NCAA Football 08 (PlayStation 3)

Manufacturer: Electronic Arts Inc. Part number: 15427

CNET Editor rating:
4.0 stars Excellent
Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 6 reviews

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CNET editors' review

Reviewed by Aaron Thomas
Review date: 07/20/07
Release date: 07/17/07

NCAA Football 07 was a great game but it suffered from many of the same problems that other series experienced in their transition from one generation of consoles to the next, most notably a lack of game modes and features. That's not a problem in NCAA Football 08. Even if the presentation is largely unchanged, there's no shortage of ways to stay occupied. The new campus legend mode and super sim are also nice additions to an already great-playing game.

Running the option never gets old.

Last year's relatively light list of game modes is a thing of the past. You can play a quick game, hop online for an unranked or ranked game, play a few minigames, take over a college program in dynasty mode, or try to become an all-time great player in campus legend mode. NCAA 08's minigames are the same as 07's minigames. Tug-of-war, bowling, and option dash are a lot of fun if you didn't play them to death last year, but it would have been nice to have something new.

Online play is OK, but lag makes it consistently difficult to tackle and kick. Though online play and minigames are underwhelming, the rest of the game modes make up for the underwhelming parts. If you're online, you can use the new Weather Channel feature to play in the same weather as the real stadium in which you're currently playing. You could always change the weather on your own before, but this is a cool addition especially because playing in rain and snow really affects how players move more than ever.

At first glance, dynasty mode isn't terribly different from last year's mode. You still pick a school (you can't create your own), set your lineup, adjust your schedule, and try to lead your team to a national championship or win as many games as possible so you can earn offers from a more prestigious school. To find success on the field, you'll need to work hard off the field recruiting, and this is where you'll notice the biggest change to dynasty mode.

Recruiting now has a lot more of a hands-on feel to it. You select 35 players to focus your efforts on, rank them, and then call them on the phone to establish a relationship. Once you've got them on the phone, you choose from a variety of topics to discuss with your recruit. You can talk about your school's fans, TV coverage, athletic facilities, tradition, and more. Your school is ranked in each category, so you'll want to pick your program's strengths and hope they match the interests of your player. If he's feeling your pitch, a football icon at the top of the screen will smile; if you're not on the same wavelength, the icon will frown, and eventually, the player will hang up on you.

Once you've garnered significant interest from the recruit, you can schedule a campus visit and up to three activities during the visit. You'll want to pick the things the recruit is most interested in, which is why you should find out what the player feels is important about his college experience when you've got him on the phone. But you've only got 10 hours per week to talk, and each pitch you select takes several minutes off the clock, so you'll need to budget your time wisely. You can offer a scholarship at any time, which the player can accept right away, mull over, or reject based on his interest level.

If you're having a hard time nailing down a commitment, you can make promises to the player. This option is only available in the offseason and lets you promise playing time, personal accolades, or even championships to the player. If you make good on a promise, your integrity rating goes up and you're given access to more promises. If you fail to keep your promise, your integrity goes down and your promises won't carry much weight. This new recruiting system is a lot of fun for a while, and you really feel like your decisions are affecting each player's interest in your school. But by the end of the first season, you'll start to notice that you're just doing the same thing over with each player, and that yapping on the phone with 35 players is rather time consuming.

It takes a lot of work to build a college football dynasty.

If you're not in the mood to take the reins of an entire program, you can create a high school player in campus legend mode. Once you've picked your position and school, you'll find yourself in your state's playoffs. You've got extra incentive to win and play well because scouts are at each game rating your performance. When the playoffs are over, you're presented with a list of schools that are interested in your services, as well as where you rank on their depth chart. At first, you're not going to be a starter at a top-25 school. To move up the depth chart, you'll have to attend practice. Here, you're given 10 reps and you earn points for successful plays. When you've got enough points, you'll move up on the depth chart.

This might sound like a lot of work, but even if you're the fifth-ranked player at a position, you can take the starting spot in a matter of weeks, and once the job is yours, you can't lose it. Not only will you have to attend practice, but you'll also have to make decisions on how to spend your free time. These choices are presented in a "choose your own adventure" format. You will have you decide what to eat, whether or not to play darts, how long to study, and when to hang out with your friends. If you make a good decision, you'll often be rewarded with attribute boosts, but if you choose poorly, you can find yourself with bad grades or even injured. This is an interesting concept, but you never know what the "right" decision is, and many of the situations are just plain goofy (like when you burn your hand frying pickles).

Thankfully, actually playing in games makes up for the somewhat uninteresting time between them. You'll only play when your player is on the field, which is nice because you can breeze through games in no time at all. Because you're the player and not the coach, you might not get the ball every time, but it's always fun to get it through a key block that springs another player for a touchdown. The camera focuses on your player, and while it does a decent job of keeping up with you, it often doesn't show enough of the field around you, which is frustrating when it causes you to run into a defender just offscreen.

(Originally posted on CNET Reviews)

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User reviews

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Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 6 reviews

Showing opinion 1 to 6 out of 6

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5 stars

Dissapointing

by 38t on August 25, 2007

Pros: Textures/players looks good, commentary is smoother, the basics are easy to figure out

Cons: Looks cartoonish (where's the dirt?), A lot of the changes were unnessecary, crappy sidelines (still), overused celebrations, complex controls, audibles, line movements, etc are hard to call

Summary: I rented this game, and haven't looked into the Shrine or online features, I'm here to rate the gameplay, and it just doesn't seem smooth. The players ...

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Summary: I rented this game, and haven't looked into the Shrine or online features, I'm here to rate the gameplay, and it just doesn't seem smooth. The players may look good, but they are so bright on the turf, they look cartoonish. Their movements are somewhat smooth, but It seems jumpy at times, especially replays. Menus are smoother, but they move slowly like they also need to load(as if the PS3 doesn't have the power to load a menu quickly). The new playcalling system is a hassle at best (categories galore), and so are some of the reworked controls (R2 to sprint??). Calling certain things at the line, such as moving a man, seems to EAT the clock up.
I will say that some things look good though, like the turf, and faces looks good, there are just some factors missing that would make the game much better, even if it is nitpicking. EA needs to put in some of 07's gaming factors, fix the sidelines (low-res players that usually repeat numbers), and consider a more rugged look for the players. I play football and my jersey becomes unkempt and untucked, the end of my belt falls out, straps come undone off my helmet, etc...

Maybe I've spent too much time with '07, but the new 08 seems rushed into the market, choppy, and overall unsatisfactory. I think the PS3 has the power to do so much better, after seeing how well r:fom was done.

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6 stars

Great for fans but too many flaws

by tbshaw on August 21, 2007

Pros: If you like NCAA football there's only one choice

Cons: Flaws everyonewhere, ridiculous AI at times, frustrating gameplay....

Summary: Well I love NCAA football so of course I had to have the game. I love the franchise and it is still a game I play all the time but ...

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Summary: Well I love NCAA football so of course I had to have the game. I love the franchise and it is still a game I play all the time but there are so many holes and frustrating aspects to the game it really needs more work.

For starters the AI can be horrid. In All-American mode your defensive backfield will intercept everything. In Heisman, they stand there and watch the ball zip by them. Actually playing any member of the defense will drastically hurt you as you can never seem to get the right angles to make a tackle and even the quarterback will run over everyone.

On offense it's impossible to complete a pass one on one as it will get picked off twice as often as your receiver will catch it. Heisman mode is absurdly hard and almost too frustrating and ridiculous to play.

The recruiting mode is revamped... Sometimes I like it but it takes a long time between each game.

Gang tackles are a noticeable improvement and the graphics are smooth and realistic for the most part.

Again, great for fans but still a lot of holes and not yet up to par with Madden

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6 stars

Still love the franchise, game needs work

by kprattipati on August 6, 2007

Pros: It's a really fun game with lots of replayability

Cons: It's sluggish on the PS3 and doesn't have the college feel

Summary: The game is still a lot of fun but I'm hoping the next version is improved. I love the improved graphics and the gameplay is smooth, but a little ...

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Summary: The game is still a lot of fun but I'm hoping the next version is improved. I love the improved graphics and the gameplay is smooth, but a little sluggish. Also the Legend mode is awesome now that you start with the highschool playoffs.

Here's what I didn't like... In terms of gameplay it just feels slow. There are so many cut scenes which take forever to get through and it takes a while to actually get to a game in dynasty mode or in campus legend mode. Please speed up the cut scenes. They also made it almost impossible to complete a pass if your receiver is covered deep one-on-one. The cornerback will jump up and block the pass even if your receiver has 5 yards of separation. Same thing happens if you go over or to the corner of the endzone and there is a defender within 5 yards of your player, they will jump up and either block or pick off the pass. I also don't like the new play selection screens, I frequently find myself almost about to get a delay of game penalty because I can't find the play I'm looking for. Also there seems to be no way to edit your playbook, you have to switch to another team's.

Outside of gameplay the recruiting is drastically changed and much much more time consuming. Recruiting used to be one of my favorite parts of the game, now it's my least favorite.

Overall it's still the same fun franchise, but this version added a lot of kinks which I don't like. I hope next year's version has a lot of improvements.

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8 stars

Overall, a great football game

by mmcdonn1 on July 19, 2007

Pros: Deep Dynasty mode, Ability to save replays/highlights, Excellent AI

Cons: It could include more details -- See review

Summary: While it's not much different from previous years (other than the shift up to next-gen graphics), this game has added some tweaks that make it very fun! This a ...

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Summary: While it's not much different from previous years (other than the shift up to next-gen graphics), this game has added some tweaks that make it very fun! This a really great game from a great franchise. The gameplay will remind you of previous versions of the game, and I think that is a good thing. I'd hate to see EA mess with the gameplay too much since the controls are so intuitive and the actual level of difficulty is so realistic (and if it isn't, you can use sliders and adjust the level to make it the optimum balance of challenge and fun). The graphics, now on a next-gen system look amazing. I was worried that the 30fps would make the game seem choppy, but it looks incredibly smooth. If you set it side-by-side with the xbox360 version, you will see a slight difference in the framerate, but it isn't drastic. Overall, I'm very impressed with the graphical presentation of the game. The sound is also great. The crowd reacts to the plays appropriately, and there is good intensity.

As far as features go, this game has a lot of great features and has tweaked some of the old ones, but there are still some things that need to be added. First the good: Dynasty mode, as always, is awesome. They've completely overhauled the recruiting. Now, you need to keep up with your recruits throughout the year, schedule visits and activities, and you can even make promises to them to persuade them to come to your team. At first, it seemed a little daunting to scout your recruits and keep in touch with them, but it is very intuitive and easy as you go along. The campus legend mode has made some great changes as well. I love the option to take an existing player and make them a campus legend. You can take the all-american Freshman QB that your team just recruited and steer his career into hall-of-fame status. You can also take that senior that finally broke into the starting lineup and work to make him the breakout player you always believed he'd be. You can also create a player and progress him from his senior year in High School into the college game. They've added the high-school state football tournament for you to up your value while you are being recruited. They've also tweaked it so that you can only control your player in this mode... This is an awesome feature because it makes you take ownership of your player even when he's not directly involved in the play. For example, if you are a RB, and the called play is a pass with your player staying in for protection, that's what you need to do, you can't change the play and it will negatively effect your status if you give up a sack. Unlike previous versions of the game, you can't make coaching decisions in Campus legend mode. This means that you can't call your own number over and over again to turn your guy into a statistical titan. The game simulates all plays that you are not involved in so that you don't have to spend lots of time playing defense, when your legend player is the qb. You also have to earn your starting spot, so if you aren't #1 on the depth chart, you won't see the field until you earn it in practice. This mode has been overhauled, and it shows incredible attention to detail. I'm hoping that this is a sign of things to come. The disappointing aspects of this game come in the form of details. There are no refs on the field... while this doesn't have a great effect on the game, it's a detail that could be added to make it a better simulation. It'd be great if, after a play, the player would hand the ball to the ref and he'd mark the spot as opposed to what actually happens, where the player just tosses the ball (usually into the helmet of the guy that just tackled him). When there is an injury, the player just lays on the field, and nobody comes to tend to him. This would be an easy detail to add. They don't have alternate uniforms/jerseys that have appeared in previous versions of the game. The pregame just shows a pan + scan of the stadium. I'd like to bring back the players rushing onto the field and maybe the cheerleaders/flag bearers rushing the field, or the marching band. With next-gen graphics and extra capacity on blu-ray, this could be done and it would definitely add to the feel of the game.

Overall, this is another great game for the EA franchise. It definitely has more to offer than last year, but I still think that it can do even better. I'd highly recommend this game to anyone that enjoys a good football game.

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8 stars

Good, but thats about it.

by dashow93 on July 18, 2007

Pros: Dynasty mode, awesome graphics

Cons: Dynasty mode gets boring, nothing new

Summary: Its the same game as last year, except with better graphics and on a new console. The dynasty mode is cool untill u play it a couple seasons. I thot ...

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Summary: Its the same game as last year, except with better graphics and on a new console. The dynasty mode is cool untill u play it a couple seasons. I thot the 30 frames per second was a little low compared the 360's 60, but you wont really tell a diffrence in-game too much. Cool legend mode, and excellent new features.

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8 stars

pretty good for first installment, but could be better

by thechosenone24 on July 18, 2007

Pros: great graphics and features

Cons: no juke button which really hurts the running game

Summary: overall, I like it!!!!!!!!!!

Summary: overall, I like it!!!!!!!!!!

Showing opinion 1 to 6 out of 6

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Specifications

Manufacturer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Part number: 15427

Product Basic Spec
Platform Playstation 3
ESRB rating Everyone -
Genre Sports
Number of players 1-2 Players
Connectivity Online,Broadband Only

Game
Developer EA Sports
ESRB Everyone

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NCAA Football 08 (PlayStation 3)

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