Christian McLeod: I'll echo similar thoughts that I had after playing the E3 build. NCAA Football 12 retained everything that was great about NCAA 11. On top of that, the developers seem to have fixed many of the glaring issues of NCAA 11 and added a layer of polish that fans of the series are going to appreciate. Sorry folks, YouTube videos just don't do this game or demo justice. You need to feel the improvements EA made by actually playing the game to really appreciate them.

The game looks beautiful. Warping has generally been eliminated, and this fix gives you greater control over your player. In addition, the new tackling system looks impressive, zone defenses actually work, and the CPU has a competent run game if you play Alabama on All-American or Heisman. My issue with the demo is that while the CPU QB will occasionally scramble from the pocket, he is never aggressively seeking out scrambling lanes when all of his receivers are covered or when feeling pocket pressure. This leads to some easy sacks in certain instances, most notably on blitzes, and comes across as incredibly unrealistic when playing against a spread option team with a mobile QB such as Oregon. Those split-second decisions to tuck and run are what made Cam Newton and Denard Robinson so devastating last year, and they are a part of college football.

It should be noted, however, that during my extensive play testing at E3, most spread option quarterbacks were very dangerous, and they would make you pay for whiffing on blitzes or not bringing pressure (most notably Baylor). I'm not quite sure if this is an issue that will be found throughout the game, or if it is isolated to Oregon, but I'd like to see this aspect tweaked on release day via the demo tuning that EA has promised us.


Bob Kollars: Having devoted nine months and over 150 games to NCAA 11, I have been highly anticipating NCAA 12. When I first fired it up, the first thing I noticed were the improved graphics. While they are not a huge leap over last year's title, they are still a nice improvement. As far as the rest of the improvements in the game, well, it's almost a game of Where's Waldo.

There are plenty of improvements, but you have to open your eyes wide and pay close attention to find them. So while some may say that NCAA 12 feels just like a rehash of NCAA 11, I would completely disagree with those people. Some of the improvements I noticed almost instantly while playing on the Heisman difficulty level were vastly improved line play, the D-line's ability to get pressure, and the ability to consistently run up the middle. Other areas of improvement I noticed were a player's general movements and quite a few new animations, which seem much more organic this year. Finally, the tackling system looks and feels great, and the new zone defenses work much better than prior releases. I am very pleased so far, and I look forward to seeing the improvements to Online Dynasty mode and Road To Glory mode.

I would not argue that that NCAA 12 is drastically different than its predecessor, but it is noticeably more refined. With the retail version just a couple of weeks away, it seems like EA is on the verge of releasing its best current-gen NCAA Football title.

Bob can't wait to take New Coach and compete in an online dynasty.

Jayson Young: The dynamic lighting, detailed stadiums and individualized player uniforms are the only things that feel truly next-gen to me in this demo. Every other part of the NCAA Football 12 demo feels about the same as it has for the last decade or so. That being said, I would have no problem saying that this is the best NCAA Football game to hit current-gen consoles.

But is that enough? I would have to say that it is not. Not when NBA 2K and MLB: The Show have TV-quality commentary, or Backbreaker and FIFA have unscripted contact animations. I just feel like NCAA Football has settled into the role of being a mediocre sports franchise that continues to sell well only because it belongs to the football genre -- and most American sports gamers cannot live without a new football game (or two) every 12 months. I can, so I'll continue enjoying the better sports games on the market until this franchise meets the rest of the industry's standards.


Dustin Toms: I saw a lot of good and a little bad with the NCAA 12 demo. First off, I feel like this is the most beautiful sports game to date. The lighting lived up to the hype the developers surrounded it with, and the color palettes on the uniforms look better than ever.

Once I actually started paying attention to the gameplay, I noticed it still feels a lot like NCAA 11, but I can tell the differences the developers have made. Player motions feel more fluid this year, whether that be while running through tackles, juking a defender or getting smacked by an oncoming locomotive linebacker. In addition, the difficulty seems to have been upped this year. After a couple games on the default settings, I pumped it up to Heisman, and to my surprise, I got whooped by Alabama. This is hopefully a sign that effort will actually be needed when it comes to beating the CPU this year.

But with all this good stuff, there has to be some bad. The commentary makes me want to mute my television and blare Justin Bieber through my stereo system. I really think it's that bad. It sounds the same as every year; it's repetitive and dry. The ESPN integration still feels incomplete as well.

However, my biggest issues have to do with the CPU AI. Too many times the quarterback has thrown the ball away when he still has plenty of time to find an open receiver. Receivers continue to run into the defensive backs, and the defensive backs keep running to the sidelines before simply stopping. The play calling has also been very questionable, and even entirely stupid at times. Down by eight with 22 seconds left, Texas opted to run a draw. These are all simple problems the developers can presumably fix at some point, so hopefully something is done about these problems.

I've been looking forward to NCAA 12 for quite some time now, and regardless of the problems I came across in the demo, the excitement is still there, ready and willing.


Caley Roark: Like Dustin, I thought the demo represented a mixed bag. First, the lighting is superb, as are most of the animations. Things are not quite Backbreaker fluid yet, but I did not see a ton of repetitive animations. The players control well, although they seem less "weighty" to me. To put it another way, I think perhaps everything is a bit too floaty.

Some other stuff worries me a bit more. I saw a couple instances where I sacked the QB as he "threw" the ball -- it looked to either be intentional grounding or a fumble each time. Yet, it was ruled an incomplete pass each time this situation cropped up. We've seen this problem in Madden the last couple years as well. Beyond the field, the commentary feels really stale, and I hope it's simply limited because of the size of the demo. The ESPN integration looks nice enough, but it is all just window dressing because there's no real broadcast substance in the demo.

I'm excited for NCAA 12, but mostly because of the additions to the Dynasty mode. Other than the lighting, this demo didn't really blow me away.



So that's how the staff is feeling at this point. Keep hitting that impressions thread hard and talking about your own feelings about the demo.