E3 Updates: NCAA Football 2011 Impressions

The first day of E3 is over.  It’s good to be an NCAA guy because with most of the people here at the show, Madden seems to be king.  It’s hard to even find a controller open to play Madden.  Plus, its still so slow. The game looks so feeble and boring compared to NCAA.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I played NCAA all day.I’m still impressed with the lighting overhaul as much as anything else in the game.  Each stadium feels and looks different with distinctly different lighting qualities depending on the time of day.

One of my favorite changes which is something that is noticeable in the demo as well is the new animations for throwing the deep ball. Those combined with the fact that throws are no longer guaranteed to be accurate so often will be a lare part of what the defense relies on.  Zone positioning seems better but without the ability to redirect so quickly the defense needs pressure or a bad throw once in awhile.  Will NCAA 11 be all about the offense? I can’t fully tell at this juncture.

The playbook changes, while being mentioned in the whole 120 ways to win slogan, have really not been given the credit they deserve.  For instance a couple of years ago the playbook improvements were lauded but only somewhat impressive. This year I am seeing new plays in every playbook, indeed every formation.  They have really added a lot of new plays and concepts.  Tomorrow I will try and hit a few different offenses and get some of those questions answered.

 Online Dynasty Notes

 One bit I noticed is that when you call a player not only can you not pick the topics… Even when you change the topic (allowed three times per call) it will randomly select another topic. Recruiting is inevitably going to entail a bit of luck to be able to hit the topics that are advantageous to your school.

Promises can now be offered in season but to me it looks like they will be a big deal for smaller schools without much to pitch.  The points you get by making a promise just aren’t that great and it takes up a pitch slot.  So if you chose to talk to the kid for an hour (6 topics) and you make a promise, you now only hit 5 topics and the points aren’t worth it.  Useful for a 1 star school however…

Comparing your school to another school is much easier to do than before.  On whatever pitch was randomly selected you can look at the competing teams and it shows your grade and theirs. If you have a better grade you will take some points from them and add to your point total.

 Pitching to a recruit now brings up more detailed conversation text but it will get repetetive very early.

Last and least importantly, you can now look at the recruiting map during preseason recruitingly. Annoyingly, clicking a state still does not bring up a list of the players in that state.  So technically the map is 100 percent useless still.

 Thanks for reading.  I hope to post some pictures from the show tonight we will see.

Hellisan