NCAA Football 2007 Review
Played on:
Xbox 360
February marks the end of the year for football fans. The college bowl games happened the month before and both the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl are done. Sure, there’s the Draft in April, but that is only two days and there isn’t an actual game going on.
Football fans that play video games, however, get an early start to their season. Each year, the NCAA Football game comes out in July and the Madden game in August. Play the NCAA game for awhile, work up some draft classes, then import them into Madden when it comes out – a string of events most football gamers have experience with.
This year, though, is different – football gamers now have a new choice tossed into the mix with a large variety of differences. NCAA 2007 on the XBOX 360 is a vastly different game than it is on the consoles. In addition, buying the 360 version necessitates the purchase of Madden on the 360 instead of a version on an older console. So, when you buy NCAA 2007 for the 360, you’re putting your eggs into the Madden 360 camp too. The big question is, then – is NCAA 2007 on the 360 worth it?
NCAA 2007’s first trip into the wild world of the next generation is definitely pretty. Players look great, stadiums are downright incredible and helmets reflect light, the crowd, other players – anything they’d actually reflect in real life is reflected in the game. Just watch some time as the helmets reflect the players in the crowd or the guy standing right beside you. Also, the stadiums and areas around them are modeled excellently – I’ve been to and seen UNC’s campus and the stadium/surrounding areas and can confirm that EA did an excellent job of modeling Kenan Stadium. I can’t say for sure how accurate the other stadiums are, but EA has said multiple times that they’ve studied them all in depth and went for accuracy here.
Animations have also been given a chance to expand with the move to a next-gen system. Gone are the days of playing a game and seeing most of the tackling and catching animations – I’ve played quite a few games and still manage to see new ones. You’ll really feel the hit when your quarterback is hit hard for a sack and be amazed as your running back struggles for those few inches and shakes the defender. Even with all of these graphical touches and animation improvements, the game doesn’t run any slower than it did in the past. Sure, the fly-overs when showing off the stadium can be a bit choppy but they aren’t all that bad – what do you expect when you’re flying over a place as huge as Texas’ stadium, anyways?
Other than the graphics, though, there is little new here to be had and nothing that really screams out next-gen to me. Sure, the kicking is different and the game plays more like Madden 2006 (x360 version) than any other NCAA 2006 game, but the rest of the differences are very small tweaks or, in some cases, steps back from what has been seen before.
First of all, I’ll go over the changes. Outside of graphics, the most noticeable change is the kicking. What, not the highly-touted momentum feature that has little gameplay impact? Nope, the kicking is the biggest difference. In what seems to be a trend for EA, kicking is completely accomplished with the right thumbstick, much like your swing in MVP NCAA Baseball 2006 or in Tiger Woods 2006. Thankfully, the motion actually feels pretty natural and makes kicking easier than it was before.
There’ve also been some features carried over from the Madden series. The controls are the big one – they’re identical to Madden 2006 on the 360 with the addition of a Pitch and a Fake Pitch button. This is one thing I really welcomed – I don’t have to learn two different control schemes each year now and don’t have to get out of the habit of sprinting with one button then switching to another. The hit stick and truck stick also work better now, thanks to improvements made in the Madden series on both consoles.
Of course, there is a lot missing from NCAA 2007 on the 360. The biggest, and most glaring omission has to be the lack of a Campus Legend/Race for the Heisman mode. Introduced in NCAA 2006, Race for the Heisman gave players the chance to follow their created player through his four-year college career. Now, while you’d normally take care of the whole team – coaching, recruiting and such – you didn’t do that here. While you still had basic coaching options along the lines of setting lineups and choosing plays, the main focus was on your player. The end goal was to win the Heisman trophy and get drafted in as high of a round as possible. After finishing, you could either go on and coach in the college level or enter the Draft for Madden 2006. In all, the mode was really neat.
In NCAA 2007 on the current-gen systems, the mode has changed to Campus Legend mode. The goal is no longer set solely on winning the Heisman – now you have to manage your grades by ‘studying’ during the week, attend parties and practice your game all while still keeping up your on-field performance. So, when I heard and saw that NCAA 2007 on the XBOX 360 didn’t include this re-tooled Race for the Heisman mode, I was shocked. Why was this mode missing when it was being developed alongside the new game for the 360?
Without any sort of continual-play mode beyond a very basic 60-year Dynasty, the game really falls flat. No create-a-modes are available, there’s no getting on the cover of ESPN magazine (like the SI magazine covers of the past) and nothing really to make the game worth playing continually. In the absence of all of these game modes, we get a whopping three mini-games – Bowling, Tug-of-War and Option Dash. None of them really stand out save for Option Dash – it at least gives you a chance to practice some real situations you might run into. The others are just straight up mini games adapted to a football field.
In the end, NCAA Football 2007 on the 360 is merely a shell of what it could have been. The graphics, animations and overall presentation are excellent – I truly felt as if I was watching a television broadcast. But, with so much missing from the game that is there on consoles, I found myself highly disappointed. Sure, there’s multiplayer, but I can get that with the NCAA games on the current-gen systems.
So, to answer the question I posed at the beginning of the review – is it worth it? I’d have to come down and say no. If you’re dead-set on getting draft classes for Madden 07 on the 360, go rent the game and play it for a weekend. Admire the pretty graphics and have fun with the gameplay that doesn’t amount to much more than a 60 dollar tech demo – it is still worth a rental just to see what could have been. Hopefully, EA gets it right next year and doesn’t continue to skimp on the next gen systems.
