Customer Reviews

NCAA Football 2005

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As I said in the title, this is not a review. I just want to save like-minded people some time, and summarize what makes 2005 different from the 2004 title. While this isn't platform specific, the biggest upgrade this year is for the Xbox, as EA and Microsoft have finally settled, and online play has finally arrived via XBLive. I'd like to not assign stars at all, but Amazon doesn't allow for pre-release non-reviews. So I'm assigning 5 stars based on NCAA 2004, and the promise of the following new features.

That aside (despite it being a huge issue), the following changes come directly from EA Sports announcements. What follows is verifiable on their website or with a few well-placed Google searches. I present it for convenience. These 'pre-release reviews' that always pop up for titles might as well serve a real purpose, besides of course the all-important "tHIs gAme iS dEFiNaTEly (sic) gOInG tO RAwK!!!" proclamations. But I digress, the summary follows, I intend to keep my personal commentary to an absolute minimum;

GENERAL GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS:
- Big hits: The option to take a chance on really plastering another player. Increases the chance of a fumble or dropped pass, but also the chance of you whiffing on the tackle.
- Improved run blocking and new run animations: No more getting stuck against or behind your own linemen. Good offensive lines now open better holes and routes.
- Home Field Advantage: The bigger the stadium, the louder the crowd, the greater the impact. Pumping up the crowd carries more meaning and response. Visiting teams have to fight an uphill battle against the environment, based upon the strength of the home team's stadium and crowd.
- Interactive Timeouts: You're now given a choice on which group to coach, it can directly address ratings and composure levels depending on those of your team captains. You can now "ice the kicker" with timeouts, as composure is an issue for all players.
- Match-Up Stick: Player ratings (in game) can now change based upon the individual's ability to handle pressure. You can now check composure and mismatches pre-snap.
- Custom fans: Set up your own 'crazed' fans with a variety of options, accessories, appearances, etc. To add to the college gameday atmosphere, and...
- Custom celebrations: Choose to play a mascot, fan or player animation, decide between mild and extreme.
- More "user" stats: User pick tracking was well received, now more stats are tracked in this form in your record book.

DYNASTY MODE IMPROVEMENTS:
- Roster expansion to 70 (according to the producer, although 75 has been reported elsewhere). It's been down at 55 for years, which has been a source of frustration for those who enjoy dynasty mode.
- Top 25 Stadiums tracking: In dynasty mode, you can build home field advantage where there was little or none before, the top 25 places to play are tracked.
- Team Captains: As part of a deeply enhanced dynasty mode, you can now name captains.
- Program integrity: Dynasty depth - keep tabs on your players, you can now suffer academic issues and/or team rule violations. You choose how to discipline, and you can now actually lose scholarships, television exposure, and post-season play if you don't run a clean program. It also speaks to;
- Player transfers: You can now lose athletes to transfers if they're unhappy, and feel like they should be seeing the field more. You can also have players from other programs request a transfer in if you're not deep at their position.
- Recruiting pipelines: You can now build your presence outside of your immediate geographic region.
- Improved scouting: You can now unlock prospect attributes without offering a scholarship first.
- Better defined offensive/defensive coaching strategies: Speaks to play-calling, simulation and recruiting.
- Accurate conference schedule rotation.
- Athletes: You can now recruit a kid just for his athletic ability, and define or switch his position on the roster later. If you have a QB who would make a better FS or WR, you can switch him, and he will progress according to his new position, not the old.
- More/improved Sports Illustrated stories, magazine covers and insight throughout the season.
- More trophies. Added support for the Rimington and Doak Walker. 28 bowl trophies, 49 rivalry trophies.
- All-Conference teams. To supplement 1st and 2nd team All-American tracking.

ONLINE PLAY IMPROVEMENTS:
- Opponent scouting: They've added a new scouting report that allows you to check any player's (online) tendencies. You can look at their favorite playbook and formation, as well as look at how much they no-huddle, call hot routes, and audible. It's meant to try and cut down on the number of games wasted to opposition that cheats or otherwise plays in a manner you're not interested in.
- Quick tournaments: 4 or 8 player tournaments built right into the online system.
- Even team mode: An option that will allow an even playing field, regardless of the `real world' strengths and weaknesses of two programs/teams.
- Improved leaderboards.
- Minigames.

That's all I've come across so far, but it's a factual aggregation of information, all directly from the source. Either Electronic Arts, and/or Rod Moye the producer via an interview on EASports. None of this comes through third parties, or speculation. Given that, this looks to be one of the biggest leaps forward this franchise has enjoyed in some time. Particularly for Xbox fans as they finally get online play, but really for everyone. But enough, I now return you to your regularly scheduled, "tHiS gAMe iz dA bOMb!" 'reviews'.

I just bought NCCA Football and I've played it for a few hours, and all I can say is..WOW!!! This has to be the not only one of the best sports games available, but one of the best GC titles. EA has really gone all out to make NCCA 2005 the most realistic college game yet...and they have succeded. First off, the graphics are stunning. A lot of people claim the Gamecube can't produce good textures of player models, but those people should take one look at this game. The lighting effects are the most realistic of any game available, and sutble touches, like grass stains on jerseys and how the crowd looks and acts really look great. The sound is top notch too. The crowd is almost deafning at the home team's field, and the announce team and marching bands are vastly improved over last year's version. But, all that's just gravy on what is seriously, the most deep, challenging, and fun games on the market.

First off, the new "Match Up" stick is a welcome additon. Now, you can pinpoint which DB is nervous or rattled and exploit that for a big gain. But you also have to be smart about this and not rely on the Match Up stick on every down. If you do, you'll force balls into coverage and, on defense, blow the coverage and give up a big play. Speaking of defense, NCCA 2005 includes the "Hit Stick" that Madden 2005 will include. With a flick of the C stick, you can unleash a devestating hit on the running back or reciever and maybe cause a fumble. Watch out though, if you miss, you'll end up face down on the grass. The new "Stadium Pulse" is cool too. Now if you're the home team, you can pump up the crowd on key plays and cause the vistiting team's offense to flunk an aduible. You can also do this while a kicker is getting ready to make a clutch kick. The dynasty mode is the deepest and best of any sports game. You can now suspend and discipline players that are acting up off the field. You can also recruit non football athletes and deal with players who want to transfer. This is awesome for football fanatics, but it may scare off casual gamers. Finally, one of my biggest problems with NCCA 2004 was that your recievers could never catch the damn ball! Whether it was a floater or a bullet pass, they always dropped it!. In 2005, it's a lot easier to complete passes and take pressure of the running game(which benifits from the "Agile Running" system in 2005)

So in conslusion, if you enjoy any kind of football, BUY THIS GAME!! The only way you'll stop playing it is when NCCA Football 2006 is released.

Still the greatest, if football ever took a year off it would survive...just televise madden and ncaa football and the general public couldnt tell the difference.

Passing-Still could tweak the backfield dumps for broken plays,
backs are clumsy and screens have to get better its a staple of college football. Overall passing did improve with some AI for help w/beginners but once your accustom...its on.

Rushing-Still the best, added features like rattled backers make for crushing hits when your running with a high powered backfield
ie Georgia/LSU/Auburn. If you like speedy breakaways then the new feature of agile running is like driving a nimble porsche compared to the Caddilac style of 2004's version. All in all Im impressed.

D-fense
This is an ever growing part of sports video games and this game pretty much locked it down. Players are very smarter,faster and lay hits that look so realistic you need to sit in the hot tub after laying down the controls. The use of Homefield advantage is worth the price of admission. This feature is the very reason why this game should very well rival game sales between madden and absolutley smother any other college game out there.
Take my word for it, play one game at Sanford Stadium and you'll see why this is exciting.(If you have HD you are extremly lucky)

Please,please,please dont buy any other game if are a strict college f-ball fan. Game is great keep up the good work EA.

I just finished playing my first dynasty season in NCAA Football 2005 on the GameCube and I was pleased with game. I'm not going to go over the details of all new features, but give you my impression of the game compared to last year.

First, the graphics are pretty much the same. They have more detail in the crowd, but the players don't look anymore realistic than they did last year. This is mostly a limitation of being a console game. If they'd release this on the PC, I'm sure the graphics would be amazing (hint, hint EA). Apart from the players, the rest of the graphics look more polished than they did last year.

The new gameplay features are interesting, but I really don't think they make much of a difference in the game. The home field advantage is nice, but it didn't seem to affect my team, positively or negatively.

The matchup stick is an interesting feature, but I don't know that it belongs in the game. It is great to see what DBs are worn out or lacking confidence, but isn't that cheating? I don't get to see what play they called, so why should I get to see how a player is doing other than by observing their performance? I used the matchup stick a lot at first, but I lost interest in as the season played out.

They did make some improvements to the passing game, but the game still features rushing more.

The voiceovers are the same as last year (and the year before). It would be nice if they changed some every year.

One thing they didn't do was fix the bugs from previous seasons. There is a bug where if you gain too many yards in a season, it turns it into a negative number. One of my receivers/returners had almost 2000 punt return yards. On the last game of the regular season he went over 2000 yards. When I looked at his season stats it said he had -2090 yards. He went from being first in the Heisman race to being 4th because he lost all those return yards. This bug has been in every version of NCAA Football and it needs to be fixed.

In spite of the lack of progress and bugs, I love this game and I will probably play 10 dynasty season this fall and winter, but I am a little disappointed that there aren't better improvements and new features.

With one evening of playing under my belt, I can only say "wow". Simply stated, the changes made in 2005 are far more numerous and impressive than the changes between 2003 and 2004.
Graphics are noticeably better. You can see the footwork a running back uses to avoid the arms of defenders on the ground or diving at them. Twisting tackles. More passes batted in the air. The folks at EA keep getting closer and closer to the real thing.
The home-field advantage is impressive. The crowd reacts very realistically. They are going nuts after a big play, while the volume is much lower after the other team hits you with a big gain. The added celebrations (with the mascot and crowd getting into the act) are a nice touch. After all, college football is about emotion.
A lot has been made about the match-up stick - which is a welcome addition. But after just a little playing, I'll also give a warning. It's great to know that your receiver is better than the guy across the line, but that doesn't matter much if he's not open - especially against zone coverage. I found myself relying too much on the match-up stick and forcing the ball into coverage just to try to get the ball to the hot receiver.
Another new, realistic twist - I started a dynasty and before my first game, I had to suspend my fullback (a position where I have NO depth) for academic reasons. Oh, the joys of being a head coach.
Recruiting looks a little different as well (although I haven't spend much time with it yet). You can have players transfer to or from your school in the off-season. Also, you must choose to spend your "points" on a mixture of recruiting, training and discipline. Instead of being limited to visits and/or phone calls from the head coach or assistant coaches, you have a larger number of gradients. You can spend just a little on a so-so player or devote a huge portion of your recruiting points to that one blue-chipper your dying for.
Wait a minute. Why are you still reading this...? Just go out and buy it. You'll be glad you did.

This is the best game on the NGC. nothing can possibly be better than playing the all new Home-field-feature. Just imagine if you were Utah Utes, and had to play on BYU's home turf against BYU. BYU is winning 35 - 31, and It's the 4th Quarter with time ticking down. It's 3rd down, and The Utes have the ball at BYU's twenty yard line, with 20 sec left in the game, and no TIMEOUTS. The Utes hike the ball, the QB looks around... BUT WAIT, a BYU PLAYER CAME AROUND THE CORNER AND SACKED THE UTES QB! THE CROWD goes absolutly insane! The Utes have to hurry and line back up and call an Audible. Time is ticking, 10, 9, 8,.... The crowds cheering makes it hard for the Ute's Wide Recievers to hear anything. The Ute's QB gets frustraded, and just decides to call hike. The RATTLED QB throwes it up.... and BYU was able to pick it away for an interception. BYU wins 35-31.

Now imagine if that was your favorite team playing your arch-rival. I could only imaagine how cool that would be! This game deserves to be played by everyone. COLLEGE FOOTBALL RULES! GO BYU!

This game is great. I just got it yesterday and I cant quit playing it. The best new thing might be the stadium pulse where u can make the fans scream louder and make it harder for the other team to hear or concentrate on running the play right. The "superhit" feature is awsome too, u can jack people really hard and injure them. just go out and spend the money it is defiently worth it

First of all, let me say this is by far the best game in the series. I have been a huge NCAA fan since playing 2002 and I have every game since then.
Gameplay- The biggest and best thing this game has added is the stadium pulse. On defence you can pump up the crowd and it rattles the offence and makes it difficult to audible. You can now notice a difference in the atmosphere between the Swamp and Alcorn State's stadium.(sorry Alcorn State fans) Between plays they now show the fans celebrate, dance, hold up signs, and do stuff like Hook em and the gator chomp. Toward the end of the game, if the home team is getting blown out, it will show them leaving. Some other great features are the match up stick and the big hit option. The match up stick lets you see how good the players are and if they are rattled or not. The big hit stick lets you lay a huge hit on the poor reciever or running back. The hits are fun to watch and to hear the crowd reaction, but it is really hard to time it right and you wind up missing a lot of the time. EA sports has also added improved user-controlled celebrations. Now you can choose to make the fans, your mascot/cheerleaders, or the player to celebrate after a big play-not just a TD like last year. I was playin the Georgia-Florida game and as my UGA bulldog caught a TD pass as time expired, he did the gator chomp to taunt the UF fans.
dynasty- This is the part of the game that is the best. You control a couch and you can go from team to team trying to win a national title or you can stay with 1 team for up to 30 years(I'm currently on my third). You recruit high school players and you can even make your own recruits. You make shedules, redshirt players, name captians, and read the weekly eddition of Sports Illustrated. This year your players can break the law, flunk out of school and do other things to get suspended. As the coach, you controll the punishment, but don't let your players off too much or you could get probation. Dynasty is the part of the game that makes it the best football game in history.

This is the best game I have played on GC. It has great replay value and makes a daily trip to my GC. If you have any questions about buying the game, just go buy it.

p.s.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DAWGS SIC EM WOOF WOOF WOOF :)

This is one of my favorite football games period. It's simple and fun, the way a football game should be, while still maintaining some of the more advanced aspects of college football if you want to be involved with them, such as recruiting and managing rosters.

I played the you know what out of NCAA 2004, best football simulation I've ever played. Skipped 05 at first for Madden, which I initially thought was a mistake as I was not all that much impressed with Madden's very limited gameplay. I just can't stand football games where you cannot juke a tackle and in Madden 05's case, someone being way too open over the middle way too often. But as soon as I learned that NCAA 06 was not coming out for gamecube, i went ahead and got 05 on ebay figuring it was its last stand for gamecube. NCAA 05 has a major problem with passing more than anything else, especially after the loose and fun gameplay of 04 I had enjoyed. Way too hard to complete a pass on this game takes alot of fun out of it its that simple. Another problem I had was the look of this one compared with 04. The colors were not as vibrant taking a turn towards the pastel hue, not good. The overall player graphics were worse in every way. When the games are played at dusk, its as if there is a fog in the air, less care takin in cleaning up the graphics obviously. The crowd thing is pretty cool I guess if you're a fan of earthquakes hitting while you try to hike the ball. The "hardest places to play" thing is worthless and the rankings of these stadiums don't make sense to a real college football knowledgable mind. The hit stick worked better on Madden seems to me. The only good thing to come out of this game seems to be the matchup stick. Of course this was the only way to pass - look for the mismatch and hope your reciever isnt magically blanketed by some db from ball state. I mean some of the games I was playing in the NCAA 05 season were absurd. I had USC who obviously in 05 were probably the best team to ever play college ball, and crap teams were batting down leinart's balls like they were nothing. Atleast in 04 you could expect to realistically smack around those early season foes. I was saddened to see in my opinion the best football franchise ever finally get tinkered with in the wrong way. RIP NCAA Football. You deserved more than whoever programmed this crap as your swan song.