If you've played an EA Sports title in the last three and a half years, chances are that you are somewhat familiar with Ultimate Team Mode. The popular card mode combines the addictiveness of card collecting with a splash of fantasy football, and has been a huge hit in EA Sports' FIFA, NHL, and Madden NFL games.

Before this season, shortly after the announcement of Ultimate Team in NCAA Football, the questions began to fly about how such a mode could work in a college football game. Could such a mode be worth your time? The answer is a resounding 'YES'.

A small caveat before we get started - Ultimate Team uses the EA Servers to function, not your hard drive. If you have no Internet connection (and we ask how are you reading this) or if the EA Servers are down, you will not be able to access this mode at all. However, downtime wasn't a huge issue for me during my playtime with the mode.

Welcome to NCAA Football 14

This year, NCAA Football 14 gets Ultimate Team and not surprisingly, it operates very similarly to Madden's Ultimate Team mode, with players opening card packs containing limited-use, real-life players that represent the schools they attended. Unlike Madden NFL 13, you can play in a head-to-head "season" against human opponents, which is a fun addition. I also enjoyed seeing a broad variety of players on my team, each from their college years, from Tennessee's Peyton Manning to Stanford's Andrew Luck. This allows you to create your own custom squad from scratch, using superstars that are in their collegiate prime.

EA Sports struck a deal with the National Football League Players Association to utilize over 1,400 current and past NFL players with their college football alma maters. Bo Jackson returns to video games for the first time in years, wearing his old Auburn Tigers colors, Randy Moss shows off his Marshall University pride and Aaron Rodgers is a Cal Golden Bear. With so many players available, you'll have no problem finding your favorite alumni and that school passion and pride is a huge part of the appeal for NCAA Football 14's Ultimate Team mode.

When you first get started with Ultimate Team, you'll pick a school and get access to the playbooks for that team, and the most currently used home and away uniforms. Upon introduction to your card deck, you'll receive enough players to fill your roster in a number of positions, including quarterback, wide receiver and every basic OL position. More can be added using virtual currency, which you earn by completing certain goals in games or challenging other players. The more you earn, the better cards you can obtain and the better your team will become.

All cards have a "contract" number on them. This represents the number of games remaining that card can be used in. Cards in your reserves do not lose games on their contract. One of the smarter strategies is to have reserve cards in a variety of positions in case you run out of coins when a player card's particular contract is up. Contracts can be "re-signed" by finding Contract Cards in packs or buying them on the auction block.

With NCAA Football 14's Ultimate Team mode, you can play in either Solo Challenges or Head-To-Head Season mode. Solo Challenges are a great place to start, as you can play versus scalable CPU difficulty and see what your squad is made of. You can change members of your active squad depending on availability and you can earn currency for new additions.

Once you think you're team is good enough, you can take the challenge online through the Head-To-Head Season mode. Here you can pit your team against others in 10-game seasons, with eight tiers of opponents available. As you win games, you'll not only unlock additional Ultimate Team rewards, but also earn a higher seed in the playoffs, giving you a better chance to win even more goodies.

I found a nice, fair progression in terms of difficulty level and rewards in solo challenges. You must unlock each game, by winning the previous game, in order to play it. Solo challenges can only be completed for rewards once, and every attempt before you succeed takes a game off each player's contract. You gain more coins overall if you face human competition, so unless you're just card-collecting, you'll eventually want to take your game online. Unlike in Madden, you can't earn coins towards your ultimate team in any other mode except in Ultimate Team mode.

I must admit, I found myself going right back to the solo challenges after encountering many of the worst kind of online players in my limited experience with head to head online play. I encountered pause glitchers, players running the same play over and over; in order to exploit the secondary AI in particular, and people quitting when losing late in the game. I understand that because of the hyper competitive nature of Ultimate Team, and the potential that real money has been spent by some players, online games are more likely to bring out the worst in gamers. This isn't EA's fault, but I wish there were more penalties for things like disconnecting when losing.

Continued Support and the Auction House

EA Sports have done an excellent job supporting Ultimate Team thus far, adding new Collections since release. The updates allow you to continue to expand your collection in a number of ways. You can earn bigger coin payouts which in turn let you buy more valuable cards as well as exclusive player packs. Rivalry games in NCAA Football 14's Ultimate Team also present the opportunity to pick up special edition packs, which aren't normally on the market. Pay close attention to your schedule throughout the year to see when these contests are. When it comes to choosing a line-up, you can easily browse through your active and reserve players and see what players are right for the job. If you're in a hurry, you can also have the CPU make choices for you, putting the highest rated players into position.

Cards are split into Bronze, Silver and Gold categories with each category having both common and rare varieties, allowing for a range of players. Within these categories are Elite, Heisman level, and Freshmen level cards as well. If you're stuck with cards featuring players you don’t want or need, you can set them up for sell in the Auction House with a minimal bidding price and see who's interested. The market can work to your advantage if you come across a highly sought after player, or position (such as LB and CB).

You can sell these players for quite a profit, setting a Buy It Now price for impatient bidders. If you can't find a player you really want, a search option lets you find just what (or who) you're looking for. This is an ideal option for those who want a specific squad of NFL players, a school specific team, or any other number of themed collections. I found the Auction House to be a mostly pleasant experience that sort of regulates itself in terms of prices and availability.

Collections don't exist merely as bragging rights; completing a collection earns you a lot of coins, and sometimes a unique card for your team. The process of actually adding a card to your collections is a little involved however, and a little unintuitive. First, you need to see which collection you want to aim for. Most collections are pretty straightforward, but some require specific player cards.

For example, let's say you want to go for the the South Carolina Gamecocks collection. One of the cards required could be an Alshon Jeffrey card... but it's likely that more than one Alshon Jeffrey card exists. If you have let's say a "Freshman" version of Jeffrey, that card does not qualify. You need to make sure that the card you want to add actually matches the the one required for the collection. Because some collections require very highly rated players, you might want to keep the cards active until you have the entire collection. You can add cards to your collection at any time, and if they're in your Pending Collections, you can send them back to your active cards at any time.

The Verdict

Ultimate Team has a lot to offer in NCAA Football 14. The real appeal for me comes in the guise of collecting players from old school card packs. If you grew up in the 80s or early to mid 90's then you know the cards I'm talking about. Those inviting tin foil packets of ten to fifteen cards at the grocery store checkout line or hanging on the endcap at the department store, impossible to say no to.

EA Sports is well-aware of how much money we all spent on those ball cards as kids (or I did at least) and have tried to recreate that same feeling of senseless addiction in digital form. I have to give them some credit, it is pretty effective. Combine that addictiveness with the passion of college football and college fans and you have a winner.

My main gripe with the Ultimate Team mode, in any iteration, is how deeply integrated the option to spend Microsoft points or real cash on cards is. I understand that the mode is meant to be a revenue driver for EA in every game that it's been included in and that's fine. That's business. It's smart and a lot of people spend a lot of money every year on Ultimate Team mode. I'm just never going to be one of those people.

The problem from a purely gaming perspective is that it makes playing online head to head games, which are already ripe with cheese and glitches against random opponents, even more likely to bring out the worst in some gamers. When the mode encourages online season play to earn the most virtual currency, this problem really hamstrings the mode a bit.

At the end of the day, NCAA Football 14's Ultimate Team is a fantastic addition to an already solid football title. Collecting cards is extremely fun and putting together a team is rewarding. The fact that it's the first time that Ultimate Team has ever been outside of a professional sports title has made it more fun for me than I anticipated. The combination of college football and card collecting is addictive and fun. Even after I've started my personal dynasty this year, I'll still be playing Ultimate Team. That is a real testament to the value that Ultimate Team has added to NCAA Football 14.

Bottom Line - NCAA Football 14's Ultimate Team is worth your time and adds a lot of value to the overall experience.

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