Everything that is wrong w/ NCAA - Dr Death's Blog

Dr Death's Blog

Everything that is wrong w/ NCAA

Posted on September 12, 2011 at 05:52 PM.

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I recently read the blog by Chriss S {I hope I spelled his name right} and it inspired me to write a blog, detailing the plethora of problems w/ the NCAA franchise right now. I warn you; this will be lengthy.

Where to begin? First, let's talk about team uniforms and/or helmets that are wrong. For years, certain teams have had the wrong font for the number 1. Wisconsin, UCLA, Missouri, Nebraska to name a few. How does this happen when other teams w/ the same fonts have the correct font? See photo for an example, the 1 is way too fat:

Now here's how the 1 should look:

A team that has their helmet so horribly wrong is Hawaii. Look at this screen from the game, look at how small their iconic H logo is and how close to the ear-hole it is:

And how it should be:

Not to mention that the color is way off in the game and many Michigan State fans can relate to this. Another problem is that EA makes no bones about the schools they favor. Florida State makes a change in their mid-field logo and EA jumps right to getting that fixed, yet we have a Washington Huskies fan who has been writing them for four years about how their field is STILL wrong w/ the layout/design, and yet EA ignores this year after year.

Now if one of these problems were in the game for one year, you could probably forgive them. But these problems persist for years! The reason? There's actually two; one is that EA just doesn't give a crap about any school that isn't Florida State, or at least, that's the impression they give, and two, it's pure laziness. It is simply inexcusable that the same flaws continue in the appearance of this game year after year.

Next on the list of problems is the announcing. How many years now have we been saddled w/ the same boring commentary? Many people applauded when Lee Corso was removed from the booth but you know what... after hearing the same stupid, boring lines for years, at least Corso made you laugh three or four times a game.

False Advertising... that's the best way I can explain the so-called Run & Shoot offense and the Air Raid offense that are "in the game." The R&S has what? Three plays? All the other passing plays have been in EA games for years. And the Air Raid isn't much better. For starters, in the Air Raid, many teams use extremely wide offensive line splits. This forces the DE's to split out even further, making it more difficult to get to the QB and despite these wide splits, their linemen are smart enough to pick up any blitzing linebackers. These wide line splits... a staple in most Air Raid offenses, also opens up passing lanes for the QB.

Yet EA ignores this completely.

Another staple of both the Air Raid and R&S is the Shovel Pass. Yet in 2011, EA still does not have this basic play in the playbooks. Why? They have option offenses in the game, but they can't figure out how to program a Shovel Pass?

I have been in contact w/ several of the people who visited EA this past year, to provide insight into the game, give impressions and also make suggestions on what needs to improve. And the excuses these guys were given by EA are just that; excuses. It's all good and well EA to get the community involved, but when you aren't going to pay attention to what they say, what's the point?

Another problem has been the fact that EA cannot program a game that challenges you w/ out cheating. We've all heard, and seen, the Psychic DB's and Superman Linebackers. But there's also Psychic DE's. Case in point... the WR Mid Screen.

I was elated last year when I heard that the Mid Screen and Bubble Screen were going to be part of the game. However, that elation soon turned to disappointment when I discovered that every time you called the Mid Screen, the defense would come out in Man coverage and thus, they would blow your play up.

Okay fine... if that's how EA is going to be, then I'll just use the WR Mid Screen as an audible. I've been in games where I don't call that audible until the 3rd quarter... {I play 10 minute quarters too} and the first time I call that audible, the DE on the side the play is going, will run right to where the WR is coming in and he will blow the play up.

Really?

In real life the Mid Screen or Jailbreak Screen, as it's called, will work against Man, Zone or Blitz. Not in the game though. It won't work against Man because the WR's can't block any better than my grandma and they rarely work against Zone because of the Psychic DE's. If I call that audible three times in a game, I am lucky if it works once.

Yet in real life, I see teams run that play 10 times a game and have it go for at least 5 yards, and many times 10+ yards.

The Bubble Screen is a total disaster. Before the named rosters came out this year I was playing a lot of Play Now games and using the Bubble 4-6 times a game. In all, I counted 122 times that I called this play. So roughly 25 or so games. In 122 attempts, this play worked for a sizable gain one freaking time. Once! Out of 122 tries. That works out to an 0.008 percentage of success. When a play has less than 1% chance of succeeding... again... what's the point?

Yet in real life, this play is run all the time and many times it gains substantial yardage. WR's that can't block is one problem in the game... and the WR that runs the Bubble runs it way too slow and then... about 97% of the time, he will turn his back to the defense to make the catch, and he gets stuck in some lousy canned animation that you can't get out of and then... he gets tackled. Usually for a -1 yard loss, no gain or a 1 yard gain at best.

This year, we were promised many great new features, including Custom Playbooks, Custom Conferences, Coaching Carousel and all are broken to some degree. Factor in that last year's key new feature... the ability to run No-Huddle and have your full offense at your disposal is also broken, just shows how inept and lazy EA has become.

Uniforms as D/L content. I have read that other games have this... so why doesn't NCAA football? Every year many teams use new uniforms, alternate uniforms and we are always a year behind in getting these. I find it so pathetically humorous that the game is named one year ahead... NCAA '12 in 2011... yet the uniforms are all 2010 for the most part.

NCAA '12 has been an unmitigated disaster by all accounts. The "Patch" that was supposed to make it better, only broke more features and made it worse. So... what hope is there for the future? We can only hope that EA loses their exclusivity license and thus another company comes out w/ a great college game or... we have to hope that EA wises up and fires everybody associated w/ this game and hires people who can actually make the game playable on the next-gen of consoles some 5-6 years after next-gen arrived.

Personally, after seeing the horrible problems w/ the game this year and EA's neglect of the community for almost two months and then the lousy patch they released... I have given up any hope of ever having a college game to play. Thanks EA. When NFL2K5 came out and you got your butts kicked, instead of manning up and making a better game, you chose to use your "power" and buy all the rights to these games and you have totally destroyed gamers enjoyment in playing a college or pro football game ever since.

Wonderful job... just wonderful.

Comments

# 1 LoganSf @ Sep 15

In regards to the Hawaii helmet logo, I remember changing helmets on a player and I noticed that the logo changed size and position slightly going between the air xp, ion, revo speed, etc. I just thought it was really strange and maybe that is why the "H" is so low and small on the ION