NCAA Football 2005

"NCAA 2005 perfectly captures the feel and atmosphere of college football...too bad the gameplay isn't up to par with the presentation."

College Football. Either you swear by it, or you can't stand it. As one of the former, you can imagine my squeals of delight when I first opened NCAA 2005. Everything for the college football aficionado is here: College classics, such as Doug Flutie's impossible Hail Mary, or a Cal-Stanford matchup with an improbable marching band interlude, mascot team games, where you play as a team made entirely of its mascot, and a dynasty mode, where you can lead your favorite team, your former college, or even a created college to football greatness. This variety in gameplay modes leads to a highly extended length of replay value. The sheer amount of teams available is bewildering as well. From the NCAA juggernauts, like LSU and UF, to small, no-name schools where you'd be pressed to find 200 fans, the teams are plentiful and diverse.

In the presentation department, NCAA 2005 manages to perfectly encapsulate the excitement, atmosphere, and general feel of college football. The highly touted feature introduced this year is Home Field Advantage, in which your home crowd's noise can rattle opposing players out of their game. The effect changes from stadium to stadium; Play an away game at ECU, and you'll have to strain your ears to hear a few fans even on huge plays. Play an away game at The Swamp, and your players will quickly lose composure, and simply hiking the ball will be a battle with the noise. On a similar thread, the Matchup Stick is another new feature of NCAA 2005. By moving the right stick up, down, left, or right, you can check the matchups of the O-Line with the D-Line, the wide receivers and tight ends with the corners, and the linebackers with the quarterback and the rest of the backfield. This is a great feature that leads to a chess-game like mentality during a play. By looking for various mismatches, you'll have an easier time by using a composed defensive lineman against a rattled offensive lineman, or by throwing to a composed wide receiver matched up against a worried cornerback.

On the topic of the passing game, NCAA undoubtedly features one of the worst passing engines in recent football history. Ask anyone about the passing game, and you will generally hear the same two words over and over: dropped balls. Never, in any football game, have I seen so many balls dropped by wide open receivers, even if they are matched up against the weakest of defenders. Defensive corners also make impossible reads on some passes. A receiver can be in 1-on-1 coverage downfield, but the corners react so inhumanly quick to the ball that by the time it gets there, the receiver has been swarmed by 3 or 4 defenders. This leads to some controller-breakingly frustrating events, since you'll struggle to maintain a 50% completion percentage against even the worst of teams.

The graphical department is average, at best. The visuals have not changed considerably since last year, which is sad, since the Madden games are constantly being upgraded graphically. The commentary is fluid and enthusiastic, but the comments get repetitive fast. After only 4 or 5 games, you'll probably know all of Corso's banter by heart. The play-by-play is excellent, though. Every sentence sounds smooth so instead of hearing "It's...Number 4.... he breaks free for...4...yards," you will hear a much more lifelike observation of the play.

It's sad that a single, yet major, flaw can reduce an otherwise awesome game to simply being good. EA has managed to nail down the ambiance of the NCAA part - they just need to nail down the football portion.

Overall: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/05