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| Photo Courtesy of examiner.com |
for the 360 and PS3. As stated before, we will finish up the review by talking about the various gameplay options and of course the all important final scoring for the game. Should you spend the money for updated rosters and ratings? I'll decide for you, because thinking for yourself is for squares!They haven't really added all that much to this game in comparison to its previous versions. You still have Dynasty Mode, Online Dynasty Mode and the Road to Glory Mode. And for quick-play options they have again included the Mascot Mash-Up to accompany the regular Quick-Play Mode.
They also added a new quick-play mode called One-Button Mode. This game mode is exactly what it sounds like...A huge cop-out for the programmers at EA. Seriously? One-Button Mode? That's what you have to offer? "Hey NCAA Football fans! EA here with some exciting news! We are now giving you the option of playing football, without the effort of learning anything about football. Just press A and things will happen! The possibilities are endless! As long as you take endless to mean 'limited to things you can do by only pressing one button!'" I am honestly a little insulted by this game mode. I have spent years learning to play this game as have many of my friends, and to include this game mode as "worthwhile new content" is just kind of silly. And if you really just want to make the game really simple, play on Freshmen difficulty. You could break an 80 yard run with an offensive lineman given how terrible your opponent is at tackling on the Freshmen difficulty.
But I only feel this way about that game mode because I have grown so accustomed to all of the games complexities and intricacies. If I wasn't so experienced with the real game, I may really like this game mode. It does give inexperienced players a method of getting into the game that they have never had before, but it doesn't really offer you any incentive to actually learn anything about the real gameplay. It won't help new players learn how to play the real game in a noob-friendly environment. It will just make it harder for them to learn how to juke properly, or execute a finesse move on defense or anything like that.
As far as changes to other things in the game goes however, I got to say I am pleased. The changes to recruiting to offer a more realistic recruiting experience. Instead of just selecting what you want to talk about to the recruit, you are randomly assigned a topic, which I choose to view as something coming up a little more naturally. And it offers you greater incentive to find out the recruits' opinions on all aspects of your school. And negative recruiting is actually effective this time around. Your school gains recruiting points while the school you negatively recruit against loses points. And maybe I just haven't played enough yet, but I think that the computer recruits a little better this time around, so you have a little bit more of a challenge in gaining recruiting supremacy.
And in Online Dynasty Mode they have added another element to the recruiting. Now you can do your recruiting online. So if you are in an online dynasty with a lot of other people and don't have time to do your recruiting before going to work, you can do it on your computer when you do have the time, or you can even set your team to autopilot mode and it will sim your games and recruiting till you can get back. It also includes this silly Story Builder thing where you can post "news" about your games and generate your own "football storylines."
Other than that, there aren't any other major changes. In fact, there are no changes at all to the Road to Glory mode. I would have liked some new videos of Erin Andrews...if you catch my meaning. ;) No, but seriously, I would have liked some new videos of Erin Andrews talking about your created legend, or some other change to the gameplay of this mode. For instance, they could work on making it so it is possible to become a legend as a defensive player.
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| What? Not the picture you were hoping for? Perverts! - photo from youtube.com |
Finally I would like to say that this game is still a lot of fun to play, and while some of the problems can be a little frustrating and a lot of the new things they have added are largely unnecessary as far as making the game more worthwhile than usual. But there are enough positives for me to still recommend this game. As a video game I have to dock off points for the sloppy programming and the tons of problems I have already mentioned, but as a sports game aiming to fulfill your desire to play as your favorite teams and players or live out your dream of creating yourself as a football legend, it almost fully delivers. So I give NCAA Football 11 for the XBox360 and PS3 7.5 Crying Tebows out of 10.
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| Photo courtesy of sportspickle.com - I strongly suggest reading this article Sports Pickle Report on NCAA Football 11 |
The problem with this game is that you could have written this about last year's game or save it up for next year's game. It's become a glorified roster update.
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