I thought I was buying a college football game, but someone I got Madden instead!
Well, times have changed...
I feel like NCAA Football 11 plays very similar to the Madden series. All of
a sudden, my 35-31 shootouts are gone, replaced with 14-10 scores. And just like Madden, you have to work down the field 5 to 7 yards at a time, instead of having an ability to explode with offense. What separated this title from Madden has been removed, and I feel like I'm just playing Madden with college football teams. I know many gamers will disagree, but this is truly how I feel, and as I've said, I've played this franchise since it's inception.
Also, the once great team of Nessler, Herbstreet, and Corso(who isn't even in the game this year) is now growing stale, saying the same things they said for the last handful of years. It's time EA made a change here.
On top of all that, there seems to be several bugs in the game as well. I've never had a game freeze in the middle of a play...this one did. At the end of one game, my highlight pictures were all blurry. Once a referee called me for holding, but you couldn't actually see the ref, since the camera wasn't in the right place. None of this is gamebreaking, but I've never had these kinds of problems with this title.
All is not lost, however. The one great positive is EA continues to make strides in presentation. And while I still want a halftime show and postgame wrapup, they have done an outstanding job showing off the graphics and presentation. It is really starting to look and sound like an ESPN broadcast!
However, as happy as I am with the presentation, the gameplay fails to live up to past games.
Again, many will disagree, since I've already seen reviews from both critics and gamers saying it's finally a good game or that it's improved from last year.
I disagree. I have always enjoyed this franchise, despite the criticisms. And in my opinion, NCAA Football 11 takes a step back this year, not a step forward.