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Every year, thousands of sports fans pile into a local video game store to buy the newest version of the NCAA Football franchise on the day of its release – usually a Tuesday in early July.
This year, I was not one of those standing in line for the July 9 release of the newest title, NCAA Football 14, as I was blessed to receive an advance copy through EA Sports.
I spent the vast majority of my extended Fourth of July weekend breaking the game in and deciding whether or not it would be worth a $59 buy.
My conclusion? Maybe, maybe not. NCAA 14 is solid, but tastes a bit stale. Unfortunately, the game is just a polished up version of the game released in years past.
Before the bad stuff, let’s talk about the good – there are some new features within the wildly popular sports gaming franchise’s newest release.
The first thing gamers will notice when playing NCAA 14 is that the Infinity Engine has arrived. This feature made its debut during last year’s Madden game and it is basically a metric that creates realistic physics within the game.
Short, fast players can stop on a dime and make lightening quick moves. Faster players are clunky and cannot move as freely as the more nimble players that handle the ball.
Bone-crushing hits feel like bone-crushing hits in the Infinity Engine. They also look bruising, too, as the engine really does a good job capturing realistic body motions after popping hits.
The biggest thing that the Infinity Engine brings to NCAA 14 is realism in the gameplay – especially on the offensive side of the ball.
Because of the drastic impact of speed and elusiveness, the spread offense is a real factor within this year’s game – as it is in major college football.
Slow, unathletic defensive linemen are no longer able to keep up with skill position players in space – something other NCAA games of the past couldn’t say.
In my first game on the console, I rushed for 258 yards with the Oregon Ducks. My counterpart also pounded the ball down my throat on the ground for 219 of his own – playing as Stanford.
The game resembled a true PAC-12 affair. That’s a win for gamers.
In addition to gameplay, NCAA’s famed Dynasty mode also has been given a coat of polish, and the entire recruiting system has been overhauled.
The system appears to be a major improvement – it will likely be the defining feature of the NCAA 14 game.
The entire overhaul centers on coaching currency called ‘XP’, which you earn by completing tasks throughout the season.
With ‘XP’, you have the ability to either recruit players or focus your time or energy on your current team. It’s a balancing act between recruiting and strategy that a real-life coach faces in his day-to-day life on the job. I loved the challenge.
But because Dynasty takes weeks to navigate through fully, I admittedly didn’t dig as deeply into this feature as I would have hoped.
Now for the bad stuff.
Away from a polished gameplay system and an overhaul in recruiting, not much is different about this year’s version of NCAA 14.
The presentation remains flat and doesn’t do college football’s pageantry justice.
As the Oregon Ducks, I played five games against my buddies throughout the long weekend. Three were at home and two were on the road.
There was no difference in my team’s play in any of the games. In fact, I won both of my road games and just one of my three games at home. This is a real shortcoming in NCAA 14, because as we all know, real-life college football is heavily ruled by home field advantage. That win/loss record should have been flipped around.
Just ask LSU. They have made a name for spooking opponents into submission.
In addition to the lack of home field advantage, the players on NCAA 14 are bland and just appear to be cookie cutter. I understand that a lot of this isn’t a fault to EA Sports, as the NCAA doesn’t allow player names to be placed onto the game – handicapping game designers.
But something about the whole in-game experience just feels bland and outdated.
The colors don’t seem as sharp as they should be.
The players all look like replicas of one another.
Next year’s game should aim to improve that fix. Adding a little more flavor to the players within a team’s roster wouldn’t hurt.
Last, but not least, NCAA Football 14 did absolutely nothing to its Road to Glory feature, which enables you to create a player and play a high school season and a full college career.
To wrap it all up, there is far more good than bad in this year’s version of NCAA Football – the title remains a solid pickup for sports fans.
But as someone who has loyally purchased the game for more than 15 years, NCAA 14 just doesn’t feel much different from the games of years past.
I was able to pick it up and immediately play competitive games without even needing to do a test drive against my buddies.
If financially able, I wouldn’t discourage anyone from investing $60 and purchasing the new game.
But before you do, just know that it’s just a cleaned up version of the 2013 title – for better or for worse.
A Florida State ball carrier breaks a tackle during a game of NCAA Football ‘14. Sports Editor Casey Gisclair said this year’s game has moderate tweaks, but lacks the big-time changes to make it drastically different from last year’s version of the game.
