How does NCAA Football 08 fare on the PlayStation 3 when compared to the Xbox 360? As a first try on the PS3, it’s not bad—not great, and not what a PS3 game should be, but it’s at least serviceable. There is very little difference when comparing the features between the two versions. The PS3 version just runs slower…a lot slower.
Aside from playing against a real human, the most fun to be had is the individual campus legend mode. In this mode, you create a player in high school who is about to play in the state playoffs where you get to show your stuff off to scouts, who assign you your overall recruiting grade, which determines the level of college program to offer you a scholarship.
While the mode is fun, it is just too easy. Once you’re recruited you’d think you’d stay on the bench for a while as a freshman but in no time you’ll be in the starting lineup. While a game where you’re on the bench all the time would be very boring, there’s no feeling of accomplishment here and instead it feels like you’re just given everything to become a starter. There should be some sort of challenge in order to crack the 2-deep let alone make the starting lineup as a freshman.
The dynasty mode is deep – almost to the point where it’s too deep. In real life, there are teams of people trying to recruit players but here it’s all on you – you make the phone calls and the visits, you evaluate the players and cut them. Some will really enjoy these minute details but for me it was too much work; thankfully you can instead just let the computer handle those details but when you’re left wondering just how good of a job it’s doing.
Years ago there were many complaints about the high number of dropped passes during every game. Fortunately that isn’t a problem this year; instead it’s too many passes caught by the defense. The game is an interception fest – and we’re not talking about the “idiot throwing it into triple coverage” type of interceptions. It is just simply amazing how good the defense is – you can’t seem to go one game without seeing three or four interceptions, usually by the CPU quarterback (regardless of his skill).
Thankfully, there are gameplay sliders in the game and you can adjust everything to your liking, but sometimes you wonder if the sliders are there just so you think things have changed – even when interceptions are reduced to nothing, you still see interceptions. What’s the point of having a slider if it doesn’t change the gameplay? Also, something else doesn’t make sense – while some people probably want to craft the game to a scenario they prefer playing – maybe a pass heavy offense with lots of scoring, shouldn’t the ‘default’ game be challenging enough without having to constantly tweak it?
The passing game is a game of timing and using the SIXAXIS controller is not enjoyable. The controller is so light, there’s no vibration feedback and there seems to be a delay in the response between the time you hit a button to throw to a receiver and when the ball is actually released. It is extremely frustrating to constantly get sacked while you know you’ve pressed that button more than once to release the ball. The running game is pretty enjoyable if you have all the commands memorized; if you’ve figured out how to run an option play, you are going to do well in this game.
You are able to boost your player ratings with ‘motivation levels’ and playing better will also help. It’s nice to have such dynamic player ratings and quite frankly it’s about time. The motivation level is a nice idea on paper (the thought is if a QB leads a team to a touchdown, the players will be more eager to play the next series), but the way it’s implemented is rather silly – you’ll see this “sphere of motivation” which boosts the players around you. So if you’re a running back is playing well the motivation will boost the line perhaps, but not the WR’s that are also on your team, which seems kind of silly. It also makes star players unstoppable juggernauts and once the motivation ball starts rolling little can stop it.
