NCAA Football 07

"It Wasn't Really Broken..."

There's an old saying: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's one of those sayings that can be translated to every part of life, from stuff that can be physically fixed to emotional and social stuff. In the gaming world, though, it means "if a feature or a camera angle or anything like that works, then keep it the way it is. And please, for the love of God, don't make any changes to it unless you are positive they need to be made or will enhance the game!" (Of course, I'm paraphrasing). Unfortunately, EA Sports must not have heard about that, because almost everything new in NCAA doesn't work.

I won't mention the graphics. If this is your first NCAA game from EA, you will like what you see. They're basically Madden-lite, and really that is what they are supposed to be. If you're a veteran of the EA NCAA scene, then you know exactly what you are getting into, graphic wise, when you play. They haven't made any drastic changes to the graphics in the past, so why start with possibly the last version of the game on this generation of consoles?

What I will address, though, is the new camera. Depending on who you are, you will love it or hate it. For some reason, EA thought a third person camera for kick returns, kicking, and punt returns would be a good idea, good enough to make it nearly impossible to change it (it is optional for pre-punts on defense). For people who may not play physical sports, this is as close to playing real football as you will get, as the camera keeps you focused on what is ahead. However, for anyone who could easily go out and start up a small game of pigskin, this feature will most likely be an annoyance. Also, the third person camera makes for absolutely horrid kicking...

Which leads us to feature number 2 on the hit or miss changes: kicking. Was there really that big of an outcry where kicking needed to be made more difficult? I understand the big thing now is using the analog sticks to cause actions, but for football gamers who have basically grown up using the "Tap button to increase power and accuracy" type of kicking, this is completely unnecessary, and, with the play clock on, will often result in delay of games. That's not to mention what I said above, where the third person camera ruins kicking. It is unnecessarily difficult to adjust the kick's height and angle, since you are basically looking over the kicker's shoulder while making the adjustment. This is not defendable in the least, as in real football, a kicker isn't going to be spending 20 seconds trying to find out where the red arrow is pointing for his kicking trajectory.

Campus Legend is another new thing, though not quite. It basically exists as a supplement to Madden's new Superstar mode (which looks really good with the whole "play as just your guy" thing), so it is exactly like Heisman from last year. Except this time, your goal is to become a Hall of Famer at your school, meaning you have to keep up the grades and the social appearances. This is all well and good, except the academics are sketchy. I've gone through three guys and, regardless of how I do tutoring, their GPA changes randomly, sometimes resulting in Academic Suspension (which is even more annoying, since Tutoring is supposed to increase your GPA, and the only two guys who got suspended that I used aced their numerous tutoring sessions).

Random points: The sound is decent. Announcing is above average, while the soundtrack will be another hit or miss depending on your views (purists will love the School Theme-only soundtrack, while more contemporary gamers will hate the removal of EA Trax, which, in all honesty, wasn't that bad for last year's model). The game has, appropriately, a fluctuating challenge level, regardless of difficulty (top teams are always hard to beat as a 1-AA school). And it looks like EA is going to start using their ESPN ties, which is always a good thing.

This is a game to rent, play through on Campus Legend and Dynasty, and get whatever players you need out of it for Madden. Buying it is just not recommendable.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/06