E3 Updates: NCAA 2011 Info

Hellisan here from E3, and I am happy to report that the show is back and bigger and more salacious than ever. In fact I just pissed off Vern Troyer.  It’s hoppin’ up in here!

I stopped by the EA booth for the first two hours of the show and was able to speak with Russ Kiniry and some of the other guys about the game.  They have done a good job of disseminating information this year so I do not have any breaking news, just some observations and commentary.

The demo looks good. In person the game looks stunning on an actual disk. One of the things I wanted to confirm is that the online dynasty posted to the internet would keep all the information from each game over the years.  Russ confirmed that each game save would retain your game story, box score, photos and video. It will not write a generic story other than the headline, the rest is up to you.

One new feature I noticed is that practice can now be done in an indoor facility which looks very nice.

As usual I suck at the new game.  But it is very fun to play. According to the guys the demo build is about two months old so expect changes.  This version at E3 is not a final build, but close.  I have seen some glitches that I hope do not make it into the final game such as a team kicking a field goal then starting with the ball on their own 20 the next play.

I have also seen some incredible game play. I’m impressed with the new animations that I’ve seen including a couple awesome one-handed snags that I hope we will only see once a season. Tackling feels very solid and realistic.

To me the 360 version looks a lot more colorful and “beautiful” than the ps3 version which was confirmed by other attendees.

I can confirm that the locomotion system has an impact on many portions of the game. If you make a wrong move in coverage you will not be able to jerk the player the other way to recover, period.  And defensive ends indeed annot track down a halback laterally as easily as they used to.

According to Kiniry, the improved run commit features we are seeing have more to do with locomotion than actual reprogramming of the feature.  Looks pretty impressive so far.

Helli out.