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NCAA Football 2006

In case you lived under a rock for the last year, EA is the sole holder of rights to the NFL and NCAA football licenses. While there are a lot of good points to each side of the debate, the fact of the matter is nothing can be done about it. While one might think that EA is sure to slow down improvements and try to milk the consumer for all the contents of their wallet, they instead surprise us with a very well done, impressive football game in the form of NCAA Football 2006.

College and professional football are two very different things. While most of the rules are the same throughout, the play style is dramatically different. It’s no surprise to see a quarterback run in a college game, with the professional league being a lot more conservative with that style of play. Regardless of what your preferred source of pigskin action is, the basic concept remains the same. Fans of EA’s Madden franchise won’t find the game as helpful as they’d imagine upon their first play.

A lot of the buttons remain the same as in Madden, with “A” hiking the ball and “B” being your spin. What’s different though is that upon hiking the ball, your quarterback isn’t automatically put into passing mode. Instead, NCAA leaves it up to you to hit the “A” button again to bring up the passing window, or just run with the QB should you wish. This takes a quarter or two to become used to, but once it’s understood it becomes a fairly small nuisance. Another difference in the controls is using the right analog stick. On defense, it still does the Hit Stick (although it isn’t as accurate as in Madden), but on offense it is used as the juke command. This doesn’t work well at all, with the player having to hold down the “A” button to put the afterjets on, it’s almost impossible to juke while speeding. This can be changed though to the shoulder buttons (a far more useful setup).

NCAA’s new Race for the Heisman mode is very fun and a welcome addition to the college experience. Starting as a high school player, you’ll select a last name and position, then do a drill designed for that position. Depending on how well you do in that drill, you’ll be offered scholarships to 3 colleges. Accepting one of these scholarships will take you to a dorm at that school (your HQ), or should you wish, you can opt to take walk-on status at a school of your choosing. Once you settle yourself in somewhere, it’s time to get yourself acclimated with your schedule, local college paper, fan mail or train in the drills some more. Based on how well you do each game throughout the season, you’ll fill a meter in the top right corner that shows your ‘Heisman Hype.’

While you might think that this is just a remixed Dynasty Mode, the fact is here you’re concentrating on one player as opposed to one franchise (although that’s going to be just as important to most gamers). Given that you can get your player through the subsiquent years and receive a Heisman, you can then opt to place him in the appropriate year’s draft and toss him into Madden 2006 when it comes out. This isn’t a new feature obviously, but it’s a bit more in-depth than previous years, and thus more deserving of your time and energy.

What’s cool about NCAA 2006 is that once you’ve done your 4 years and you DON’T wish to export your player to Madden 2006, you can instead take him and place him into a coaching position. This then turns your Heisman Race into a Dynasty Mode, allowing you to take full control over the things you weren’t able to during your Race for the Heisman. Of course you can just start your own Dynasty Mode at any time, but giving players options like this is a very nice touch on EA’s part and offers a far more intimate gaming experience.

For all of Race for the Heisman’s good points, there are an equal amount of areas that could stand to improve. While it’s nice to control a player part of a larger team, you just never get the level of control befitting most simulation games. There isn’t any chance for you to take him to practice and improve areas of himself or anything that affects his composure rating (doing drills is a novelty and doesn’t improve any part of your player’s stats). Sometimes his composure is very high, sometimes it’s very low, and all the time we are never told just why.

Graphically the game is crisp and the players animate very well. While the presentation is a bit lackluster, the in-game action is ferocious with some of the tackles being cringingly explosive. With a three-man commentator team of Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Brad Nessler, their commentary is wooden and severally lacking some life. When they’re on screen, their lips are constantly out of sync and you’re lucky to see them move a hand let alone their head. In-game, their commentary is often a few seconds behind the action (especially during goal line situations) and very blunt, lacking any sort of inspiration.

So while fans of college football are going to absolutely love this title, fans of EA’s Madden should give this a rental at least to satiate themselves until Madden 2006 is released. With a lot of different areas to dump time, a polished play engine that leaves little room for error, and a well-done game mode in the form of Race for the Heisman, EA’s NCAA Football 2006 hits it right between the uprights.

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Tags: NCAA Football 2006

Posted by David Hinkle on Aug 4th, 2005 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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