Staff Roundtable: NCAA Football 12 Demo Impressions

[The Bimmer]

I agree with Christian and Bob. Jason your not serious when you state, Mlb the Show has TV-quality commentary are you? Even though I agree NCAA commentary needs work, The Show needs more work.

[ThaShark28_316]

Re: Staff Roundtable: NCAA Football 12 Demo Impressions

I agree with Christian and Bob. Jason your not serious when you state, Mlb the Show has TV-quality commentary are you? Even though I agree NCAA commentary needs work, The Show needs more work.

Exactly. @ Jayson got it right.

EDIT: Only thing was right was the fifa comment. But that goes for all football games, sans backbreaker. MLB The Show has horrid commentary these days. As for NBA 2k, it's nice and all, but the script isn't where you want it. Clark Kellogg is a damn good color commentator, but sounded awful in this past year's game.

[avross]

simple as this anybody who is reading these comments scroll up and just look at that screen shot does that look fresh and new or old and boring? honest opinion......
guys the lighting and contrast is off

[SpreadEm]

Personally from a guy that loves oregon spread option I am dispointed about the speed of the hand offs on the offset power plays it really gives the defense to much time to get to the play other than not having the shovel option in ths game yet again I thought the game was very crisp NCAA 11

[Richardcg]

Re: Staff Roundtable: NCAA Football 12 Demo Impressions

I love the game and everything so far so good good improvment from 11. but as anyone else noticed the invisable players when showing the gametrack replay. it happen to me when i came back from halftime and they showed a gametrack and all i see was the ball no players at all, just the ball being moved around but couldnt see any players on the field. i hope this is just a demo problem.

[the_natural]

MLB 2k11 has a better commentary than MLB the show!!! 2K sports the best!!!

[TheTodd84]

I completely agree withJayson Young on this one.

Couldn't have said it better myself and I also agree with the last guy's sentiment. Things are still not "Backbreaker" smooth. While that game sucked overall because of the camera angle and awful player models, the tackling and physics were fantastic. Time to step up to the plate like Fifa did.

I noticed none of them commented on the superhuman linebackers that are back in the game. I noticed it heavily and it oh so frustrating. Open guys that can't get the ball because some linebacker with a 42" vertical comes out of nowhere to bat the pass down. This needs to be addressed.

Also... maybe it is because of the wide receivers running into the DBs, but it seems like there is plenty of "psychic DB" play in man coverage and the CPU overall blitzes way too much. Am I the only one who noticed this?

The CPU play-calling and overall AI is bad on offense... still.

[TheTodd84]

This, however, it is to be noted, I only noticed the superhuman linebackers and psychic DBs during the ps3 demo, which is really frustrating because I have both systems and tend to prefer ps3 for a lot of games. however, I will say that I may end up picking this up for 360 this year because the ps3 version is so poorly done. It's truly a shame. Hopefully this can be fixed by release. But the lack of backbreaker smoothness is apparent with both games.

[ps3veron]

Great thoughts but does anyone know how old is the demo build?

I remember last year when we all had mixed opinions on what turned out to be one of the best football games ever! Just saying..

[Broncos86]

Re: Staff Roundtable: NCAA Football 12 Demo Impressions

Edit: Probably a month or two old.

[dannyr326]

I really love the fluidity and how much smoother the game plays, but I'm not sure If anyone knows what I'm talking about, but I feel that the CB/WR interaction in man coverage is still broken. It feels as if the Cornerbacks already know what route the receivers are running. If EA can fix that aspect Madden and NCAA would be so much better. That part of the game still doesn't feel right to me.

Does anyone else agree?

[TheTodd84]

danny... did you read my post... it is exactly the same as yours regarding the psychic defensive backs, lol.

[Bigsheen]

i like the othes agree with jayson.

[khaliib]

I don't know how to do it, but could someone do a Poll to see which staff writers agreement the OS community seems to agree with the most.

This way, the Dev's can see/read how this Forums Community really feel after playing their Demo.

I agree with Jayson multiplied by 1,0000000.

This is not the best Sports Game out, period.
Interesting how the ESPN presentation was done good in their College Basketball, but is just simply absent in their Football version.

I've come to the conclusion that EA bought the ESPN rights only to prevent any other Developer from using, because they surely have not purchased it to enhance the "ONLY" College Sports game out, which of course is only produced by them.

This is the 2nd year that leaves you to question, why own it, if your not going to use it?
In it's current form, it's simply an "Imbarassment" to the ESPN Product!

Compared to NBA 2k 11, The Show, EA NHL/Fifa, NCAA Football is well behind were these products are at.
We've been saying they're getting there since '09 with every little "Baby Step" injection or Old-Reintroduced Feature they've been doing in every release since.

The Truth is that the Business side of this series has just "Milked" the gaming community for profits as the "Only" College Football Developer on the market going into it's 5th year.

It's not coincedence that features that should have been in the series back in '08, are slowly being introduced as "New Feature" today.
This because nothing 'Innovative" has been done through/with the NCAA Football Series. Not one thing!

If you break down each phase of this game and analyse it's progress since being on Next-Gen, I believe we would have a clearer picture of what we've been paying for.

Since being introduced on these Next-Gen consoles, how has these phases of the game faired?

Visuals: C
When I look at the Visuals in many of the Shooters, NBA 2k and the Show, their behind, plain and simple.

Presentation: D
Being that they purchased the Exclusive contract to be the sole user of the ESPN Package, it's an "Insult" with how they are using the package.

What they are finally doing on the Madden side (camara, cut-scenes etc...) should've been infroduce in NCAA as soon as they signed as Exclusive ESPN users.

Gameplay: C-
It's amazing, we are still hoping/asking for Gameplay issues that were done incorrectly and/or missing in prior year's releases.

For some reason, they have been running into a brick wall in trying to get Spread/Option teams to perform as they should.
The question becomes, how much more can they tweak/tune this area of programming/coding for this area of gameplay to perform correctly when the gamer is playing?

The limitations of this Engine seems to show more and more with each release.
As one gameplay aspect is tweaked/tuned, another area seems to always takes a hit.

Replay ability: C
For those that simply download Slider Sets and Edited Rosters from the long hours of others, this will probably be higher for them.

For me and probably others like myself, I found myself spending more time Editing Players Ratings, Tweaking Sliders and Testing, and testing to try and eliminate/minimize many of the Gameplay issues vs actually playing the game.

I have yet to get in a Full Dynasty season from any release since '08, because the process above has been required year after year to come close to the playing perspective I so desired.

I just decided to break down Jayson's statement a little more to make sure I'm not just agreeing with him or just sounding like I'm EA bashing.

After really looking at the areas above, I can honestly say he is 100% correct!!!

[Pokes404]

Re: Staff Roundtable: NCAA Football 12 Demo Impressions

It's not coincedence that features that should have been in the series back in '08, are slowly being introduced as "New Feature" today.
This because nothing 'Innovative" has been done through/with the NCAA Football Series. Not one thing!

As disappointed as I've become with the series, I feel I have to correct you a bit on this statement.

EA deserves credit for Online Dynasties. That was a revolutionary feature, and in my opinion, is one of the big reasons this series has remained afloat. While I agree that the game is stale, and is largely just recycled features, EA really hit a home run with ODs.

Of course, it does me no good because I simply can't stand the gameplay anymore. I've grown tired of waiting for them to change basic problems that have not only been pointed out by the community, but have actually been done much better by EA in the past.