NCAA Football 13 is Simply Broken - ExtremeGamer's Blog

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NCAA Football 13 is Simply Broken

Posted on August 1, 2012 at 07:02 AM.

(22)

I hate using the term "broken", because very few videogames are truly broken. They may have features we dislike or issues, but in the end, the game is usually playable. That changes with NCAA Football 13, the game is broken, there's no other way to put it. It's without a doubt the most glitch filled game I've ever played, even more so than last year's debacle.

So what lead me to this, the above screen shot from a game I had? (If you want to know, USC used the "QB snap to the center back to the QB" formation all game long, not just once.) No, what kills NCAA 13 is the fact that it can't be played. I cannot play the game without it freezing, therefore it's unplayable.

Mind you, I don't and haven't had this issue with any other game on my Xbox 360, only NCAA 13. I restarted my dynasty 5 times due to this, finally settled in one, and trying to get into game 3, the dynasty froze trying to load it up. Fine, used a work around by creating a new dynasty and then going back into my real one. Got in, but then froze going into my weekly game. Fine, used the work around of creating a new save point. Froze again. Renamed my dynasty, froze again. The last edge of my sanity was at question by this point.

I then saw the patch coming out this week, I had already traded the game into Amazon at that point, but had until 8/2 to ship it to them so figured at least I could try the patch and cancel the trade in transaction. The patch was released yesterday, to my excitement had no issues entering my dynasty or my game. I got into an intense battle in my week 3 game, going into halftime leading 14-7 using Ohio State over Cal. Meanwhile, Arkansas was up 36-22 over #1 Alabama entering the 4th and Wake Forest was up 28-3 on Florida State going into the 4th as well. I was engaged with my game as well as 2 upsets going on accross the country. So I enter halftime...and

http://yfrog.com/n35dywxrrpbqvjlfbtlhzmgdz

That's what I stared at for 4 minutes before I had to completely turn off my 360. If not for knowing I was getting at least in trade in credit for the disc from Amazon, I would have snapped it into little pieces and mailed one to each developer/QA who works for EA Sports.

I thought for a brief second, maybe it's only me. I went to the OS forums to check others impressions of the patch, sure enough, many are suffering from the halftime freeze. Basically a patch was released to fix the offline dynasty freezes only to then add a new freeze during the actual game. Lovely!

Truly a disaster of a release that's completely unplayable. I won't waste any further time with the game, it went out to Amazon today. It's an amazing fall how far the NCAA series has fallen from grace. Every release gets worse and worse. Someone should give the NCAA series the death penalty at this point, and start it all over fresh in a few years.

Comments

# 1 rudyjuly2 @ Aug 1

After last year's freezing issues to have something worse this year is just inexcusable. The NCAA dev team is beyond sloppy. The attention to detail and polish are simply lacking and this what we get. I passed on NCAA this year but have high hopes for Madden.

# 2 rudyjuly2 @ Aug 1

I've been saying this for the last year or more. EA's NCAA team is the equivalent to the MLB 2K team. Some core elements are good but you have to look beyond too many bugs, glitches and lack of polish to enjoy it.

# 3 droopizzle34 @ Aug 1

It makes me sad how far this franchise has fallen off since the jump to the 360/PS3 consoles. Very disappointing. There are so many gameplay glitches now there's no point of trying to play online. From shake abusers,squib kick glitches,d/cers, man, its ridiculous this year. It seems we are watching the death of NCAAFootball in the video game realm,and there's nothing we can do to stop it......

# 4 40onem215 @ Aug 1

This is terrible, glad i didnt get it but sorry for u and others problems. I hope madden doesnt have these problems

# 5 chibears96 @ Aug 1

Don't play EA games just 2k5. The only other football game I have ever got was NCAA 11 and I thought it was decent. Until my brother bought Ncaa 13 yes I live with people who are in love with madden. And won't give 2k a chance because of how old it is. So he asked me to put the community rosters on the 360. After putting them on I said whatever I'll play a game. Heisman difficulty USC(me) vs Wisconsin. I'm telling you from the start of the to the end I replayed so many plays and on everyone I can find something wrong with it. From the bad animations to the many glitches and bugs it was ridiculous. I couldn't help but lol every other play. Lost 52-55 their QB was 20-22 278 yards Montae had 200+ yards rushing Barkley threw for over 500 yards. Most were just bombs when the safeties would act ******** and not cover no one. Short completions were hard to complete. Animation are terrible, bugs everywhere, and the graphics aren't that good imo. Then play my brother he had Clemson and I had the Gamecocks. Played the game holding back laughter and actually won even though I haven't played an EA game in a while. Lattimore had 45 rushing yards on 20 something carries because all he would do is have his LB blitz and my O-Line would never throw a man a block. Also why I got sacked an ish load of times. Another problem is what the hell is wrong with the agility and big hits? every kickoff there is a big hit and all you do is run around and zig zag and make the blockers look even more dumb. And you get to the return man. The next game was really the nail in the coffin. I was Texas (which had an A+ rated Defense) vs my brother who had A&M. And again couldn't run every LB plays like Demarcus Ware apperently and my D gave up 50+ points! I know I might not be very good (then again I was playing the AI pretty good on Heisman). But really an A+ defense was no different from South carolina or SC's defense too me. I couldn't wait to play 2k I didn't even care about the cr@ppy QB play in 2k no more I just had so much more fun play that then NCAA. Of course just my opinions but my brother likes it (then again he doesn't really care he just like college football). But this is a huge disappointment I was expecting alot more then what I got. Not to mention the game froze after the last 2 games.

# 6 killrnut @ Aug 2

What a coincidence!

I, too, had NCAA 13 freeze up on me at halftime, while playing with Ohio State, hosting Cal.

This was my freeze screen:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/94583260/ncaa%20freeze.jpg

I was SO disappointed!! Was enjoying myself in the midst of the battle.

This is the 2nd time the game completely froze on me. But the first time I was in recruiting and didn't lose any work.

I don't know if I can bring myself to even try to play dynasty any further, knowing it keeps freezing over and over for people.

And yes, this was after installing the upgrade.

# 7 mistaric @ Aug 2

how's this for adding insult to injury? so was having the freeze issue, did the 'work-around' which seemed to work ok. then, july 31st comes. Yay! the patch that's gonna fix this awful glitch. so i'm playing the game using my team builder team (went to American University where we had no football team, so i created one, and put it in the ACC). playing Ga Tech, destroyed them, get all the way to the end, no freezes. phew, i made it, i think. THEN..... as it's cycling thru the replays at end of game, FREEZE. but wait, it gets worse. NOW, i can't even play the game, because immediately after that happened, i turned off my xbox 360, restarted the machine, and NOW it can't read the disc. WTF???? i wiped it off with a soft cloth like xbox suggested. NOTHING. now, i can't even play to a point where it freezes. i NEVER had this issue w/ ANY of my games, EVER. i am sooo disappointed in EA's attempt at a college football game this year. i put in other games, and it works, so i know it's the disc and not my xbox. still, very very very upset @ EA. now i have to wait a few days for my amazon replacement game to arrive.

# 8 UH53 @ Aug 2

You know what sucks... That pic looks like a PS2 screenshot! WTF???? When NCAA 11 came out I thought they were finally moving in the right direction.... Wrong!!! Glitches, patches, glitches, patches...... This is ridiculous! I have a suggestion to those at EA for NCAA 14... Just port Madden 13 over (Infinity engine and equipment upgrades), add the Uniform store, and stadiums... Problem solved at least for me!

# 9 ExtremeGamer @ Aug 2

@UH53 To be fair, the screen shot is off my cell phone. Not that I disagree with you at all though.

I ended up getting $36 for the game from Amazon, it's already scheduled to arrive tomorrow and I'll have my credit. Completely rid myself of this game.

# 10 killrnut @ Aug 2

the most extremely sad thing about all this is, it is NEVER gonna get any better.

While Madden will likely have some competition at some point in the future, as the exclusive license ends, there will probably never be another company devoting its resources to creating a college game to compete with NCAA. College Football is a niche market in the sports gaming world, much more so in the general gaming world itself. Creating a new game to complete with EA's NCAA would cost a company a lot of time and resources to develop, and they would have to compete against a product that is already well known from a well established company. So I don't see any developer wanting to take on such a project.... People keep buying NCAA and they keep putting out crappy or buggy releases. I am SO glad I did not buy the game new this year. My money went to gamestop instead of EA.

# 11 ExtremeGamer @ Aug 2

@killrnut I would almost be surprised if we see NCAA 15. I believe NCAA 14 will come out and be the last in the series. NCAA 15 would be on the next gen systems, and just don't see EA dealing with it anymore. That way they can get away from the lawsuit issues and other issues with the series and just scrap it.

# 12 Dprimetime21 @ Aug 2

Is this just an xbox issue????? Cause ive witnessed none of this on Ps3. Glad i switched to ps3.

# 13 VTlion @ Aug 2

Literally broken! I played the RTG mode to bide my time for the rosters. This was just o.k compared to last years version. Offense was cool but defense sucked. I don't need reaction time. All I needed was my strafe button for defense but apparently EA didn't think it was important enough. So no RTG for me. Y Now I'm primarily a offline dynasty mode player. In fact NCAA football is one of the only games I play for an extended time( I love college football ). So I was amped when I finally got the rosters and could start my dynasty. I went through the first year with minimal problems. (I had to do the re-order recruit thing once) Then came year two. I played the first half of the season and now im stuck. Every time I enter a game it freezes in the first quarter. I try most of the work grounds but none work. My