NCAA Football 07

I picked up NCAA Football 07 during my lunch break yesterday, along with a Datel Transfer Kit and an Xbox Memory Card (do the math yourself; I’m embarrassed to tell you how much I paid for it all). I bought the Transfer Kit and Memory Card so I can import PSXSports.com’s rosters for the game. That’s right – some loser (who I thank very much) actually sits at home and names every player in the game. Then he releases the roster file online for people like me to download.

The main reason I decided to splurge on the Transfer Kit and the Memory Card is this: I don’t know any college players at all. I’ve never really taken to college football (I guess no one in my family was a big fan, so I never became a big fan), but I’m really determined to get into the sport. The first step to doing that is to learn some names and familiarize myself with who actually plays the game, so I figured getting the rosters would be the best way to do so. Plus, if I get the Transfer Kit now, I’ll be able to use it again for next year’s college football game as well as College Hoops 2k7 and 2k8.

Anyways, continue reading to see my first impressions of the game…

The first thing I noticed about the game is that the graphics are phenomenal. I mean, they’re really good, and that’s just on standard definition TV. I can only imagine how they look on high definition. In fact, I would know how they look on high definition if my parents let me use the HDTV once in a while..

The game’s animations are also really, really cool. Madden’s always been a great football game, and the animations have always been good, but I’ve never played football on Xbox 360 before. This really is incredible. During my second game I played with NCAA 07 (Ohio St. vs. Iowa), I caught a kickoff and began running it back. As I was getting tackled, one of the extraordinary things that I noticed was that one of the Iowan players tripped over my Ohio St. player on the field as he tried to tackle me. This is unbelievable. Not only do players exist on the field as objects that stand in the way (meaning you can’t run though a defender on the ground), but you can actually trip over them! How cool!

Being new at college football video games, I’m still learning how to use the option effectively and how to master teams’ crazy formations. However, my first impression is definitely a positive one. I haven’t had time to check out the Dynasty mode yet, but from what I’ve heard it’s going to be good enough for me. The exciting thing for me is that I’ll really be able to have fun with Dynasty mode now that I’ve got all the rosters. I’ll finally get a chance to see how difficult it is to take a struggling football team and help them get to a Bowl Game.

Some of the controls are a little wacky, but I’m slowly getting used to them. One of the other things I love about the 360 versions of EA Sports’ football games is the new playcalling screen. It makes calling plays a lot easier, and there’s a lot more information displayed on the screen when doing so. I love the fact that I can just go to “Inside Handoff” to pick an inside handoff play and still be able to see the formation it’s in.

Overall, I’m very impressed with this game. I’ll see if I can do a followup post once I check out the game on hi-def, because I know for a fact that my crappy 4:3 TV is definitely not doing the game justice.

EDIT: I’m making this edit to point out that one of the things I didn’t like about NCAA 07 was the new control scheme, particularly when hot routing and motioning receivers.  After scouring the internet for some tips on why the controls are how they are, this is what I’ve found out: In Madden 06, the player would press Y, press a receiver’s button, and then choose the direction of the receiver’s hot route.  The simplicity of this allowed a player to completely change a play on the field – that is, assign a hot route to every receiver before the ball is hiked.  I guess EA thought this was a little unrealistic, so in NCAA 07, you now must hold B, use the thumbstick to select the receiver, and then assign the hot route. This takes a few seconds extra to pull off, but it also means that the player will only be able to assign one or two hot routes and still hike the ball before the play clock expires. Definitely a lot more realistic.

Props to EA on this, I guess.  I still preferred the old method because it was significantly easier to hot route or motion a receiver, but if this new thing isn’t that bad either.  My main initial problem was that I didn’t realize you could hold the B button down and use the thumbstick to select a receiver, so I would routinely keep pressing B and just miss the receiver I wanted to motion.  Then I’d just cycle through the players again, and by the time I assigned the motion, the play clock would expire.  Thanks to the users at GameFAQs for pointing this out to me.