A Trip Down Memory Lane - NCAA Retrospective

[mudtiger]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mizzou23

Yeah, Daniel is really good. The offense should be great this year. Everybody comes back, and some of the freshmen that played last year are really good. My big question is the defense. At least they will be fun to play with on NCAA '08. Back when I started playing NCAA, Mizzou was terrible.

Line Coffman or Rucker up in the slot, you'll be unstoppable. I hope they give Daniel some speed and trucking ability I'm actually not that worried about the defense, I'm more worried about Daniel having an off year or getting injured.

[Mizzou23]

Quote: Originally Posted by mudtiger

Line Coffman or Rucker up in the slot, you'll be unstoppable. I hope they give Daniel some speed and trucking ability I'm actually not that worried about the defense, I'm more worried about Daniel having an off year or getting injured.

Yeah, if he gets hurt, it's going to be a long year. And Rucker and Coffman will get plenty of playing time for me in NCAA '08!

[stoncold32]

2002 - Great game
2003 - Even greater
2004 - Undescribable! If you tweaked the slider on this game you could have high powered offensive shootouts as I had in a game where I was Ohio State and beat USC(cpu) 53-51, or you could have defensive games where the final score was 10-9, I had those too. Besides that, this game had some a collections of the greatest players in the NCAA in years. Leinart, Bush, Tommie Harris, Jason White, MArk Clayton, Cadillac Williams, tons more, as well as great teams like Iowa who would play you tough down to the wire, or Michigan.

I remember the day 2005 came out which was on a Monday, I played a 'retirement' game for 2004, I was Auburn and had a barn-burner against Florida which ranked in the top 10 of my greatest games. I was so stoked to go pick up 2005 in a just several hours.....

2005 - I get the one and only mall in Norman, and the Gamestop is just flat out packed with a line extending well out into the mall from both entrances. I had NEVER seen anything like this, not for 02', not for '03, it was all because of the greatness of 2004, and the mass amount of college kids who bought it....espcially in Norman. OU players were cutting in line, trying to make deals with the employees, people were waiting patiently in this loooooong line for 2-3 hrs, and finally it was released at 9pm.

I pop it in, thinking I was gonna be in the thrill of a LIFETIME after 2004. And low and behold, this turned out to be one of the worst games I've ever bought. Right up there with WCW Thunder IMO....lol I tried, tried, tried to adjust sliders, practice, none of it mattered, that game was just bad. I took it back and got NFL 2k5, and THAT was the last football game I ever purchased.

Needless to say, I'm looking for that old thrill I got from 02-04, when I make this purchase this year.

[AndyDufresne]

I still think 2003 is the overall best version. As someone earlier alluded to, there is something about the flow of the running game in 2003 that beats the other versions. 2004 and 2007 are a close 2nd.

[MassNole]

Lets see what I remember about the games over the years.

NCAA 98 for the PS1
I don't think I ever anticipated a game more than this one. The PS1 was the new great thing and it was a grown up version of my beloved favorite Sega game ever. Sure today this game would be atrocious visually, but then it was a thing of beauty. And seemingly every year from there we saw massive improvements in the game. First we went from sprites to polygons, and dynasty mode expanded from 4 years to what was it on the PS1, 255 years? Recruiting went from just assigning what coach to recruit a player to the in depth recruiting we have today. It is so hard to believe the game as come so far in 10 years.

As for the individual games, here are some of my memories.
NCAA 2000 - First, FSU was beastly in this game as it was the 1999 National Championship team and Peter Warrick was a monster to go along with Lav Coles. This game also offered Create a play, funny that still hasn't made it to the PS2/Xbox generation or the PS360 generation. I designed some insane plays for Peter Warrick. Sure today they would probably be called cheese, but then it was a way to get the ball to my star and for him to make things happen.

NCAA 2002 - It was in this game in a dynasty with Tennessee that I saw a 5* RB with my name! I had to have myself go to Tennessee, but alas I guess the Catholic school boy in me decided Notre Dame was the better fit. Unfortunately in this game you couldn't choose your own schedule, that came in 2003. But low and behold on my schedule the next 2 years was Notre Dame. Needless to say I was my own worst enemy those two years.

NCAA 2003 - Even though I vastly preferred NCAA 2004, my longest running dynasty was in this game. I made it to sometime in the 2020's playing every game with my beloved Noles.

NCAA 2004 - This game is probably my favorite in the series. The PS2 had online play and the Xbox version had considerably better graphics. I actually had both versions, one to play online and one for the graphics and dynasty mode.

NCAA 2005 - Well this sucked. I really think this game soured me on the franchise and what I can expect of EA any given year. But at least it had online play for the Xbox.

NCAA 2006 - This was my shortest played game unfortunately for the Xbox, because of the 360 and M$'s lies about backwards compatibility. I recently purchased it for the PS2 and am loving it. It was better than 2005 but the Impact players were so ridiculously overdone that it was a game killer. No matter if it was God, I mean Reggie Bush or some 80 overall impact back on scrub team, Impact players were overdone.

NCAA 2007 - Nextgen is here but so many features were not. In some ways this game is best described as one step back to take two steps forward. Hopefully 2008 is what it can be.