NCAA Football 11 IMPRESSIONS ONLY

[MrRudy]

I'm pretty impressed right now with the game. I've only gotten about two games in today but have been on both ends of the spectrum (lost 48-21 as UNLV against Wisconsin) and then won 63-27 with my Ledbetter Pumas over Washington State.
The replays are solid, I've been burnt on some deep balls and picked off a few as well.
Love the new recruiting as well.

[racerx]

Just loving the flow of this game. Played 3 games so far and every game felt different. Just a overall better experience than '10.


PS. I love the PA announcer this year!!!!

[Mavmoses07]

After playing one game I can really tell a difference with the gameplay. Much improved from previous versions. Despite what a lot of people are saying I think zone coverage is improved.

Stats are still off. The top QB's will throw 35 TD's and yet only 2 or 3 picks. Rushing stats are too low. Most rb's get 3-4 ypc. Only seen 2 running QB's put up decent rushing stats, Nesbitt and Pryor.

Presentation looks good too... but that's less important to me.

[UATide]

Quote: Originally Posted by racerx

Just loving the flow of this game. Played 3 games so far and every game felt different. Just a overall better experience than '10. PS. I love the PA announcer this year!!!!

LOL... I was wondering if I was the only one that noticed the PA Announcer!

[mavfan21]

The colors and graphics are just great. I love the look. Things pop and feel more "real", like a TV broadcast,. The shadows and lighting are spot on.

[capn_razzamataz]

Overall the gameplay has improved thanks to the new locomotion system. It still doesn't quite look "right" to me though. They need to add an acceleration animation or something. Also, while turning (and decelerating) feels pretty decent, it also doesn't quite look right. I thought the ps2/xbox versions did both of these things very well and they looked good too.

Even if they didn't continue tweaking locomotion to look better, I think this game would finally reach the next level if the devs were to implement consecutive-hit tackling. This is far and away the feature I'd like to see most.

Minor gripes:
--The pregame animation where the QB raises his arms while pumping up the team looks really weird. You can tell that when they mo-capped that scene the guy raising his arm obviously wasn't wearing any shoulder pads. Unless shoulder pad technology has taken a quantum leap since I played 3 years ago, it's impossible to raise your arm straight up while wearing them.

--Colors look really washed out on some teams. I remember reading the lighting blog earlier this year and they said they'd toned down the colors. In my opinion they took this a little overboard. Some teams' colors were bad enough in previous games, but now that you take away any saturation they had it makes them look even worse (VT comes to mind, specifically).

--Similarly, night games seem very poorly lit; as if every stadium has a couple of high school quality stadium lights (or worse). In the few games I've played, night games really seem to dull down the new bright whites that they've implemented. If anything, those bright white bulbs should make white uniforms pop even further.

[Gosens6]

My few gripes with this game...

1. DROPS - The incredible amount of drop by WIDE OPEN players. This usually only happens when you use a lesser ranked team, but my god, the amount of balls these players drop when no one is around them is staggering. I just played a game and I threw the ball to my wide open RB three strait plays and he dropped all 3, with not a defender in sight. Incredibly frustrating.

2. CPU QB's not taking sacks - It seems that every time i'm within an inch of a sack, the CPU QB's release the ball at an alarming speed. I have no problem getting pressure, it's just the fact that the QB's always get the ball out of their hands, I get no sacks at all.

3. CPU Defenders always late hitting your QB (Minor) - Why oh why do the defenders always hit my QB late and never get a penalty called for it? It seems like every 3 passing plays or so i'm getting hit way after the throw, or just after. With the injuries the way they are this is very frustrating having to see my starting QB on the sidelines all the time. Speaking of which....

4. Injuries - Why do injuries happen so much? And why am I never informed of them until I get an update from the sideline? It seems like every other play I have someone injured, to be fair they're usually minor injuries, but why so much?

So far these are the only issues I have with this game. Anyone have any tips for these problems, since they all seem to revolve around the gameplay (minus the injury thing)

[Getty51]

Favorite thing: Recruiting, I love the fact that there is a strategic part to recruiting just like real life. Do I spend 30 minutes on a guy I have a solid lead on or a guy im 120 points down on? Only to fall 100 points down on the first and gain 20 points on the second. The possibilities are endless with this. Can a 1 star school nail a 5 star recruit by putting 60 minutes on him every week? I am not sure but I am sure gonna try and find out.


Only real issue/concern: In the dynasty I was playing for fun I was Miami, now through 3 games I have yet to notice when a player gets hurt, yet all of a sudden backups are in, then I look at the bottom of the screen to see a player broke a toe and is out for the game or bruised his ribs.
Ya, I know many didn't want such a slow down for injuries, but the amount of injuries that are around I would like to be informed that my Impact Running back went down and won't be in the next play before I call it.

Just my impressions.