EA Sports NCAA Football 2011: Tradition Football Review

EA NCAA Football 2011 –  TF Review

First – Community Day impressions

At this year’s Community Week for NCAA Football, we got to spend 3 days playing multiple builds of the game against other community day members, EA Marketing staff and even with the core game developers. (I personally played Justin DeWiel and Ryan Burnsides and went 1-1 respectively).

EA seemed really focused on getting feedback on what they were working on.  This was not a media driven event, it was a finger aching gaming marathon to analyze, understand and discuss what we felt they were doing right and what needed improving on.

In the evening times, the discussions continued around the dinner table as the designers/developers and managers would spend time with the CD guys pouring over what happened that day during testing and bouncing ideas and concepts off each other in what seemed to be very productive sessions away from the game itself.

From game play, rosters, sound, and animation, every branch of the process was represented and made available to the CD guys if they had comments or wanted to show them something particular that came up during game testing.

This development team truly seemed to care about the game and with a new project manager solely dedicated to the NCAA game (Roy Harvey). There was a definite focus on making this game stand out from its big brother and I personally want to thank EA for their hospitality and effort in getting the community involved early enough to make difference in the game.

Player and ball physics model (ie: Locomotion)

Probably the biggest enhancement in the last 10 years of sports gaming, right beside online dynasty.  True, genuine physics models of player movement that accurately reflects the player’s ratings and size.  There is a huge difference is how you play the game because of the new system. You have to line up your tackles, setup your cutbacks and commit to your coverage scheme.  It puts a little more game planning back in the game and takes away a stick jockey’s ability to compensate for poor decisions with quick stick skills.  You can setup overly aggressive defenders and get that true feeling of making a guy miss so badly you see a glimpse of his jockstrap and you fly by.

Finally ratings other than speed will matter. Acceleration is going to play a huge role this year. Along with agility, these two will have a huge effect on a player’s quickness and ability to change direction. Size is also a big factor. The bigger a player is, the harder it is for him to get his weight going in the other direction. This is very noticeable when a smallish scat back cuts back a run and you see the big hog mollies up front struggle to get back in their lanes.

Not only does it have singular effect on each player, but it seems to also have a larger impact on the overall play when the offense uses mis-direction type plays. The defense can really get burned if they are over perusing or really buy into the fake or counter action.

It was really nice to see a HB get around the corner it situations where he obviously should. The opportunity for big plays seems to be more organic, with vision and planned cuts working to a RB’s advantage this year. Patience as a runner will be key. You can definitely setup defenders more this season.

I will recount a specific instance where I thought to myself, this is going to be a nice addition to the game. I was playing Justin Dewiel of EA Sports at community week and he scrambled outside with Ohio State’s QB. I raced to the sideline to meet him and pound him out of bounds, but with locomotion the QB was able to stop and cut it back inside, while my linebacker’s momentum carried him out of bounds as he grasped for the QB with one arm. It was a really neat animation.

Overall, my impressions of this feature were really good. It’s going to add something to the game on multiple levels. The QB run is going to be much stronger in ‘11 with athletic QB’s.  Get your Spy defenses ready.

Ball physics, the actual look and feel of the actual football, is well done this year. The flight pattern and velocity on normal throws is much improved from ’10 and the behavior of the football coming out of the QB’s hand while getting hit looks like it’s been completely re-worked. I’ve seen a ton of variation in how that scenario plays out. Seems like their was only one outcome last year and that was the hated floater.

Kicking and punting also have a different feel and im struggling a bit with kicking from distance. Probably around 65% from 40+ yards so far.

New Line Blocking AI

The new blocking AI is a breath of fresh air. The first build I played in March had some issues, but the retail version is vastly improved, you really started to see the logic shine.  One cool thing is on the pre-play coach screen, your offensive line players assignments are displayed clearly.  You cannot change them, but you can see where/who they are going to attempt to block at the snap. This happens without having to call up the coaching screen view which is very convenient and a no-brainer because we all look at the play art while calling out signals at the line.

OL lead blocking on the edge is improved and the big hogs are really laying it to smaller players who would try and take them on. Your front line also does a great job on double teams. After the defender is nullified, one of the lineman will move up to the next level to drop the hat on a LB or Safety as you work your HB through the defense. It’s a very natural, realistic running environment and VISION is just as important as physical attributes for running in this game.

There is also a clearly defined pocket for passing and it benefits you to stay inside of it and step into your throws. It’s also easier to escape the defensive pressure up the middle of the field this year, the O-line will hold their block as you squeeze through the hole.

Playbooks

Every team has a style of play this year.  Are their 120 unique offenses? No, not really, but the diversity and uniqueness of how a team plays has certainly grown exponentially with this years title. There was a huge emphasis on the individual style of offenses that each team runs.

You can also see that the plays seemed to be named after the team they are associated with.  Like Oklahoma-Bubble for example,  so it was like each team has it’s own little variations to specific plays.  This additional will take a bit more time to realize the total impact. I just haven’t played with enough different squads to really delve into it yet.

No Huddle

This year EA has focused on the No Huddle offenses that you see sprouting up all over college football.  You can now access your entire playbook in this mode and you move down the field without having to huddle.

In the ALPHA version I played, there was still a lot of work being done on the players looking over to the sideline to get the plays, so I didn’t get to see that working back in March, but teams like Missouri and Texas where hyper aggressive on offense.

From a sim gamer’s standpoint, I pointed out a couple of things I wanted to make sure where being looked at;  situation and fatigue.  If a team goes no huddle on 1^st and 2^nd down and get 0 yards, they will huddle before 3^rd and 10 most likely.  And sometimes even after an incomplete pass.  Most of the time, the no-huddle is used when successful plays are strung together in an attempt to keep defensive personnel on the field.  A defensive coordinator can get new players on the field after an incompletion, so sometimes it serves no purpose to no-huddle.

The final build shows marked improvement here. The teams are much more deliberate at times. They look to the sidelines more often and use more playclock to balance the feature out a bit. The defense also has their whole playbook available as well and gets a reasonable amount of time to get a play call in.

Player Fatigue

Player stamina will play a huge role in this years game. You will need at least 2 solid HB’s to grind out a drive and if you decide to go no-huddle, be careful about sending your star WR on a streak route every play, his tongue will be dragging soon and he will be off the field.

There are additional animations that tired players will exhibit. For example if your DE has been speed rushing for 3 plays of no-huddle, you will see him drop his head in exhaustion as he lines up for the next play.  It’s little subtle things that really stand out sometimes.

Player movement and animations

With locomotion, the new feel of the game is light years ahead of  ’10. Gone are the days of the superman FS who can jetpack all over the field, turning on a dime to cover half the field and take away 3 receiving options.  You actually have to commit to a direction and it’s much tougher to recover if you chose poorly.

I really noticed the new physics with quick QB’s in the pocket.  When the rush would bear down, a quick agile guy would be able to accelerate away from a slow defender in such a realistic manner that I put my controller down for a minute and pondered what this meant.

Players were actually going to play to there ratings this year.  The concept seemed so simple but the actual impact on the game was stunning.  Vision was actually going to play a role in running the football. The ability to see a whole and cut back to it created some huge plays with overly aggressive defenses.

The defense benefits in some of the same ways with locomotion. The offensive players have a more difficult time changing direction and dancing around like water bugs. Only the most elite ratings guys show the ability to really break ankles against high rated defenders.

The gang tackling is really a nice addition. On one play I remember the HB getting stacked up by 5-6 guys but he kept his feet churning until the ref blew his whistle for forward progress and the defenders just pushed him away without anyone ever falling to the ground. And gone are the constant flips of WR’s in the air by DB’s.  They replaced the majority of those animations with cooler wrap tackles and big hit tackles that keep the WR from twirling in the air so much.

Player Logic and Intelligence

Players just play smarter on the field.  No more HB’s running out of bounds while locked in a catching animation.  Defenders will respond to a mobile QB on the edge with better decision making about when to attack or when to maintain their coverage.  You also get a more organic feel to the way players interact.  Suction and force field type animations are much improved and you feel like you can make a difference if you’ve made the right call or chosen the right scheme.  If you have LB or safety coming free through the line, you have a good shot at getting there.

Dual-Analog Stick Moves

The right stick is now used to control your player’s upper body inside the running animation. You can turn shoulders to protect the ball from a hit or glance off a tackle, you can lean forward in a trucking animation to run through tacklers. You can lean back to high step out of a shoestring tackle attempt. The new right stick spin is really sweet.

There are some detriments too, though. If you get hit from an unintended direction while performing one of the animations your player gets lit up and will fumble at a higher rate as in big hit scenario. And if you hold an animation like trucking down for too long, your player will simply lose his balance falling forward and fall down.  One thing I noticed is that you don’t lose as much or any speed this year when doing the truck stick, which really was refreshing after a year of having so many big runs nullified by an attempt to truck a defender only to have him miss me, yet I get caught from behind because my player slowed down so much through the animation.

This new player movement setup is especially deadly when controlling a very highly skilled athlete. The things you can do to make some defenders look silly had us all jaw dropping in practice mode. Get ready for some sick runs and run after catches.

Uniforms

EA has given us a plethora of uniform options. I specifically audited the Aggies and I found all versions of current uniforms present, including the grey options and the grey inner stripes on the pants.

To my pleasant surprise they also had the White helmet and classic white on white unis they wore against Oklahoma last year for the first time since ’72 I believe.  You can mix and match all versions again like last year.

The new cleats and accessories blew me away visually.  You can change shoes in the player edit screens or change them for your team on the fly and the uniform select screen before a game.

Nike Pro Combat’s are in for every team that had them in 2009. There are few things missing, but for the most part they look great and they really gave us everything we could have asked for from a uniform and customization standpoint.

Presentation

The ESPN integration is noticeable, but this is probably the weakest of the new features. There is no pre-game, half time or post game type presentation. They’ve added screen transitions and new replay swipes that frankly need a lot of tuning.  I’m not sure I agree with the direction here. Beyond TV is not really what I’m looking for. I want something that feels more like a broadcast on Saturday’s.

There are some really cool camera shots of players interacting with each other on the sidelines and during the game. Lots a smack talking and celebration animations that I have never seen before.

Recruiting and Online Dynasty

A huge over haul of  how you will recruit players in dynasty mode this year.  You can no longer pump endless amount of time into one guy.  Gone are the days of watching a smiley face for a few minutes to discern how well your doing. You actually have to use strategy and have set priorities if you want to be effective.

Im going to post a video of the recruiting classes after my first year in a dynasty, buit here’s a few numbers. I’m Texas A&M playing on All American skill level for both gameplay and recruiting. I’m currently 54^th ranked recruiting class having signed five 4* recruits.  Not one single 5* player had my school in their top 10.

I’ve had much more trouble with regional teams like TCU and Tech battling for these guys as Texas gets it’s pick of the litter it seems.  It’s infuriating at times to see them ignore a player you’ve been courting for weeks, only to see the ‘Horns jump in to the game late and get all the love from the guy.

Competitive recruiting is also much improved and functional this year.  As you get more familiar with this mode of recruiting, it will open up more strategic plans of sinister recruiting J.  This is going to be a great year for online recruiting battles.

The Dynasty Wire is just an awesome feature. The game automatically uploads pics to the web and any video highlights you’ve created after the game. It takes a little longer to sync back to the dynasty and such but it’s not agonizing. It will be a great addition for leagues and communities like Tradition Football.

Issues that need to be addressed

Injury notification can be sporadic. There have been several times I’ve been unaware that an injury occurred to a player and had to stop the game to look at the injury report to confirm or deny that a player is just tired or hurt.

QB movement can look un-natural at times when transitioning from running and throwing animations. Useless spinning or sometime getting stuck in an animation is still a problem.  In one game, the Oklahoma QB got stuck in the play action fake animation and bumped into the HB. After they released, the QB continued to run backwards 30 yards to the endzone for a safety.

Dynasty Wire needs to be QA’d a lot harder. A bunch of links and search functionality are not working properly and it really needs good testing to work it all out.

Final Comments

I have extremely high hopes for this game based on the information that is out there, the experience I had with the game so far this week.  This could be the single largest leap year over year that this game has had since I can remember and that is saying something considering the ’08-’09 leap into the world of online dynasty.

The development team really feels like the handcuffs are off and they’ve attempted to really bring something substantial to the table this year.  Some of what I’m seeing literally blows me away and I’m left just waiting for everyone else to get the game so we can get some Online Dynasty goodness flowing again.

TF Rating

8.75 out of 10  (this will go to a 9 if they get all the dynasty wire bugs worked out)

Media Links
My Online Dynasty Wire Through Week 8
Tradition Football YouTube Channel – 1 Half of a game played with retail version