PSP - NCAA 07 Football

Format
PSP
Publisher
EA Sports
Developer
EA Sports
Country of origin
US
Genre
Sports

NCAA ‘07 Football

By David Rasmussen
1st Oct 06

When it comes to sports games I am about as interested in reviewing sports games as a certain co-worker of mine out there (some-where out there… blah blah blah who remembers anymore an old song from An American Tail… yes I‘ll stop now…) seems to like reviewing RPGs on the PSP… but at least I have a point to my dislike since Hawaii is not exactly a hub of sports teams.
No need to play Madden because Hawaii has ZERO NFL teams.
No need to play Winning Eleven because Hawaii has ZERO world class Futbol (Soccer) teams.
No need to play MLB games because Hawaii has ZERO NLBaseball teams.
And the list goes on and on and on. Sad, but true, sports it seems is not a big one for the state of Hawaii.

Sure, other states also have this noticeable lack of major sports teams in one sport or another but, well, since I don’t live in any of those other states I’m just going to fixate on Hawaii’s lack of major sporting teams.
Hawaii, it seems, totally blows in the National slash International Sports field because we have so little to be proud of as a state short of our Little League Baseball team or Volleyball and I really don‘t feel like reviewing Little League Baseball ‘07 or College Volleyball ‘07 (if such games existed)… almost. We do have one thing which actually makes this review relevant (as in something I really wanted to review with all things considered)… a NCAA Football team.

The Hawaii Warriors, formerly the Rainbow Warriors before somebody at UH totally thought that the name was completely infringing on the whole Rainbow Coalition thing from… oh, who am I kidding! They (allegedly) dropped the Rainbow thing because some nutter over at UH (allegedly) thought it made the team sound “gay” (allegedly)… the little (alleged) knobber. Small viral doses of (alleged) rampant homophobia from certain (alleged) individuals over at the UH aside (allegedly) the former Rainbow Warriors, now just the Warriors, is the reason for me signing onto this review… so let’s go play some college ball.

After signing in and picking the Warriors as my team let’s see. With a nice opening menu screen (with college football things popping in and out as trademark college football themes from about the nation blares, with this game boasting quite an array of collegial football themes from all over the country, each trademarked to their specific school of origin) let’s see what the game has to offer.
EASports’ NCAA ‘07 Football (the other football to, beside Madden, get exclusivity in terms of game release if I remember right) has a few good options, and lots of customization which makes this game really accessible to even a lolo like me who doesn’t play sports games on a regular basis. This game is so accessible, in fact, that the game’s easiest setting basically allows you to steamroll over top schools as if they were nothing. How that’s for a quick ego rub to get the review started!

Modes of gameplay are light, but since I‘m not exactly a purist of the art of NCAA Football gaming I can pretty much say that I was quite happy with that this version of the game gave me. Sure I‘m happy, after all I haven‘t seen the major console version of this game so I don‘t know what I‘m missing in terms of content… so basically what I see pleases me because I don‘t know what else I could be playing with.

Besides a quick way to play a quick pick up of College Fball right here and right now we also have NCAA’ franchise trademark “Dynasty” mode which allows you to play 10 years of college football in order to build a Heisman grade dynastic college team.
With abit of stat crunching and team management here (from recruiting new talent to figuring out the beset way to use your talent you have on hand), calendar management (because off time here seems to be as important as gametime as you’ll end up with defecting players if you overwork them), and game management (that you can either control yourself or have “simmed” as the rest of the games of the week is simmed). Playing a week in Dynasty mode is simple because (unlike Madden on the handhelds) you only have your team to worry about, as this game will not give you the entire school schedule and the option to play any game like Madden (which I couldn’t see anyone doing anyway considering the sheer amount of teams in College as opposed to the NFL).

One thing you do share in common with the NFL, though, is a common goal. While the NFL’s goal is to win the Vince Lombardi trophy (the sports’ highest honor), you are going for the Heisman (the golden grail of College Football), which means you’ll have to fight your way week after week to get that goal.
But it’s not your only goal. As a coach you’ll find that the alumni has given you a list of goals to accomplish, like beating such and such a team (sometimes a rival team) or accomplishing such and such a place in the rankings. Keeping track of rankings, as well as other teams in the Collegial league, is easy since there is both the stats to track as well as the snazzy “covers” of ESPN’s college football magazine (updated weekly) that size up the biggest matches of the week (and the teams you should keep an eye on).

Rivalries is as it says, where you can relive some of the great rivalries of College Football. Hawaii, sadly, only had the one rivalry though if you go through the schedule you’ll play a large fistful of games where you’ll be awarded a trophy for winning (which goes into your trophy room).

Finally we have Mascot Bowl which ponders the unlikely question of what College Football Mascot Football would be like if they were cloned and trained for college football games by the fine people over on planet Kamino. In this mode you’ll pit two cloned teams of any team’s mascot against one another for a straight up game of college ball… hey! Where’s Hawaii? It seems every other mascot is here (for the most part though some others might be missing), including some really weird looking ones, so why the heck… oh, wait, my bad. If you’re wondering why Hawaii’s “mascot” (such as it is) isn’t here (and, really, who’d miss that ton of meat and vital organs) don’t ask too hard, because it’s all his fault (the mascot‘s). You see, unlike the rest of the NCAA and all their most cooperative mascots Hawaii was seemingly burdened (allegedly) with a most whiney naggy complainin’ “mascot” who seemingly has talked himself right out of Mascot mode in this game. I’m sure he was in LAST YEAR’s game, but not now. Yeah, fine way to “represent” the state by the way, loser, you keep on doing that by the way you… but I digress. (I better stop thinking about this topic now before I start to go into a rant about the mascot).

Now the part I know so little about. The actual football gameplay.
It’s easy enough even for me to grasp, and with easy modes the game will actually play out itself which means a minimal of interaction from me (which is good because nothing quite frustrates me more than having to interact with a game I know so little about). Sure, if you are a NCAA Football purist you can set the game at a nice difficult level, play it all yourself and really chew into the strengths of the titles’ interactivity… just, you know, I’m not into that stuff so I’ll leave it to you guys.
Plays are easy to pick, and understanding how to make the game go couldn’t be more straightforward. Within an hour of playing it I was already beginning to pick up on the nuances of the controls (though that doesn’t mean I’m not still letting the game play it out, it just means this game is easy to pick up and play).

The only thing you can’t let the computer do is kicking, which is set up like the way you hit your little white ball in the Tiger Woods franchise of games. Pull down on the analog stick to quickly power up (this is a fast charge by the way) and snap the stick upwards in a fluid motion to “kick”, just the way you’d approach a golf swing in Tiger Woods (if you played that game you’ll have no problem mastering the kicking move).
Add on fatigue, injuries, composure (the more your team is rattled the more likely it’ll miss important plays and open up opportunities for your rivals to score, and vice versa) and the ability to either ramp up the crowd or tone them down during gameplay is nice.

As for the game commentary it adds to the total immersion of gameplay by being real actual commentary as each game plays like an ESPN presentation, almost as if you’re watching it on TV instead of playing it with that real TV feel right down to replay of big plays and commentators that actually talk about what’s going on on the field and not just spitting out a couple of vague lines here and there. As commentary flows you can almost believe that this is live commentary which perfectly gives the game a real feel to it as you make another touchdown and pull the ball out of the air for an interception. The only flaws with the commentary is that if you play this long enough you’ll hear commentary become repetitive, and the fact that the menu screens cut into the TV feel (cutting off updates on different games in mid update).

A few failings do come out though besides the above.
This is a portable so while everything looks nice and player animation flows finely you still end up with repetitive touchdown “performances” after awhile, as well as the strange occurrence of how players suddenly stand at attention (regardless of whatever they were doing at the end of the play) when the whistle blows.
The stadium(s) seems to be the same stadium recycled over and over again, lacking any real originality or personality of the stadiums they‘re based on. But, then again, I guess I don‘t watch enough College Football to tell the difference between the home of UNLV and Aloha Stadium.
Also at times it felt that my orders, when I was punching them in, took a second or so to translate into action which at times sucked since I was looking for snap response in a few tight situations. Maybe I’m just too impatient to see my actions quickly translate into action with a ton of defenders rushing to slam down my QB, but that’s how it seemed to me.

Basically it’s the PSP, and for my part I thought it was a solid little slice of College Football. Looks good enough despite my few quips for the most part I had fun reviewing NCAA ‘07 Football and, well, when ‘08 rolls around I think I’ll return for another tour of duty putting the Hawaii Warriors through their paces for another run for the Heisman! The PSP was made for Sports related games and for a newbie like me to find joy in a game like this then there has to be something to like here. Now let’s break it down.

NCAA Breakdown the ‘07
What’s Hot?
I’m not one for sports games… but I liked this one. It was easy enough for me to grasp, and even the whole learning how to kick the Tiger Woods (flick the analog stick) way was easy for me to pick up once I got some experience down with it. I didn’t know a game like this could actually keep me playing and playing (with enough customization for even a newbie like me to find joy in College Football)! Once I got into it (and finally got a team I had abit of an interest in on a homefield advantage way) I really started to see the great things about football on the handhelds. The PSP excels in sports games, and this is just one of the reasons why it does well.

What’s Not?
I guess there might be more to this game but I can’t think of what it could be. Probably something… maybe if I played the large console version I’d know what players might be expecting out of their NCAA Football titles, but for the most part I didn’t mind missing what I didn’t know I was supposed to be missing, so… well… I guess in this case ignorance really is bliss.
That and for a game about College Football I found this to be a nice slice of addictive playing.

Yes, yes, one obvious thing I know I’m missing is the ability to make my own players which is useful in other franchises… but since I never missed it before I won’t miss it now. One thing though… I’m going to take it that the game didn’t have enough memory to hold a list of every player’s name in the NCAA Football league, ‘cause you do seem to have quite abit of generic numbers only players to look at. That and Hawaii’s players seem oddly… uh… (cough)… “Hawaiian” in some. Ahh… this is kind of hard to describe, so I’ll have to think about the best way to put it… I know, unlike the other players you can figure out the Hawaiian players for the most work (tanned and looking good)… except for the ones who are mostly tanned BUT seem to have rather white faces poking out of the helmets. What the?!?

Moments to Remember?
Hmmm… well, the game does feature a small set of unlockable clips though it’s basically a montage of college football plays throughout the years (and you have to accomplish a set goal in order to unlock all of these few clips in order to watch them). Also this game is supposed to feature the ability to pick up ESPN podcasts which adds to the total immersion of the game except… well… I don’t live in an area that makes receiving podcasts a simple task it seems (so I totally missed out on that part of the experience).
Oh, and the Mascot Bowl thing ruled because nothing is more endearing than watching grown men dressed like giant bobbleheaded monstrosities play football against one another.

What to Ignore?
I’d like to ignore the fact that a certain mascot for a certain team was too… well… I’m going to ignore since it’s only a source of irritation for myself to think about it.

Overall?
If the PSP has a couple of strengths one of them, without a doubt, is Sports related titles. That holds true here as NCAA ‘07 Football is in hand and it is a nice little solid game of football (at least for me who is not of the purist cult of NCAA Football players). Accessible to any skill level, solid with it’s few (yet nicely done) modes of gameplay, and even featuring multiplayer (though that’s one part I never seem able to review… sad since this looks like a fun game to do multiplayer with…) this should be for college football fans with a PSP and a dream… anyway it’s like the only NCAA Football game on the PSP so it’s not like you had a choice in this matter or anything. Try it, you might like it.
Now… HAWAII MASCOT… NEXT YEAR’S MASCOT BOWL SELECTION for NCAA ‘08 Football! (You know what?!? Don’t ask him!! Just put him in already so we are represented already! Or… I don’t know… get a new mascot who doesn’t complain about his/her likeness in a NCAA College Football game!)

-- David Rasmussen 1st Oct 06

PSP NCAA 07 Football Images