What bothers you most about NCAA 2005?

[BlueBalls1]

One thing that really bothers me is that the PS2 and XBox versions play differently. The gameplay on PS2 is better. Both platforms are buggy but it's obvious that EA did little or no testing for the Xbox version this year because it's complete garbage.

[mike586corleone]

-being able to shut down anyone with a 4-3 cover 2 zone
-air force and utep becoming 6 star programs after 3 yrs
-flordia state and notre dame being 3 star programs after 3 yrs
-same recruiting engine for the past 4 yrs, it has gotten stale
-it is unplayable on xbox
-no playoff option
-si feature was exactly the same as last year

[BROman]

Quote: Originally Posted by yragha

4. no stadium or weather select option

if you're talking about exhibition, all you have to do is press select on ps2 and all of those options come up.

[Quint75]

1. Superhuman DB's. It's always been a problem with EA football titles, but this year's NCAA was absolutely ridiculous. Program some real AI in there, not just AI cheats.

2. Too many flat-out drops by WR's. And quite often with no one around. Look, I know there are drops in real life, but for Pete's sake, find some balance. It makes the CPU offense non-existent.

I don't even play NCAA 2005 anymore. I went back to 2004. At least you get some CPU offense in there once in a while. EA took my favorite games series and bled out the playability.

Not to start a flame war, but the best thing that could happen would be for Sega to start making a college game again, with the same love and care they do for NFL2K5. That would keep EA from being resting on their laurels.

[ODogg]

1. The deep ball should be caught less when the coverage is there, even if the user catch is what the other player uses (user catch works way too well).
2. Short passes, especially screen passes, should be caught waaay more often than they are.
3. EA Online needs to make their feedback about other users more specific and also you should easily be able to see the name of the person you're playing when you pause in case they quit on you.

[ESPNdeportes]

While there are many flaws, the #1 for me is clearcut.

Its the superhuman DB's and coverage linebackers. For some reason, once you have thrown the ball, all the coverage LB's and DB's know exactly where you're throwing it, regardless of whether or not they could actually see it. Its like they sense it- and they react immediatly. That is the most unrealistic thing about the game.

Also, when was the last time in a real game you saw a defender with his back turned to the ball turn spin around and knock down a pass? Because it happens all the time in NCAA.

[LetsGoPitt]

Quote: Originally Posted by ESPNdeportes

Also, when was the last time in a real game you saw a defender with his back turned to the ball turn spin around and knock down a pass? Because it happens all the time in NCAA.

That would be it for me. It makes corner and out routes almost impossible to throw.

Honorable Mentions:

- The inability to call audibles during the hurry up until everyone is lined up.

- Almost every easy pass over the middle is dropped

- The same old EA BS. Example: I'm leading by 1 with 34 seconds remaining. On 4th down, I make a punt that's going to land inside the 5. The CPU calls for a fair catch and lets it hit. The ball hops upfield to about the 35, where my team goes to down it, but recreates the "Holy Roller" by kicking and bobbling the ball all the way back to my 45 (I now have a -15 yard punt). Of course, the CPU is able to hit a BS pass down the field and kick the winning field goal

- Incredibly bogus pass interference penalties on User Picks

- Fortuitous holding penalties that aren't even called until after you make a nice gain

[ADW]

I'll preface this by saying that there needs to be another college football game on the market. The development studio that makes NCAA Football treats this game as an after thought. As for the things I don't like here goes.

Lack of well thought out offensive and defensive schemes. The team playbooks are basically the same and lack variety from team to team. A team such as USC probably shouldn't have any option in their I formation sets compared to a team like TCU who will occassionaly run the option from the I formation.

EA has a bad habit of altering plays and in many cases taking plays out of the game that they feel are "money". Instead of properly implementing a well thought out counter to that play, they'll just take the play out or alter some of the player assignments to make it less effective. A perfecti example of this can be found when trying to attack cover 2 zone. Against a cover 2 zone you want to vertically stretch it by flooding it to one side. You'll send a guy deep, a guy medium, and a guy short. To counter this what EA does is take most of those plays out of the playbooks and they jack up the defensive awareness of the cornerbacks so that they can take away both medium and short passes simultaneously.

Coming up to the line of scrimmage and my defensive players start free lancing all over the place. I might have a cover 2 zone called, but my free safety instead being at his proper pre-snap depth, he'll be up on the line of scrimmage just outside of my linebackers. This is very annoying as I've been burned online in a few instances where my opponen simply went deep on that side. My middle linebacker might line up in the weakside B gap which serves no point to the play's execution.

Run blocking schemes are virtually non-exixtent. Sure you can run the ball in EA football games, but it generally has nothing to do with well thought out blocking schemes. The reach blocking, trap blocking, and blocking on option plays leaves much to be desired. For the casual gamer these things will go unnoticed, but for someone who's coached football and played football these things are glaring issues.

The overall look of the game took a step backwards. The natural grass fields look as if an oil tanker spilled oil on the field. The player uniforms after about two quarters looks as if they've been spray painted with green paint.

Cpu defensive linemen being able to consistently push offensive linemen a yard or two into the backfield. It's down right ridiculous with the tightend defensive end matchup. At times my tightend is being pushed three yards deep into the backfield. This is EA's attempt at giving the defense a way of dealing with the option and other outside runs.

XBOX version of the game is a bad joke.

I plan on attending E3 in May and I'm going to pay close attention to NCAA 2006. I'll be checking over the game with a fine tooth comb and if I don't see any major improvements to that game, I plan on coming down hard on EA in my post E3 review.