NCAA Football 2005! (1 Viewer)

[WillyB]

It's almost here... WHOOOO HOOOO!

I switched to the dark side........... Once EA announce Live connection for the Xbox, I traded my Cube in for an Xbox to whoop candy asses in College ball!

Ehh I'll prolly buy another cube when RE4 and Metroid Prime Echoes comes out anyway

 

[WillyB]

no one cares???... it's freaken hopping at the ignboards.

The game shall kick ass as will I, if anyone shall cross paths with me online!

 

[Doug Miller]

Ummm.... NCAA Football 2005. Like Madden, this game gets better every year. I remember how irked I was in 2003's version that there was no Butch (the mascot at Washington State), thankfully, they fixed it in the NCAA Football 2004. I'm looking forward to the crowd having more of an impact on the game, should be a ton of fun.

I'm also really excited for Madden 2005 after hearing about the absolute slew of features.

Doug

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Yes, I'll definitely pick up XBOX Live after I pick this game up.

 

[Matt Stone]

I'm still a loser using the Cube, but I've got my copy pre-ordered. Gets better every year!

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

This game and ESPN NFL Football will be the only 2 games I buy this year probably, and I can't wait...I love this game.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

This game and ESPN NFL Football will be the only 2 games I buy this year probably, and I can't wait...I love this game.

 

[Doug Miller]

It's here! It's here! Hopefully will have a chance to sit down and play a game or two tonight.

Doug

 

[Doug Miller]

Just played my first game of the season. Some ups and downs:

UPS:
- More advanced features that add some fun. One of the things that I always thought was missing were the disciplinary needs in College football. Skipping classes, DUI, Taking money from boosters, etc. Well, I don't know what they'll have for all of their reasons, but I just suspended my starting strong safety for skipping practice to play NCAA 2005. That's pretty cool. I get the impression that if you don't suspend players, etc, that there will be NCAA sanctions. VERY COOL!
- Graphics have picked up a tad. I notice the players have expressions now that they didn't have last year.
- New animations. I was killing New Mexico, so not only was the crowd booing them (we were playing in NM,) but a few beer drinking frat (or dormies) dudes (one without a shirt on) got up and left early. Another fun feature. I'm looking forward to playing at home and seeing how the crowd interaction meter will help or hurt me.
- Interesting, but not necessarily an up. Look at the amount of advertising in the game. They have the Pontiac Game Updates, and the Old Spice player of the game. I'm sure there are more. I wonder if I didn't point it out, how many of you would have realized you were being advertised at during the game. The Sports Illustrated weekly that you can look at I always thought was really clever. It's even more clever now that it has the www.si.com listed on the bottom of the covers. Good job with cross marketing by EA.

DOWNS:
- Slower. There's more stuff on here, so the movement between screens and general scrolling down lists of the Top 25, for example, is slower. (I'm running on XBox, I can't imagine it on a PS2 which seems significantly slower. Yes, I have a PS2 also.) There were times the game play felt a little slow. I'm big on the running game, but I've been used to All American/Heisman, so starting at Varsity to get my legs back could be affecting my speed perception.
- Game play changes. This is probably a good thing, really, but the audibles have changed. In previous versions of the game, you could call an audible while getting to the line, along with changing the direction of the play. It seemed like older versions got to the line faster and already knew what they needed to do. I say this is realistically a good thing, because it always seemed like kind of a cheat to be able to call an audible and direction change when your players weren't even at the line.
- Graphics. I went from a 32in to a 42in Widescreen. I feel like the game feels a little smaller. I don't know if I just need to adjust the camera view or what, but I had to squint a time or two. (It could also be that I've been playing MVP Baseball for the last few months, which is much bigger). The other thing is that this is 480P -- it's not NEAR as smooth or as crisp as MVP. In defense of NCAA though, there is a LOT more going on with the number of players and side animations.

Overall, I'm looking forward to getting into the game more (no pun intended). They've expanded the player mode, you can pick on crap players on the other team. I haven't had a chance to play with that too much yet, I just wanted to play NOW! No XBox live for me, so I'll be curious what others have to say about it. Honestly though, I don't have the time to play online, so I don't think it will make much difference to me.

Doug

 

[Michael Pakula]

This is one great game but for some reason I can't find any of the Ivy League schools on the game. Isn't the game sopposed to have all the Division 1 schools on here?. I would love to play Yale but Im having a hard time finding it on the list. There is only like 20 or 30 schools on there. I mean ESPN College Hoops has alot more schools than that so whats the deal with NCAA Football 2005?. If anyone knows how I can access more teams than please let me know. I love the game otherwise and is also fun playing online.

-Mike

 

[Galen_V]

Michael-they're under D1 AA.

 

[Carlo_M]

Ivy Leagues were in last year's game, but I haven't looked for them in 2005.

Yes it is slower, and a lot of the plays have changed, but I think 2005 can be considered a "generational" leap and not an incremental leap, as has been the case for the last few revisions of NCAA football.

The lag can still be felt especially online, but it's not that bad. Does take a while longer to complete games, even in single player mode. And the kicking meter is killing me.

 

[RudyN]

Xbox users can find rosters with all the D1 A teams named at

http://forums.operationsports.com/ub...5&o=31&fpart=1

I think you have to be a member to view the forums.

 

[Alan Erceg]

I love this game...

Amazing game...Love the dynasty mode..just finished my first year with Pitt, and I won the National Title, but had many close games along the way which I never had last year.

Love the new Recruiting style, and the HFA.

With this to keep my busy, and ESPN coming out next week, and then Madden...its gonna be a fun year for sports gamers..

 

[Doug Miller]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who hate's the kicking meter. I don't know if it's the different color, or what, but that meter is hard for me to see.

I like how the screen shakes when the "Stadium Pulse" is high.

Doug

 

[Matt Stone]

That is pretty kewl. The kicking meter was bugging me at first, but after a season and a half, I'm more used to it. I really like the recruiting style. Much more in depth.

 

[Doug Miller]

Yeah, I've read that it takes different recruiting points by state -- that is really awesome. I know that recruiting for last years version was almost too easy. I was able to recruit some high level recruits by constantly targeting any "5 star" player that was interested in my school, shifting to any "5 star" player in my state even if not interested, then going from there. Back to back to back championships.

With the baby, I only average a game a day at most.

Go Cougs!

Doug

 

[RudyN]

I'm having lots of fun playing this game. For some reason, I couldn't get into the 2004 version, but something about 2005 has sucked me in. Haven't touched Dynasty mode yet, just playing exhibition to get the feel for the game.

 

[Carlo_M]

Doug, I thought 2004 also had different recruiting points by state? I seem to remember that all of my California targets usually took 8 points (for the head coach), while out of state targets could take up to 60 points to recruit. Also, 2004 had the first time you could spend recruiting points to talk your kids into staying for a third or fourth year instead of bolting for the NFL.

I'm only 4 games into my dynasty so I won't see the differences in recruiting for 2005 until at least a couple of weeks.

 

[Carlo_M]

PS - if anyone is interested in playing some friendly online matches sometime, please post in my thread in the Online Schedule sub-forum:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...hreadid=205185