NCAA Football 07: Late NCAA CFB 07 review
BURNTRBR44
60% score
I have been playing this game ever since I got my 360 at the start of the year after I traded in my X-Box with the college football copy for that platform. At the time, NCAA CFB 08 was just thirty bucks so I decided to give this a try. I do regret that decision (buying the game not the console) because it is missing a few features but overall, it is still a good game. I am not able to accurately evaulate the graphics of this game because I only have SDTV hooked up to my 360 at this point. But the 480p grahpics still do look pretty good compared to the 720p resoultion that I have seen at Best Buy and Target. This game in addition to Gears of War convinced me that it is unnecessary to acquire a HDTV at this point. Thank you so much EA and Epic! I still see the same annoyances that are seen in the previous gen games such as not being able to keep yourself from running out of bounds when you are lined up on the hashmarks on either side. NCAA CFB 08 is supposed to have a new engine so we will see about that. Other than that, the controls respond very well to what you want to do. I like being able to tell my LBs whether to go on an all out blitz or have either OLB (if not both) blitz. I do not recall seeing this ability with the X-Box version. But now enough of the good stuff... I was very disappointed to see that I could not customize my playbook like I was able to do with the X-Box version. This might not seem like a big deal to some people but it really bothered me in a big way. I do not own a copy of the NCAA CFB 07 stragety guide (will be sure to do for 08) so I am not able to view which formations a specific team used and use their playbook instead of your team's default playbook. This meant I had to go into practice mode and look at like the majority of the 119 Division I-A team playbooks in addition to the seven or so genric playbooks. That was very time consuming and at times I got bored with the playbook I was using so I decided to use a different playbook. EA Sports, I want that ability to customize my playbook back in NCAA CFB 08! I did enjoy Campus Legend in the X-Box version but I was disappointed to find out that no such thing existed (won't be a problem with 08). Having played the series ever since the 1998 version on the Playstation 1, I realized it wasn't a big deal because I love to play football games anyway. There were no Division I-AA teams included and that was a disappointment to me. I can only imagine how many upset gamers were from I-AA campuses. And what's up with having to download alternative uniforms from X-Box Live? I know they are free but I mean c'mon that is a waste of time. Why can't we update rosters especially after seeing Bomar Rhett still on the OU roster after he was booted from the team before the season even started? At least you got rid of the mascot football game...that is something to be applauded. I only see the actual football stadiums from mostly BCS conference schools. A couple of non-BCS conference schools didn't have this problem because those teams play in NFL stadiums. Also what angered me was you couldn't create your own school as well. Now this explains why Wal-Mart dropped the price of this game to $29.99 at that time. I am expecting MAJOR improvement for the 08 season and I want to put EA Sports on notice that the 08 edition is the one that they cannot screw up on. If that happens, I will not buy another football game from those greedy bastards. (EA Sports also owns the exclusive rights to college football, NFL, and Arena Football. No word on whether or not flag football is next).
