February 9, 2007
July 20, 2006
NCAA Football 2007 – First Impressions
I’ve only played 2 games, and both of these were in Dynasty Mode. I’ve heard there are a lot of enhancements to the Race for the Heisman. I’ll write about that later. Anyway, here are the notes off the top of my head. Let me know what you like/don’t like!
- Good:
- Momentum – I’ve heard from others that this can cause some unrealistic blowouts by horrible teams, but I haven’t seen that yet. For me, the momentum shifting back and forth on big plays adds to the game immensely.
- New Kicking Meter – I’ve never been a big fan of the tap-tap-tap kick meter, and this is a little more “Golden Tee” style, where you pull back the R-stick and push it forward to determine strength and accuracy. However, it feels like the field-goal kickers are kicking more line-drive style this year. I’m not sure if this is the game or the way I am kicking it. We’ll see.
- Tighter 3rd Person View on Kickoff Returns – It is really neat to see the holes develop (and close) in front of you. I found myself twisting my body like a grade schooler trying to fit through holes.
- Xbox Button Layout – Leaps and bounds better than last year. Making Y the stiff arm was brilliant.
- In Season Recruiting – This is pretty neat. It isn’t as involved as off-season recruiting, but it lets you try to nab some All-Americans early.
- Bad:
- Jumping the Line – Good idea, but horrible on implementation. I enjoy playing as linemen a lot on defense, and this allows you to hit a button at the time of the snap to try to come off the ball better on Defense. In reality, this is super easy, and it seems like I knock down the offensive lineman too often. I’m going to play with the AI settings to make this harder. Like I said, I like the idea.
- 3rd Person View on Punts – This is really hard to see how far defenders are, and I’ve had a problem calling fair catches in time.
- Ugly:
- Announcers – You’d think the announcers could record some original material. Boo!
- ESPN: The Magazine – I heard ESPN was going to replace Sports Illustrated in the game. I thought “Awesome! We’re going to get Sportcenter highlights at the end of every week!” Nope. Sucks. All they did was search for “Sports Illustrated” and replace with “ESPN: The Magazine.” Lame.
- PSU’s super-slow QB – I miss Michael Robinson. (Though his arm is phenomenal, so I can’t cry too much.
September 29, 2005
Lions eat Turkeys
Energized by the earlier Madden win against Jeff, I decided to try to beat Chip at NCAA 06. For any of you that have seen me play Chip previously, you can understand that I was bracing myself for a the bad side of a 60 point slaughter. However, I had one thing on my side: the controller layout. Chip had broken all of his PS2 controllers, as he has a habit of doing. So, I brought my XBOX over for Chip, Jeff, and I to play Madden and NCAA. However, the layout of the buttons on an XBOX controller is slightly different than the layout of the PS2 controller, and all of the buttons are named differently. So, it is harder for someone that is used to the PS2 layout to use the XBOX controller. Furthermore, they both have an “X” button, but they are in different places, causing some throws to the wrong receiver if you don’t adjust. Ok, enough with the setup…on to the game.
I decided to use Penn State, as I normally do. This year, I’m blessed with an extremely agile quarterback (Robinson), and a pretty decent linebacking corps. It’s nice when the team that you normally play with has all the weapons that you like to use. Chip went with the Hokies, even though I warned him that my Mom’s familial relationship (2nd or 3rd cousin) to Frank Beamer may cause a conflict of interest.
Chip pulled out to an early lead, and I figured it was going to be same-ol’ same-ol’. However, the voodoo of the XBOX button layout, combined with the magic of the option, saw my young quarterback rush for over 250 yards on the way to a 34-17 PSU victory.
There will be no post about the next time I play Chip at NCAA on the PS2. This is the only game that counts.
Offense Swap
Last night, all was made right with the world, as the Chicago Bears dealt a crushing mortal wound to the Detroit Lions in a game that can only be described as a battle of the swapped offenses. On the Lions’ side, it was a game that saw Kevin Jones rush for over 100 yards, racking up at least 6 yds/carry. However, the Lions’ running machine was no match for the machine-gun aerial attack of the Bears. Commanding the troops, rookie Kyle Orton dropped the bombs, amassing 348 passing yards. His favorite receiver of the night was the larger-than-life Justin Gage, who burnt former Bears’ CB RW McQuarters for over 200 yards receiving.
This epic battle concluded with another W for the good guys.
Bears 33
Lions 29
