NCAA Football 12 Video Review

umm im pretty sure this game had an 8.5 at one point lol

MTSU!!!

Thumbs up if you played this with 15 other people in the same room !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It seems Gamespot members watch Game Reviews not to find out actual information about the game itself... but to evaluate the tone and presentation of the reviewer?? This "hide behind my internet anonymity so I can criticize people's hard work" generation is a sign of the Idiocracy prophecy being fulfilled.

Not too much improvements in this game. The whole recruiting process in dynasty sucks. The graphic and gameplay improvements are minor. Next years game will get the graphic and gameplay changes Madden made this year. The football fan in me wants to get it though. Good thing I don't need to pay full price for this game.

@thorwolfe People complain about McShae's voice when reviewing all types of games, if you listen to the hotspot you would know that he has been working on improving his tone while reviewing games. I can tell you though that if you listen to him talk about this, or any game on the hotspot he seems more enthusiastic and if i remember right he is a pretty big football fan.

@EdibleFood No, in order to be a good reviewer you can't sound like you got stuck with reviewing a game you have no interest in reviewing or playing. His tone throughout the review sounded like he didn't care. Even in the few times he mentioned something good, it sounded as if he was bored and half asleep. The reviewer for a game like NCAA should be someone who would actually play the game without being forced, because noone really stumbles into NCAA games like they would in a FPS or an action-adventure.

@SkylineRadio10 @masterlandl So in order to be a good reviewer he has to agree with you and praise a company for releasing the same game each year

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I hate how this guy compares NCAA to Backbreaker. Really? As Mike Ditka and Keyshawn Johnson would say: "C'mon, man..."

bad review lol this guy knows nothing

I don't understand buying EA football games, they are all the same and never make any improvements even though they claim to. At least spend money on games that make advancements with game modes, gameplay, or have engrossing stories. I don't see why people admit it's the same game, yet still pay for it while EA just laughs and makes millions.

@Gelugon_baat. I wouldnt worry yourself so much with what everyone says. This is a comments column and thats what we are doing. No two people have the same opinion, so you can't satisfy everyone. Just don't take it to heart and enjoy the game. I can't imagine Tom has sleepless nights because of these.... ;)

"This review previously contained incorrect information about receivers' routes appearing as squiggly lines. What we believed to be a glitch is, in fact, a feature to show how nervous a quarterback is. GameSpot regrets the error." @TomMcShea Well done sir. I love how even though this is an apology, you still convey how you believe the squiggly lines are a bad mechanic. I commend you for that.

@bleedgreen2-1-5 I have a solution, Don't release a game every year! Then they can spend more time making this game look good and play good AND they will not get away with releasing the same game every time they "make" a new football game. Problem solved.

I know the point of the squiggly lines have been addressed to death. I just wanted to point out that though it might not have been mentioned in the manual (which I never read), there is mention of it in RTG mode. I believe it's the last bonus you where you won't have to deal with the squiggly lines in away games. Just saying...don't skim through the game. Besides that, outside of RTG not having Erin Andrews hosting the mode & changing the way you're player's skill progress, RTG mode is exactly the same as last years game. Exactly the same....

All football games should use the euphoria physics engine, football games shouldn't be struggling with physics and animation in 2011 when they have a massive budget and a large team of designers. . These games still suffer from obvious graphical issues such as the low resolution grass textures and the sub-par animations, but in 2011, these designers are still repeating the same 4 fans over and over which used to be due to low ram in the previous generation of consoles but in 2011, it is simply lazy design. They also try to hide this with an exaggerated depth of field effect which only makes it more difficult to appreciate the design of the stadium. An example of lazy environments can be seen at 4:11... The field is a low resolution mess, obviously... but look at the buildings in the background, they are simple blocks of geometry with a low resolution texture slapped over it. I might try a football game when the developers finally take advantage of modern console hardware and advance the gameplay instead of re releasing the same game every year with a different roster. Also, how do i separate my paragraphs on gamespot comments? bleh i guess my 3 paragraph comment has to be smushed into one

Haha, this game looks exactly like NCAA 11. Like more so than NCAA 11 looked like 10 and so on. But did we really expect anything different?

HA HA!!!! They edited the part about the lines out...Stop embarrasing yourselves! Just admit you got this review WRONG!!!

I must be an EA drone, every year I buy the new NCAA, Madden & Fifa games. A lot of the times the differences are minimal, but when I think about how many hours I put in these games compared to other video games they are still worth my money.

@bobnice I think you misread my comment. I OWN NCAA 11 and I'm just saying that if there is no real big improvement and the fact that I can only imagine UT is going to blow hard in the game I'm not gonna buy it. NCAA 11 was great though because EA, like the rest of the sports press, assessed UT as a highly ranked team (I think the started at #4, which is ludicrous) and it was possible to throw a pass with Gilbert without it being a interception.

this game is great

this game is great

I don't see a reason to spend 59 bucks on when I have last year's version.

@Gelugon_baat Calm yourself. It was a joke. If you read the rest of my post, you would see that I was actually thanking tom for his review. While it seemed that he didn't know the franchise very well, the review was more or less perfect for the everyday average player who was looking at whether or not to purchase the game

Interesting... this is another instance where I've seen footage of another game in comparison to the game being reviewed. (First I remember was Duke Nukem Forever) Is this going to happen more often?

I miss Brian Ekberg and I believe Gamespot does as well!!!!!

Best level design in a video game NCAA football 12. I really felt like I was there can't wait for madden 12, well done EA.........

Did Gamespot just pick Tom's name out of a hat for the review? Seemed to me like he had little to no experience with past NCAA titles and I just couldn't take this review seriously. And people wonder why so many gamers criticize gamespot reviews.

is starting to wonder if @Gelugon_baat is actually Tom Mcshea in disguise. Every time i go to comment on a review of his, i see you fighting his corner every other comment. surely there are better things to do? On subject, I have been playing with the idea of getting the next Madden since EA are closing the servers for the one I still play, NCAA is usually a good show of ho Madden will turn out, and it seems pretty decent. Might pick it up with a price drop, will almost definately pick up Madden 12 based on it's strengths Cheers Tom

what about the fact that they claim this is the most accurate display of the college football experience, but fail to have the UW crowd doing "jump around" before the 4th quarter, or even bigger, the fact that if you win the "battle for paul bunyan's ax" between UW and Minnesota, you don't even run around with the ax?!?!?!?!!?!?!

@THA-TODD-BEAST Explain to me whats so bad about these graphics? I'm not ignorrant, but for football game available NOW, it looks great in my opinion. NCAA/Madden look alot better than Backbreaker and 2K8 which are the 4 most relevant football games to date. So would your same logic apply to 2K's NBA 2K series? Thier grpahics never get THAT much better over the years. I'm not giving this game a "graphical pass" because its football and THE ONLY football game (basically because Backbreaker was garbage) I honestly dont see that big of a problem with these graphics. Player models look good, the color's in the jerseys seem pretty good and the stadiums look good as well, the mascots and pregame traditions look great. What can they possibly do better when it comes to graphics ? The crowd has looked horrendous but thats about the only thing I can possibly gripe about, and last I checked gameplay was much more important than graphics and they have made the game much better in that department.

@ZaGodmon The graphics look great for this game in my opinion, now this isnt Uncharted, there is an annual game every year for NCAA / Madden. There are now 3 Uncharted games for the PS3 since it launched as there is an NCAA/Madden every year, and comparing Football and Uncharted's graphics dosent make much sense to me, Uncharted is a 3rd person action game with action set peices, NCAA really needs the players to look good and the stadiums and tradtions/ mascots Could the graphics be better? Possibly, but they cant get THATY much better every year. but the graphics arent everything anyway. And what is wrong with the graphics right now? The crowd looked bad in 11, I'll admit but for "generic" college players they look fine to me, the uniforms look good as well. As for moving grass? It'd be nice but I dont worry about grass, I'm not even that excited about 3D grass., the main problem in EA's football games has been the gameplay. This year they have emilinated suction takling and sliding into position, Which from my experience with the demo make the game so much better.

EA has killed football games. Well done.

I like how you compare this to last years game, but it shows that you've never actually played this series before. Don't know how you can base a review on something you've never played. BTW, comparing hits between an arcade based game, and simulation based game will never be the same for a reason. Arcade is much more dramatic as always... You should had "handed off" this review to someone else. This is obviously not your forte.

*English is not my primary language Another McShea review that is ridiculously low for a game that got 8.5, 9.0 anywhere else...I haven't forgot about the Infamous 2 fiasco. Is Tom trying to make a statement ? Trying to establish himself as an independant spirit ? All he does is hurting Gamespot a little more each time he is allowed to review a game.

sorry tom i didnt catch how the on field action was...maybe one more time would have made it sunk in. good review, though slightly redundant.

I was really surprised he showed footage of Backbreaker: Vengeance. That's really awesome he stood up for Backbreaker's graphics engine like that. On the other hand, I was also surprised because I thought it was a taboo to show video from OTHER games in a review. Regardless, I appreciate that shout-out. It proves he wasn't paid off and that Gamespot is willing to stand-up for the little guy, even if they gave such a game a low review.

its about time they start ripping on these horrible ea sports titles.

This is a poor review. First of all don't complain that the game hasn't changed when you have little to no experience from past games. Also. don't complain that recruiting is too hard if you don't know how to do it. It is rather simple to recruit once you get the hang of it. Don't put video clips from another game in your reviews either, that's just pathetic. It's fine to compare to it but seriously its a video review of NCAA 12. Your score is fine because the game isn't amazing and I would classify it as good as well but your lack of proper reasoning is what makes this video review hard to watch.

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@TomMcShea Wouldn't the loudness of the crowd, or the constant rumbling of the controller give it away, though? Also, those squiggly lines have been there as long as I can remember... or at least when I last bought the game in around 07. Overall, I enjoy the game. 7.0 isn't a horrible score, but I would score it higher.

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This guy obviously hasn't played any games in the NCAA series before. The shaking route lines are from the crowd roaring not a bug. Get an actual sports enthusiast to rate and review the game.

What upsets me the most about this review is that it feels like the guy had never played an NCAA Football game before and didn't care to research. I lost a lot of respest for this website because of this review!

@southernmoney16 - Exactly!!! It's hard to watch when the person reviewing it obviously doesn't play football games. stupid!

when the routes go crazy isn't that when the qb's poise is low and it only happens whey you're on the road (or something along those lines)? I remember seeing this a few NCAA football games ago.

the squiggly lines aren't a bug and they were in the last game too