NCAA Football 13 Demo Is Out, Post Your Impressions Here

[weeeeeeez]

Can't get enough of playing with Colin Klein.

[Chrisksaint]

Played game #2, still loved it. Offense seems a lot more natural and realistic, not a lot of BS i've witnessed.

Options worked, hurry up was better then last year.

Despite no RTP, the way players move seem more realistic. Had my FS with his back to the ball but when he turns around before it arrives for the pick he kind of leap back as he jumps up. This leads to him kind of stumbling of sort and his momentum carrying him backwards as he gains possession(maybe this has always happened and i've never noticed).

Loved seeing a DB go into a full extension dive with one hand trying to swat on a route he got beat on.

[PowerofRed25]

Observations from the Oregon-USC matchup:

- The studio update was the exact same as from the Baylor-KSU game. Same score, same everything. The difference was that it had already gone FINAL at the start of the USC game. Interesting to see how time plays a factor.

- Apparently the playbooks are the same no matter who you play with in the demo. Oregon and KSU are the same and neither are like what they run in real life.

- QB Fatigue is going to be a major issue in option and spread offenses. After one scramble with Bryan Bennett, he was in the red. After getting back to orange, he returned to red on a play where he simply handed the ball off.

- The ESPN ticker is even more cut off in this game. The bottom half of everything is removed.

- CPU closing speed is still insane.

- Please God change the pitch button back to L2. I couldn't get the fake pitch to work once. Why the hell isn't this L2 pitch, L1 fake pitch?

- Converted a 4th & 11 from the +39 by throwing the out route on Flood. I had space deep and threw it up and away and somehow the WR adjusted and it ended up being a corner route. That seems incredibly unrealistic to me. I can see total control passing turning into chuck n duck. If you were a good passer before, you'll be an incredible passer now.

- The CPU takes an insane amount of time to throw the football. Sit, sit, sit launch. Worse: CPU drops more passes than they complete. I have called Cover 2 Man every play in this game and USC has yet to complete a pass in the game, it's the third quarter. Barkley had a GREAT scramble one play though.

- Really like how man coverage aligned/rotated against unbalanced sets. Want to see what the 425 and 335 look before I make a final judgment on that though. Unfortunately, when I went Quarters vs an unbalanced set (Y-Trips), the game didn't adjust the man coverage and actually took a defender off the man he was assigned to (the TE) and put him in a spy, leaving the TE uncovered.

- Option defense is poor if not terrible. Reminded me of the option glitch from last year. Just ran speed option three times in a row and watched as the LB ran 10 yards up field past the HB and the CB stood there and didn't attempt to make a play until the ball advanced beyond the line of scrimmage.

- Got called for a hold on a broken play where I had to scramble. Really liked that and the ensuing cut scene of Chip Kelly and the ref talking in an animated fashion.

- The CPU ran a draw and there was a weird graphics hitch right at the handoff. Don't know if this is part of the graphics problems and slow down on PS3 or intentional to create more misdirection on a draw.

- USC finally completed their first pass, on a play after the WR released upfield after finishing his route. My defender didn't even attempt to continue his coverage. That's becoming more and more of a glaring problem. I've picked Barkley thrice, including one to end the game. Chuck n duck city.

- CPU pass coverage is bad. The fears I had from the gameplay videos and kept trying to bring up are coming true. CPU defenders in zone seem to get attached to players running through their zone and it turns into man coverage, while simultaneously leaving an entire side of the field uncovered.

- Motion blur in cut scenes and replays make my eyes want to bleed. Like 3D grass, this is truly pointless.

Won that game 6-3, although to be fair, I was screwing around a lot offensively (going on 4th and forever, running on 3rd and 9).

[PowerofRed25]

Quote: Originally Posted by weeeeeeez

Can't get enough of playing with Colin Klein.

You and me both. This guy fills my heart with joy.

[bruinkid626]

CPU playcalling in the stretch is questionable. Alabama was down by 7 with possession of the ball and under 2 minutes left. 6 of their next 8 plays were runs and I stuffed most of them.

[LastExit]

Finally got the PS demo and have played a couple dynasty games and have been reading through the impressions.....lots of good observations.

For now I thought I'd hone in on one aspect that the dev crew worked on and that's sound.

On the plus side, they did a good job with crowd reaction during specific scenarios......when you miss a field goal the crowd gives off an "ah" of disappointment. When you're on offense the swell of the crowd is great when you make a big run or a completion for a long pass.

Things go south when you're on defense. I have no idea if this is just the demo but the crowd noise would not go up when I was tapping the button that makes your player put his hands up in the air to get the crowd excited. Likewise, the stadium sounded the same at the 50 yard line as it did when I was on defense and it was 3rd and goal. Again, I don't know if this is just a demo thing but if anyone has watched a college football game on tv they'd know that the crowd is doing its best to rev up the defense and give the opposing offense a hard time hearing the calls.....to have it that quiet in that situation is a joke. Hearing the announcer state that the "student section is going crazy" seems to rub it in.

And just to add, what is with the "d-fense" chant......you hear that at basketball games, not college football games.

I'll have to give this more tries on the demo but I really don't know what to make of this.....they did a great job with the passing game and plays that never seemed to work (screens especially) now do. But I don't know if I'm going to keep my pre-order yet or not.
I really want to like this game but it just seems that they could have done more given how bad '12 was.

[OpusX910]

Meh....it's definitely better then 12, but just feels like a big "patch release" to me. I love college football, and usually buy this over Madden every year, but I believe Madden will get my $60 this year. If they put the infinity engine into NCAA, I probably would've bought both.

So like I said above, this demo was pretty...meh

[okstate19]

I have just a few quick impressions. Have played 3 full games and 1 half of the "Heisman Mode" with RGIII.

Most importantly (in my opinion) something has to be done about the pulling guards. Plays that feature pulling guards seem to always see the guard stop at the LOS, rather than lead my back through the hole. Maybe others aren't seeing this problem, but for me it has occurred enough to where it seems like it is the rule and not the norm. This is first-day patch worthy in my opinion. It happens way, way too often.

-Despite what others have said, I have seen new tackle animations. Some were pretty slick. I was one-on-one as the LSU back vs. an Alabama defender. I slipped out of a tackle and put my hand down (a new animation that wasn't in 12. I have played enough of 12 to know that). This gave another Bama defender time to come make the tackle. I was still in the middle of pulling up my hand to accelerate again, where he came and gave me what looked to be like a push in the hip. I stumbled to the side while still retaining my forward momentum (also a new animation) and went down. This happened in the very last game I had played, but had it happened more often or during the first play, I would have sworn this game had implemented some kind of real-time physics also. It looked really nice. (Could have just been a combination of timing with the new animations though. Who knows how often it will happen) But even though I have seen new tackle animations...I still wish there were more and that they happened more frequently.

-There are a ton of new catch animations as everyone knows. But so far, the ones I have seen look really, really nice.

-Catch-in-traffic seems like it might be an important rating this year. Many times when my receivers went up to get a ball, they were hit in mid-air and proceeded to drop it. A few times they held on, but I'd say 90% of the time it resulted in a drop.

-QB stamina played an important role. I had busted a decent scramble with the LSU QB to put his stamina in the red. While my stamina was red, my passes were all over the place. I was pleasantly surprised with this and hope that it holds up.

-Running the ball was really smooth. Very much enjoyed it.

-Liked the timing on the tickers. Hawaii always had the late game. That was a nice detail. I'd say I averaged about 2 studio updates per quarter. I enjoyed it. The ticker isn't cut off for me at all.

-New ball trajectories are nice. I threw an excellent jump-ball fade to a Baylor WR in the back of the endzone. He came down with it with a new jumping-catch animation that wasn't in NCAA 12. They don't seem that difficult to pull off (the different trajectories that is, not fade routes.)

-Noticeably absent (for me at least) were the "super LB's" that were so prevalent in NCAA 12. Through 3 and a half games, I haven't had one linebacker try to show off his 40 inch vertical.

-I purposely tried to throw some passes to receivers who were not "ready." It was nice to see that all of them fell incomplete except one. The one that didn't flew past it's intended target, was batted by a DB, and then caught by a receiver who swooped in and made a sliding catch on the ground that I hadn't seen before. (It wasn't the same old sliding reception that has been so common in the past few NCAA's anyway)


I have a bit more to say but I'm worn out from the Thunder game. There are loads of impressions so far that state a lot of what I have already seen. Overall, I (and I'm sure everyone else) would have liked to have seen more done with NCAA 13. I think it is a solid polishing of 12. I plan on purchasing it even though it lacks all the glitz and glamor of this year's iteration of Madden. I'm happy with the demo though. The ticker and studio updates are things people have wanted for years, and it's about time that they were included. I'm thankful that they're in, but also annoyed that it took as long as it did.

I haven't seen any new hairstyles in the demo. I'm not a huge accessory/hairstyle guy, but I'm going to be pretty upset if the only option for hair is the predator dreads from 12. I'm pretty sure more hair options were nearly guaranteed to be in NCAA 13 (rather than the usual "we'll look into that for next year!" reply) The lack of hairstyles in the demo doesn't bode well though in my opinion.

Solid demo. Decent improvement on the series. I'm buying because I love college football and I can't do without. I thought NCAA 12 was solid, and the demo seems to have improved on that. I just wish they would have done a little more.