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The Penn Quakers never had a better season! NCAA Football 07 for the Xbox is a mighty fine update for the series. The biggest difference between the NCAA and the NFL is the level of enthusiasm found in college games. The crowd really goes wild for the big plays and is fully behind their home school. Although NCAA Football 07 for Xbox doesn’t quite match the atmosphere found in the Xbox 360, it makes up for it by being a more full-featured simulation.
NCAA Football 07 includes many single-player modes. The two biggest modes are Dynasty Mode and Campus Legend. The Dynasty mode is similar to that of previous versions. This means that during the season you need to make sure your team performs well and off-season you need to actively recruit players to keep your team on the winning end. You’ll still find all of the expected features like team-needs and scouting reports and the ability to see which players are interested in your team, and so forth. Campus Legend is an enhanced version of last year’s Race of the Heisman mode. The game lets you play as a freshman balancing work and play. You get to create the character, choose his position, and play some drills to get your skills set. But that’s just for the field. After that you’ll need to pick a school and a major. You need to balance practices, drills, social activities, and studying to make sure you pass the tests you’re given. If you’re able to do all of this, your athletic, academic and social aspects will remain top-notch.
Aside from the big two, the game also includes quick play, practice, mascot games, rivalry, scrimmage mode and spring minigames. Many of these features are lacking in the Xbox 360 version and it’s nice to have them here. Quick play, practice, and mascot games are what you would expect them to be. Rivalry games are particularly heated games with two rivals like Florida and Florida State. In scrimmage mode, you’re given five minutes on the offense to get as many touchdowns and first-downs as you can before the other team gets the change to do the same. The spring minigames let you play route passing, rushing attack, and pass skeleton to test the skills of players in different positions.
The Xbox version of the game will feel familiar to fans of the series. The game still includes the precision passing system to let you throw the ball at a certain part of the player and you’ll still be pulling off jukes with the right analog stick. That isn’t to say that EA Tiburon didn’t update the gameplay as the game boasts a new kicking meter. Similar to the Tiger Woods games, you’ll have to pull back on the analog stick then push back up to kick the ball. In addition, the game lets you jump-the-snap, meaning that you’ll get to take on the quarterback or kicker if you have the right time; this is very helpful in blocking field goals. The artificial intelligence in the game is sound, with the A.I. doing their best to get you riled up in hopes of getting a penalty called against you. Playcalling is still easy since you can organize plays by key player, play type, formation or get Corso’s recommendation. The Xbox version has a new, enormous playbook with innumerable plays to pick from.
New to 07 is a momentum bar that tracks the momentum of both of the teams playing. Did you just get a game-winning interception? Well, your momentum will reflect that as you now go for the two-point conversion. For smaller but positive plays, the momentum meter will also increase and it will decrease with negative plays. For the most part, the game does a good job of modeling the momentum.
The game includes online multiplayer. Online multiplayer is solid as we noticed no lag in the game. As with other online EA Sports titles, to play online you’ll either have to pay $2 or sign up for the ESPN newsletter. Offline multiplayer is also included and is a blast to play, particularly if you’re playing with rival teams.
Visually, the game looks good although obviously not as amazing as the Xbox 360 version of the game. These stadiums look good with the same level of detail found in previous iterations. You’ll still be able to pick them out but it doesn’t quite recreate the feeling of being there. The player models are well done and the animations are as brutal as always.
The audio is impressive. The background music is comprised of fight songs from the different football teams which certainly help set the mood. The sound effects are top-notch and crisp, especially the crowd which roars like crazy—that is, a real college football game. Commentary is provided by Corso, Nesseler, and Herbstreit, who do a fairly good job and manage to avoid repeating the same lines too often.
NCAA Football 07 for Xbox may not look as good as the Xbox 360 version, but it is by far more full-featured. There are tons of modes in the game promising countless of gameplay. The atmosphere and enthusiasm that the game portrays are amazing, second only to the Xbox 360 version.
-- Jose Liz & -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Jul 25, 2006
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