The new college try.
With blogging prognosticators constantly obsessing over the next-gen race, it’s easy to get blinded by the hype and lose sight of what’s true
right now. And the truth is that we periodically love our Xbox 360s, having enjoyed killing crazy hobos in
Condemned, beating each others’ brains out in
Fight Night Round 3, and watching the sun rise with a copy of
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. No matter what happens with the PS3 and Wii, we’re glad we’ve got a 360 to cuddle with during these warm summer nights.
Having said that, no relationship is perfect, and there are a few things we don’t discuss with our off-white boxes. Foremost on that list is football, because like our real fake girlfriends, the 360 just doesn’t get it. Since EA rules the field with a gridiron fist, Xbox 360 owners are now faced with two mediocre football titles from the same company.
Just like
Madden 06 before it, the next-gen
NCAA Football 07 is a stripped-down, roughed-up version of the current-gen package. Gone is Campus Legend mode, gone are the 16 mini-games that constituted the position drills, and gone is the stadium noise factor and player morale. So what’s the trade off? Three disembodied football mini-games, marginally snazzier graphics and a steeper price tag. That’s a hell of a substitution.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. The new momentum system made its way into the next-gen version, as did most of the best play mechanics from last year’s game, making this the best football game for the 360. Out of two.
Your play options are sparse, including Exhibition games, Dynasty and Online play. The Dynasty is just as robust as it was in last year’s game, although this year’s current-gen feature includes the new Spring Scrimmage feature, which is missing here. That’s kind of like losing your second string punter, though, and otherwise the Dynasty content is great. Just like last year, you’ll have recruits come to your school on big days and hopefully tar and feather an important rival right before their very eyes.
The online play works well on the 360, except for the fact that you can’t play any of the three new mini-games. Still, matches are easy to get into, run smoothly, and are all tracked by a ranking system for extra bragging rights. Then again, if you paid sixty bucks for an inferior football game, your bragging rights should probably be suspended.
Even inferior teams occasionally win (last year UC Davis beat Stanford), and NCAA Football 07 is no exception. A new “Jump the Snap” feature lets you anticipate snaps and try to spring past offensive linemen, adding zest to the normally boring defense. While the system doesn’t seem to work as well as it does in the other console versions, it’s still an interesting addition.
So is the Momentum system. As you make big plays on offense and defense, you gain momentum and steal it from your opponent. If you fill your momentum meter, all of your players will become stronger, faster and harder to stop. Sometimes this simply leads to blowouts, as one team gains momentum and never lets it go, but it can also lead to incredible comebacks and tense finishes. Yet again, EA has figured out a way to realistically add an intangible but important factor to their college football game, even if they made it a silly meter.
They also added some snazzy next-generation graphics, although these don’t always fit. In rare cases, a play will look perfect. The quarterback throws, the receiver catches, the defender levels him, and another guy jumps over the fallen players; it’s like playing television.
Although it can also be like playing Tivo. Usually, each play contains a grain of error that scratches the lens of realism, reminding you that EA doesn’t quite have this next-gen thing figured out. The framerate gets a little jumpy, for starters, and the animations are prone to bouts of total insanity as players slide across the field or miraculously catch passes thrown four yards behind them.
This all boils down to the fact that NCAA Football 07 uses roughly the same physics model seen in NCAA Football 2002; that is to say, it doesn’t use one. Players lack mass, and tackles are based entirely on funky animation sequences, not physical rules sets. Why? This is supposed to be the next generation, but it’s still a step behind the last generation.
Then again, considering EA’s limited success with a simple graphical upgrade, asking for a new physics model is probably a little unrealistic. Like Terrell Owens,
NCAA Football 07 looks great when the ball is in play, but gets a little nasty when the whistle blows, especially during stadium shots. The stadiums themselves are extremely aliased, like they were constructed from handsaws, and the way the camera pans, well, we aren’t sure if it’s the constant flicker of the stadium edges or a low framerate, but the motion feels rough. If there’s a digital version of sand paper, EA needs to buy some.
The announcing team of Lee Corso, Brad Nessler and Kirk Herbstreit makes it to the 360 intact and is no better or worse than it has been for the last eon. Neither are the fight songs that provide NCAA Football 07’s soundtrack, but that’s a good thing; those have always been well-suited to college football games and always will be.
Hopefully, the same will go for the Xbox 360, though the season is off to a bit of a rocky start. If you foolishly cut your regular Xbox from your living room lineup, this game will do; it’s better than Madden, anyway. But this is still the least impressive NCAA Football game to date, and a rare fumble from EA’s dominant team.
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