found:

On a scale of 1 to 10, most players rated it between a 7 and a 9. The main positives were the excellent graphics and realistic atmosphere. A lot of the gamers raved about the bone crushing tackle animations and the way the game makes a player feel like they are actually in the stadium facing off against their hated rivals.

While NCAA Football 2006 contains the requisite football offerings, such as the ability to play online, practice training drills, and set up a rival or mascot game, the title adds into the mix the hugely ambitious new Race for the Heisman mode. This new mode aims to take players throughout the entire process of becoming a college football star, from the lowly high school graduate to the four year superstar bound for the NFL. The Race for the Heisman is a different way to play the old dynasty mode, but from a single players perspective. You will not be able to take part in any post season activities; instead, the game forces you to simulate through the off-season. I recommended this mode for gamers who enjoy going to the same player over and over again.

Also making its debut in this year's installment are Impact Players. Impact Players are special players that have the ability and drive to change the entire face of a game. Each school comes complete with three Impact Players; one offensive, one defensive, and one randomized player that can be either offensive or defensive. The key to successfully using your Impact Player is either getting him the ball or getting him involved in big plays. While playing you'll notice that his character has a special white indicator at his feet. The more plays you make with this character, the more the indicator will increase in size. If you keep making plays with him, he'll eventually go into the “zone," where he's capable of pulling off flashy plays and other notable feats. When you do pull off a fancy play, the game utilizes a special Impact camera to let you revel in the glory of making the opposition look a Pop-Warner team.

Another major positive is the visual improvements. If you were a big fan of last year's edition, you will notice that EA has managed to graphically overhaul the college football experience, from player models to turf textures and stadium designs. As such, the game exudes a higher degree of realism at pretty much every turn. One of the major improvements is the player tackling sequences. In previous years, defensive tackling has usually been induced by direct contact of a single opposing character. The '06 version allows for multiple player tackles that actually affect the way the ball-carrier goes down. In addition, EA has also given the ball-carrier the opportunity to manually break tackles. It's no longer the “touch him" and he's going down type of game play. By tapping on the action button, while a defensive player is making a tackle, you actually have a shot at breaking it.

A noticeable step forward, this year, is that you no longer have to pull down the passing controls to scramble. This gives the gamer more control over the QB, and allows for faster scrambling.

While the game play is highly enjoyable, it is also important to note that a lot of the more advanced players usually adjust the game play “sliders" in order to make the game play more realistic. By “sliders" I am referring to the various settings (like run or pass) that can be adjusted to make the AI of the computer players better or worse and therefore improve or weaken your ability accomplish various football actions. If you would like to learn more about “sliders" make sure to visit the forums at maddenmania.com. There are various forum threads that discuss this topic.

Moving onto the negatives, the usual suspects are rearing up their ugly heads. The stat bug is still there when in Dynasty mode. This bug makes the stats of certain computer simulated players ridiculously high. The stats end up being very unrealistic, especially for quarterbacks. Also, the infamous “Comeback AI" is back. For years NCAA and Madden video game players have complained of a subtle comeback AI that seemingly allows for the computer controlled team to make a comeback late in games by making unrealistically difficult or lucky plays or by forcing multiple fumbles in succession. If you've played an EA football game for any decent amount of time you'll know what I'm talking about.

Despite the graphical upgrades there are still some visual anomalies; players still look robotic in their animations, the players' eyes seem to have no life behind them, and the pre-game commentary character models are the old school “cheesy" type. Another negative is that EA put no effort in redoing the majority of last years post play animations. You'll see plenty of animations that were around from last year's title. This, after the initial excitement, creates a stale overall feeling.

Other negatives include slowed down game play (particularly in the PS2), and the artificial sliding of receivers and defensive backs while trying to get into position to catch the ball. The defensive hit stick is unresponsive to the point of annoyance and the AI, for the secondary, is very poor when defending passes.

I didn't really delve into the intricacies of Dynasty Mode or Create-A-Player, because it would take way to long to offer any real details. Let's just say that you can spend hours (or better yet months) building up a player from your hometown that plays for your favorite team. In addition, if you get your fill of building up your dynasty you can always head into the online gaming mode and test your skills against thousands of eager opponents of various skills. One thing worth mentioning is that a new “in-season" recruiting option has been added to the dynasty mode. This will allow you to recruit a player throughout the course of the year.

Make sure to pick up your copy of NCAA 06'. In spite of a few bugs, the game offers virtually endless amounts of fun and competition. The Xbox version is highly recommended because of the “slow down" bug that plagues the PS2.

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About Hugo Guzman

Co-founder of RealFootball365.com. Born in Argentina, of Dominican descent, living in Hoboken, but from Miami through and ...
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