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NCAA Football’s second time out is a marked improvement over its prequel. NCAA Football 07 was widely praised for its excellent gameplay and top-shape college atmosphere. What is was lacking, and what kept it from being truly amazing, was a lack of gameplay modes. Thankfully, this has been corrected in NCAA 08.
NCAA Football 08 still features quick play, minigames (option dash, bowling and tug-of-war) but adds Campus Legend and Dynasty modes. The Dynasty mode still has you choosing a school, your roster and then leading your team to win the national championship. It has been overhauled a bit to emphasize recruiting more by allowing you to talk to players, get a feel for them and see where they are ranked in various categories. You can even make promises to players to give them incentives them to join your team, although you’ll have to follow up on those promises or you’ll have some very angry players. The game’s campus legend mode lets you play as a high-schooler playing in the high school playoffs before being recruited into a college team. Once you get there you’ll have to train and decide how to spend your time. Will you hang out with friends, study, etc as you balance being both a student and athlete.
The on-field action isn’t radically different than it was in last year’s game. This is a faster, crazier version of Madden and it shows. You can expect wilder, more outrageous plays in the game but it generally comes across well. Even with the tight gameplay, there are a number of fumbles and turnovers—as you’d expect from a college football game—but that may be a turnoff for some fans. The game does add a new super sim option that lets you simulate anything from a game, to a quarter, possession or even a single player. You can jump back in at any time but it makes the game go by a lot quicker.
NCAA Football 08 features online multiplayer in ranked or unranked one-on-one matches. The game is generally lag-free, although we’re expecting to see more online options in next year’s game. A cool side feature is that you can connect to the Weather Channel to look up real-time weather for the stadium at which you’re playing to get accurate weather to play in. It’s a nifty feature that lets you show off some of the game’s fancy weather effects.
NCAA 08 is a fine looking game. The various players look great thanks to more detailed and varied body types that let you tell a player’s position just by looking at them. The animation system is much improved over last year and really brings the game to life. The stadiums are just as detailed as ever and there are more stadiums included here than before thanks to the inclusion of face-painted fans, cheerleaders, marching bands, etc. The Xbox 360 version of the game runs at 60 frames per second (compared to 30 fps for the PS3 version), resulting in a smoother experience although the difference isn’t as pronounced as you’d think.
The game’s audio is also impressive. The soundtrack includes a number of fight songs, which really drives home the point that you’re playing a college football game. Commentary is provided by Brad Nessler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit, and sounds very much like it did last year.
NCAA Football 08 is a great game that really feels like a college football game thanks to the crazy fans, number of turnovers, and just generally zanier games than you’d expect in something like Madden. NCAA 08 is more fleshed-out than its predecessor and by being so improves on the key complaint against that game. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Sep 4, 2007
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