NCAA Football 2003

Other products by Electronic Arts, Inc.

Product Features

• The College Game: Feel all the pageantry with over 200 fight songs, 3D cheerleaders, and 144 Division I-A and I-AA schools.
• My Favorite Team: Personalize the game interface based on your team's fight song, mascot, logos, and school colors.
• Build A Dynasty: Create your own school and schedule, recruit star athletes, and redshirt developing players to build a national powerhouse.
• Rivalry Mode: Beat your school's archrival and win one of 23 covted trophies.
• Trophy Room: Display over 100 total trophies including conference championships and individual player awards such as the Heisman Memorial Trophy.

Product Details

• ASIN: B000068NM5
• Item Weight: 5.9 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,944 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Football junkies have long been accustomed to loving gridiron video games while tolerating their weaknesses. We appreciate the fact that developers try to incorporate genuine college or pro atmospheres into the games, but it drives us nuts when the fight songs are incorrect, the out patterns are automatic, or the running game is unrealistically easy or hard.

But then along comes NCAA Football 2003 by EA Sports, a game so good that after a few weeks, even your dog will wonder why you never find the time to communicate anymore. Start with the AI--by far the best yet in a college game. Defenses not only react to your play calling and adjust their strategies as the game evolves, but they expertly disguise their coverages and swarm to the ball with speed and decisiveness. In addition, your computer opponent actually makes intelligent clock decisions when time is running out (shocking!). The running game at times is a bit easy on the lower difficulty levels (especially if a back like Oregon's Onterrio Smith has the ball), but that's why they made All- American and Heisman levels.

The graphics, as is typical in football video games over the last couple of years, are extremely good, and the between-play animations provide extra spark to the rivalries (taunting runs rampant). But the graphics aren't the star of the show--it's the dynasty mode, stupid. With enough special features and stat categories to keep college football hopheads happy for months--including a comprehensive recruiting engine, a customizable intro screen that features your favorite school's colors and fight song, and a Trophy Room that displays all your bowl and rivalry game hardware--NCAA Football 2003 just might make fans forget the depressing length of the offseason. --Rivers Janssen

Pros:

• Terrific AI
• Fans of almost any Division I program will be happy with the team-specific features
• Passing engine actually requires you to read defenses intelligently

Cons:

• Commentary is a bit predictable

(This review refers to the PlayStation2 version of the game)

Product Description

NCAA Football 2003 Play as your favorite NCAA college football teams. Take your favorite school to the National Title.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most complete football game ever., August 5, 2002

By	Mikey (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

EA Sports pleased a lot of college football fans by deciding to release NCAA 2003 on all 3 platforms this year. Gamers who played both NCAA 2002 and Madden 2002 may remember that although both games use the same engine, NCAA's gameplay was more attuned to the offense-oriented play found in college football while Madden seemed faster and played more defensively. While both games were the best playing football games to date, there were still issues with "money" plays and unrealistic running games (in Madden, running to the outside was much easier than running inside which is not what you'd expect because of the speed of the pursuit defenders in the NFL). You could fiddle around with the AI sliders to tune the gameplay but it was often a laborious process and often frustrating because everyone played with different sliders.

Although NCAA 2003's gameplay is eerily familiar, I decided to purchase it because of it plays so beautifully out of the box. One thing that I noticed right away is the ability to break long runs up the middle (I play on All-American mode). This was sorely missing in the previous EA Football titles. Running plays outside are no longer sure 10 yard gains. The passing defense AI has been much improved to increase the number of interceptions (the defender will catch a majority of balls that come right to him whereas last year's version made every secondary defender look like Rickey Dudley).

As far as the features go, NCAA is basically building on what they know works. The Dynasty mode is terrific as you can take over a team, compete in BCS rankings and even recruit players during offseason. There is also the new Mascot game and the Rivarly game. I'm not big on features but the gameplay definitely hooks you in and the features make you come back for more.

I haven't played Madden 2003 yet but by all accounts, it should be a great game. If you're planning to get just one football game this year, you should wait until Madden comes out and see which is better. Madden features create a play option and special practice modes. For me, I chose NCAA 2003 because of the varied gameplay (running option plays and all the different schools with different styles of play). This is the most complete football game to date (at least until Madden 2003 comes out).

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Football Finesse, August 6, 2002

By	Jacob (Alabama) - See all my reviews

I purchased an XBox when they first came out and was disappointed when NCAA 2002 never made it to the shelves for the system. So I had to settle with Madden 2002. While I'm not a pro football fan, I still enjoyed Madden a lot. When I found out that NCAA 2003 was going to use a revamped Madden 2002 engine, I felt a little hesitant in buying it, but did so anyways. Boy am I glad I bought this game. There are a lot of differences from Madden 2002 that make this game the best football game I have ever played, period. First of all, it's a college game. Rivalry modes, mascots, fight songs, cheerleaders, trophies...EA Sports definitely nailed the school spirit aspect of college football. The added option play as well as the 5-2 and 4-4 defenses are a much needed and desired college bonus. The AI is real smart in this game. This is a true simulation so don't expect to score a lot of points (at least in the harder difficulty levels). Expect pass coverage to be well pulled off and realistic (unlike Madden's Spider-sense cornerbacks). Expect the rushing game to be a lot easier than previous games as well. In fact, it's a little too easy, probably my only complaint about the game (well...I have one other, being an Auburn student/fan and there not being any fight song, but that's another story...). Running up the middle can get you on average a good 5-6 yards each time, even when the defense calls a jam-middle or under-smoke defense. The commentary is awesome and not near as repetitive as NCAA 2002 or the unbearable Summerall/Madden duo in Madden 2002. If anything, the three-man commentary team is one of the game's greatest aspects. And the graphics are what you would expect from XBox and EASports. Realistic grass stains, smooth lighting, realistic cheerleader and player motions, and so on. Overall this game has few bad qualities and should be in every gamer's library.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NCAA Football 2003 Review, December 16, 2002

By	T. Miller "fat miller" (spencer, iowa usa) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

You can't go wrong with NCAA Football 2003. Besides having amazing graphics NCAA Football 2003 has great gameplay. You can choose from 6 different types of gameplay such as: exhibition games, Season, Dynasty, Rivalry Games, Mascot Games, and practices. Also NCAA Football 2003 has many other features such as: Create A School, And Create A Player. With Create A School you can choose everything from what your mascot will be to what kind of surface you will be playing on. When creating a player you choose every ability that is a neccesity in football down to what ur player will have on his wrist. With great entrances from your team, great stadiums and everything down to the mascot taunting NCAA Football 2003 is a must for anyone with even a remote interest in college football.