NCAA 07

OK...

No joke. The new NCAA game is one of the craziest football games I've ever played in my life. I've only played one game so far... (Auburn/Clemson - I was the away team, Auburn)

Here's a rundown of what I think so far.

The Good:
1.) The Graphics. Unreal is an understatement. The lighting, the condition of the field when you play on it.... the details... the stadiums, the camera shots, the tackles... in short = it's nuts.

2.) Menu Screens : Ok... while this may be silly for some... NCAA has a lot of Menu interface when you start a Dynasty. Not only does it look amazing.... it's possibly the finest work they've ever done. I should know... I've played the shit out of the series.

3.) ESPN realtime updates: OK. So i went a little nuts and hooked up the WiFi for the XBox. Dude. I get real time scores of shit going down in real life. Like - I got the Redskins/Bengals score while I PLAYED.

4.) Stadium Momentum. Seriously... playing away is really hard. Like HARD.

5.) Jump the HIKE - I don't know when they brought this in... but if you can time it just right. You can have you team Jump the Hike and get a HUGE jump on the O-Line.

The Bad:

1.) No CLASSIC - viewing angle. There's a fixed shot of the action in this years NCAA. Unless I can find where to zoom out a bit... this is something I'm going to get used to.

2.) Pace of the Game: Because of the graphics... the game takes a very different pace from all the other NCAA's I've ever played. Meaning... if you picked up a NCAA one year to the next... you didn't miss a beat. This one is way different.

3.) the Controls - the Controls are very new and they're very detailed. Everything from Kicking (think - Golden tee) to the onscreen options. It's CRAZY intensive. They've merged a lot of Madden/NCAA improvements from the past 3 years into this one title... It's going to take a while to understand it all. Once I do... it's going to be a plus.

4.) Repetitive Shot sequences : Like early EA Games... there's a lot of looping graphics that can get old. It's the first XBox 360 port... but you know that good things are going to come of it.

5.) Game Clock - ok... this is good and bad. You know how its almost impossible to get a delay of game in these football games? Well... it's totally possible now. It feels like a 24 second clock. and with the graphics being unreal as they are... its crazy how many penalties you can get in one game. I figured out how to get to the line quicker... but you have take time to let players line up and the options on O are crazy... so you run the risk of going over anyways when you're trying to figure out the new button layout and the OPTION ROUTES.

All in all... I just SCRAPED the surface yesterday. I'm blown away by how crazy the game looks on the TV. I'm blown even more away by how good the system is. It's like CRAZY good.

I sorta wished I held out for Madden in a way. It's going to be a game that has more bugs fleshed out and I'm going to probably pick that one up... which is going to possibly put this game on the shelf for a little bit... but I have a solid week of playing it to make me possibly hold off on getting Madden on release day.