Back to the old glitchy ways of EA, where the AI can't win by playing good football, but rather by being cheap & buggy
Don't get me wrong, it's a fun game... when it plays right. EA, unable to make AI that actually can play the game of football, continues its usual Heisman difficulty bullsh*t. I've had defenders clip RIGHT THROUGH my players. I'm not talking partially, I'm talking ENTIRELY, to intercept the ball, make a tackle through a blocker and more. My single favorite moment so far is when I was in a 4 deep zone blitz coverage, winning a game by 6, and all 4 of my deep defenders turned around and RAN AWAY FROM THE PLAY as the receiver ran down a deep pass for a touchdown.
This is the type of gameplay you can expect. All of the AI advances in NCAA 11 were thrown out the window. You're now stuck with the "bluff" playcalling system and the retarded AI of around NCAA 09.
The eternally frustrating buggy commentary and "game interruptions" particularly the "Game Track" where right at the beginning of a play a ESPN style highlight reel header pops up, making it so you don't see the play until the ball is snapped. Only happens on defense, mind you, when you need to be reacting.
When the game plays right, it's a blast, but since the AI is mentally retarded and apparently has had one too many concussions, EA resorts to the typical system of making things hard: Cheating. It's not fun, it's just stupid, and of course one difficulty level down is piss easy, so I'm stuck with stupidity, or boring.
Now, the game is beautiful, and when it plays right it's a hell of a lot of fun to play, but how amazingly buggy this game is for so few improvements and an AI that seems bad for a game from 2008? The new lighting is impressive, and the tackle animations and locomotion system are GREAT. A VAST improvement over past games, however, the developer seems to have gotten bloom happy in the menus. The game has this HORRIFYING glare that is painful to look at, especially in the recruitment menus. It's really obnoxious.
Ultimately: Not worth my 60 bucks. Thank God I got this thing off amazon where I get a $20 gift card. If you find it for 10-20 bucks off, I say pick it up, but otherwise, waiting is a better option. Hell, some of the insanely annoying bugs might be fixed by then...
If you're a die hard football fan in need of your fix, this will help, but the AI aggravates and ex-defensive lineman so massively that I spend more time yelling at my imaginary players for not knowing how to play football than enjoying it. Sure it's pretty, but it plays like crap
List of bugs and horrible AI (including Heisman "cheating"):
-Glitch and pause in sound and small game freezes for 1-5 seconds almost every 5 minutes.
-AI won't follow or react to a scrambling quarterback until he crosses the L.O.S. Even spies. (ONLY your team)
-Hail Mary pass is still hilariously easy. Heave it up, at least half the time your guy will jump and they won't. Same goes for your team on defense, unfortunately.
-Tackle glitches: Your players will just rub against players with the ball, you'll even get controller rumble, but they won't even bother to try and tackle.
-Your players have momentum and reaction time problems, the AI can change directions immediately, at any time, and even Lineman can change directions instantly. You? Not so lucky.
-Player WR's have a terrible ability to catch the football in traffic. Tested on 5 different teams. AI players will never drop the football. Ever. (exaggerating)
-Players clip through other players all the time (even when trying to tackle someone), but never in your favor. I don't think I've EVER seen more graphical clipping of players in a football game.
-AI Quarterbacks will NEVER make a bad throw under pressure. They'll either get sacked or throw a perfect ball (excluding throws that are to nobody, or hilariously overthrown). Your quarterback? Not so much.
-Tons, and I mean TONS, of sound glitches and mistakes with voice-over triggers. I've had 60 yard runs be talked about as pass plays. I've heard the wrong team announced after a TD.
-My personal favorite: The "2 minute sure score". Your opponent gets the ball inside 2 minutes down by less than 7? He will score. No matter what you do, what you call, how you call it, if your guy is there (he won't be), he'll break the tackle (or 4 tackles, in my favorite case). I have NEVER in this game had a game where my defense held at the end (Ohio State). I've had to win by driving down the field in 30 seconds (or blowing another team out, but rarely this because of the retard AI).
-I'll keep listing later as they come back to mind.
-Better hope you like deep passes where you control the receiver, because your AI receivers will let the ball hit their head before they catch it on the slant. Breaking from their route for an underthrown ball also never happens (I'm not talking if it's close, I'm talking if your QB gets hit and the ball hangs in the air, your guys don't even bother. The defense does, though), they run their route and fall over trying to catch it (and of course the never out of position AI Defense will intercept that baby)
-Dive is still a "fall over" button.
EDIT: After screwing with the sliders a lot, I've found a pretty happy medium for the defense AI not making retard moves all game (if you'd like my slider spots, send me a message, I'll gladly let you know them. Depending on your play style, you may raise or lower them, but I've found that this makes your defense not retarded on Heisman and makes the unreasonably bad AI blocking ability for your O line considerably better, to name my biggest qualms). You still will get caught out of position on occasion, which is reasonable. I moved just about every slider to make the game more realistic and reasonable, and it helps to make the AI not cheat you as often. Although I still laugh at how a 88 Catch receiver drops 3-4 balls a game no matter what I do.