The Lost Features: A look at ancient NCAA Football games

[sparkdawg777]

I was going to try and create a thread, playing each NCAA Football game I had and noting things that today's game does not have. However I could not find 99 and 2000, but I did find 2001 and also found that it had some pretty cool features that are not seen today. If anyone has any NCAA's before this game feel free to talk about some features that are not in today, for example NCAA 99 had Create-A-Play which I haven't seen in 2001 (PS1). Here are some of the cool features found in NCAA 2001...

-FCS Teams

I'm not sure if they had every team but they did have unique stadiums for EACH FCS team. I'm not sure how authentic they were but they were each different from the other which suprised me the most of any thing I found in this game.

-Custom League/Tournament

Another cool feature was creating a custom league with up to 8 teams. You had the option to choose from 2,4,6, or 8 teams along with how many teams make the playoffs, 2, 4, 6, or 8. On top of that you could choose if each team played the other once or twice. Not as cool as OD but was still pretty cool.

There was also an ability to create a tournament from 4, 8, or 16 teams. The tournament could be single or double elimination

-Situation Mode

I'm not sure how much this would be used today but it is a pretty cool feature allowing you to create any situation by editing the score, quarter, time left, TO's left, who has the ball and where.

-Create A School

Not as in depth as Teambuilder of course but there are a few options not in TB today, such as

Fight Song - any FBS school and 10 generic

Enrollment - from 1-65,000

Rival - ANY school both FBS/FCS

Additional Team Types - Juggernaut, Cupcake, Balanced, Smashmouth,
Pass Specialists, Air it Out, Defense Wins Championships, Ball Control, Strong D, Big Offense. However NCAA teams were not available

Additional Stadium Types - Bowl, Bowl w/Upper Deck, Dome, Dualstands, Horseshoe. However, no NCAA stadiums.

Stadium Capacity - from 1-999,999 (Yeh, a little bit much)

Additional Turf Types - Grass, Turf, Blue Turf, Track, Striped Turf

Additional Endzone Types - Two Logos (On each end of endzone), Two Helmets (Same, looks pretty cool), Diamonds, Checkerboard, Slashes, Solid Color, None

There was also a pretty good Uniform Editor for this feature and some other options seen in TB (Team info, Some logos to choose from, etc)


-Dynasty

Up to 6 user players to choose from

Both D1 A/AA leagues, figured out there are only 3 conferences in FCS - Ivy, MEAC, and SWAC

Custom Scheduling allowed any game to be changed including conference as long as they went by the rules given (i.e. must play certain amount of conference and division games, Min of 9 games, Max of 11 unless team plays in Week 1 then 12, also add 1 to max if playing at Hawaii) AND GUESS WHAT, ability to choose stadium location for each game.

End of Season - Bowl Game/Tournament

FCS teams also had a top 5

FBS playoffs had 24 teams (top 24 in poll), Top 8 received byes and each game was played in a bowl game. The Semi-Finals were played in BCS bowls and the Final in the BCS Championship game (at that time the Orange Bowl) #1 Nebraska defeated #11 Kansas State in the Championship in the first sim season I did.

There was also an all-star game at the end of the playoffs (Red-Blue Game)

Unfortunately there was not an FCS playoff

Recruiting wasn't great compared to today but there was an option to send the HC, Coordinator, Assistant Coach, or Grad Assistant to visit, however this was the only way to recruit. There was also not any in-season recruiting.


-Gameplay notes

The only thing I noticed that NCAA does not have today were team specific chants. I played with Clemson and there was a "Let's Go Tigers!" Chant, however its funny to note that the "Defense" chant still found today was in there on 3rd downs.


After playing this game you begin to really appreciate where we are today. In fact it is hard for me to enjoy playing this game because the graphics are so bad but I know that when I had this game it was the best out there, amazing to think what I'll be saying about NCAA 12 in 11 years.

[THREADCLOSED]

i miss the mini games, but i've always wondered why take out good features? why not just keep them and add on the game each yr.. and of course take out the not so good ones

[belucheez]

Quote: Originally Posted by THREADCLOSED

i miss the mini games, but i've always wondered why take out good features? why not just keep them and add on the game each yr.. and of course take out the not so good ones

Tug of War on NCAA 2007 was so awesome.

[SammyC14]

I agree with the mini games. Back in college my room mates and I would be able to play drinking games to the mini games....great times...loved the option attack!

[cap032]

Id like to see the All Star game return in the form of the Senior Bowl. That and maybe the UA or Army AA game make an appearance in RTG mode. Those would be nice additions for 13.

[jasonw2]

I used to love the bright green astro-turf. It looked great on a video game, the new turf is too dark. Although I realize its not EAs fault, since they've gone too a new fake turf.

[IronVictory]

Quote: Originally Posted by sparkdawg777

FBS playoffs had 24 teams (top 24 in poll), Top 8 received byes and each game was played in a bowl game. The Semi-Finals were played in BCS bowls and the Final in the BCS Championship game (at that time the Orange Bowl) #1 Nebraska defeated #11 Kansas State in the Championship in the first sim season I did.

LOVED this feature. It was awesome. It would be great if they could add something so simple yet so enjoyable to the game.

[Voldemort]

I really liked the SI magazine covers every week in Dynasty Mode.