NCAA Football 2004
Score: 95% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: EA Sports Developer: Tiburon Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 4 Genre: Sports
Graphics & Sound: It's time to head back to campus for some serious education. I'm not talking about classes at your university, I'm talking about schooling your dorm buddies with the latest version of NCAA Football from EA Sports. Hands down, 2004 offers the most realistic, most enjoyable, most unbelievable college football sim there is on the market. Plenty of new actions have been added to an already impressive arsenal of player model movements, including all new moves to run through the defense, or the vicious tackles that will make you cry, 'Mommy'. Facial features are more defined to give the impression the players are actually conversing with each other, or feeling the pain from a blindside blitz. In addition, the crowds and stadiums are even more immaculate than before, including team specific mascots. Brad Nessler, Lee Corso, and Kirk Herbstreit return as the dream trio for another season of NCAA Football. A lot of their commentary is the same from previous years, but there's plenty of new stuff that's mixed in as well. Meantime, the crowd is much more into the game. They'll boo if you don't go for it on fourth and short, they'll roar as you near the end zone on a big play and they'll scream when you're pulling off the upset. And don't forget about all the different fight songs and cheers. Believe me, it'll sound like Saturday football seven days a week.
Gameplay: Not that there was much to improve on, but somehow, NCAA Football 2004 is dominating in every aspect of the game. Sports Illustrated teamed up with EA this season for a revolutionary feature in the Dynasty mode. Each week, there'll be a cover story, along with several pictured articles that show the Top 25 Polls, Heisman Watch, Players of the Week and so on. It's definitely one of a kind, and I think it worked out perfectly. In addition, building up your powerhouse football team has received some major improvements. Now when you recruit prospects, you can pitch them several different angles of why they should attend your school. Some may care about the prestige, while others want to be close to home. Several players only care about playing time, while a number of them like the coaching style. These touchups are what make this year's version the best yet. A new game mode included in the mix for 2004 is the College Classics. Relive, or rewrite, 20 different moments in college football history, such as last year's Ohio St. and Miami championship game. Or, see if you can make Doug Flutie a hero again for Boston College with another Hail Mary pass. All of these different modes will help you earn points towards your EA Bio, which tracks any major accomplishments you've made, how many EA titles you've played, and for how long. For those of you who are wondering, you can still win rival trophies, or create-your-own school if you're not interested in the 100-plus Division I-A teams. Sorry folks, there's no online mode for the Xbox. Maybe we'll be lucky enough to have it next year.
Difficulty: The difficulty never seems to end in NCAA Football 2004. Besides the four different degrees of complexity (Junior Varsity, Varsity, All-American, Heisman), you can also change different variables. For instance, you may want to change the amount of drops the offensive players will have, because the default setting seemed to leave my receivers with stone hands.
Game Mechanics: A few controller functions have been switched around since last year, to make things a little easier to run option plays and such. Also, if you tend to play against people who look at your plays while you're picking them, you can now throw them off. Now you may use either the right or left trigger, which will select the top and bottom plays that you can't see. The trick is you'll have to know your playbook. Meanwhile, the loading time isn't too bad, once you get past the initial one. I did find the music will pause and glitch within the middle of a game, which may be the result from so much stuff going on at one time. If you haven't already figured it out, you need to own this game. I won't lie to you, a few things did irk me a little (like no online gaming). Still, there are so many quality features that they'll make up for those token flaws. If you're a fan of college football, you'll be a fan of NCAA Football 2004.
-Red Dawg, GameVortex Communications AKA Alex Redmann
NCAA Football 2003 Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter