Chris' NCAA Football 11 Demo Review - RaychelSnr's Blog

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RaychelSnr's Blog

Chris' NCAA Football 11 Demo Review Stuck

Posted on June 23, 2010 at 02:17 PM.

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I'm back from vacation, look for a little deluge of blogs over the next few days as I try to catch up on everything. First things first though: I've got to lay down some impressions of the NCAA Football 11 Demo.

My first impression of the game is that it looks just so much better this year. From the lighting, to improved animations, to the presentation -- EA has just done a superb job adding a nice coat of polish onto the game to make it just that much better looking. For the casual user, these differences alone will make the game seem a lot better. For guys like us, we like to look under the hood a bit more for what really counts: the gameplay.

I think the gameplay's advancement can best be described as a huge one year leap. NCAA 08 to 09 was the biggest one year leap yet for the franchise on next gen consoles (despite the fact the defense didn't come along to play) with 09 to 10 being one of the more minimal updates I can remember in a year to year franchise since I've been around covering sports games (for those counting, that's since 1999.)

This year's game is a bit of a big jump with several things being tweaked. Locomotion is a welcome addition and best of all it doesn't change the game completely, but it does make a noticeable change to how the game has to be played. The computer AI is so much better this year, and the blocking is actually a big improvement over previous years. I'm always skeptical of EA's claims of new blocking logic or what-have-you, since that's been a claim for years now. This year though, it seems as if the NCAA team has actually made some changes worth mentioning.

There are some balance issues I'm worried about, since slants still seemed to be relatively easy -- but if sliders work, balance will be achieved by OSers, you can count on that. I saw several fumbles and interceptions, so I'm slightly worried turnovers might be a tad overdone, but my experience is also a small sample size. Also, while the blocking is improved, pulling linemen miss a few too many obvious blocks. I'm guessing these are things tweakable before release or within a patch, although it will hurt the game's initial quality quite a bit. There are also announcing snafus which I'm chalking up to being isolated within the demo, since the announcing has been quite solid in previous NCAA games.

So in the end, NCAA Football 11 looks like it is shaping up to easily be the best version of the series yet on next-gen consoles -- as it should be on a yearly release schedule. The question gamers will be asking themselves is should they buy this game if they already own NCAA Football 10? I'd say the answer to that will be much tougher to answer and will require more time to dissect. However, all signs point to NCAA Football being a rather good game when it hits store shelves next month.

Chris' way too early prognostication: Definite buy for NCAA fans, watch and wait for the word on the final version for casual fans.

Chris is the Executive Editor of Operation Sports and maintains this blog on the site. He is also a native Oklahoman and avid storm chaser. You can follow him on Twitter @ChrisSnr.

Comments

# 1 bigsmallwood @ Jun 23

I agree with your write-up and the only thing I would say is: If you own NCAA 10, this game is a definite buy for the next-gen series. It just seems polished to a level worthy of upgrading!

# 2 Shawnj86 @ Jun 23

alrite

# 3 CreatineKasey @ Jun 23

This will be the first NG copy of NCAA I'm buying. I'm very impressed.

# 4 Joey Sauce @ Jun 23

Yeah 09 to 10 was no difference at all. This year I love this game though and I'm going simply by the demo so I'm assuming the final build will be even better

# 5 texbuk84 @ Jun 23

agreed NCAA will once again be better than Madden

# 6 TreyIM2 @ Jun 23

I, too, enjoy the hell out of this demo. I'm re-learning my way of playing with locomotion on defense. I gotta get completely used to NOT trying to get off a hit stick hit being out of position because it just doesn't happen anymore. Using my strafe is more crucial than ever because I've whiffed a few hits not properly lining up the offensive player.
Graphically, while I like what was done with the lighting, to a degree, on the PS3 it just seems a bit "dreary and dark", even in games where the sun is out. It doesn't look as sharp as it should be, neither but I'm hoping it's just the demo and the retail version will be tweaked a bit. I know last year's demo had graphical issues such as lack sharpness and bleeding colors but the retail version was on point.

# 7 rudyjuly2 @ Jun 24

I think NCAA 11 will easily be the best NCAA game on the PS3. Only time will tell if it matches the addictiveness of the PS2 versions.

# 8 blazer003 @ Jun 24

I guess I'm in the minority, but I really had trouble enjoying NCAA 09 at times. I liked '08 and '10 much better. '10 was definitely not a huge upgrade, but the gameplay tweaks made it much better than '09 in my opinion.

# 9 RaychelSnr @ Jun 24

@blazer003 I agree with you about 10 being better than 09. The NCAA team fixed a lot of what was wrong with 09, but the problem was 10 wasn't worth $60 in comparison to 09. In a lot of ways, it was nothing more than a glorified patch which added a few new features to the same old package. That's where the root of the hate on 10 comes from, myself included in that group.

# 10 superjew887 @ Jun 24

Great write up. After my experience with the demo, this is the best punchline I could think of: "the more different it is, the more the same it feels"

Although the atmosphere, locomotion, and graphics updates are great, I feel there's still a lot that needs to be worked on. Turnovers and slants for one, as you mentioned. Also, the teams don't run the ball enough (through my playing experience, this could be wrong and due to 2 min quarters). Lastly, I don't feel the defense covers receivers well enough. Even with locomotion, the defense still gets beat on the same "money" plays in previous versions.

This is definitely a great remodel of the game, but it's also a definite "watch and wait".

# 11 blkprince04 @ Jun 25

i'm having a blast with the demo, so i cam imagine the full version, it should be good..........

# 12 Behindshadows @ Jun 27

I agree this is a day 1 purchase and the best I've played on this console. I wish people would stop trying to compare it to Madden, just so they can take shots at Madden. Both games have always been on 2 different pathways. Either way the path that NCAA developers are on is a great one. And so far I'm loving the feel of this game.