One word of caution to those playing dynasty – change the difficulty level, because the default is mind numbingly easy. In my first game I was able to pick off 4 passes as BC vs BYU…I mean on defense I was seeing the ball and intercepting with ease. I thought I was a football god…then I upped the difficulty and whoa, it’s a whole new ball game.
The ESPN integration is just plain horrid. EA seems as though it just bought the license to make sure that no one else has it. There’s an ESPN ticker but in order to use it, you have to select the online mode and then select the ticker. There is a nice photo album and there are “ESPN Classic” games for ones that are very good, but that’s about it.
This is the point where I get frustrated with EA. Many years ago (two) there was this amazing football game for the original Xbox. It supported online leagues and players could set up online league pages had ESPN integration, had a halftime show with actual game highlights, and had a wrap up show and everything. All comments about exclusive licensing aside, it boggles my mind that after 3 years EA can’t seem to do this.
Speaking of 3 year old games, the audio still can’t compare to that other NFL game from 3 years ago. Lee Corso says the same things over and over again, and it’s downright hysterical to hear him talk as the ‘announcer’ and at the same time hear him suggest a play. He truly talks over himself.
Graphics are very impressive. Most everything looks impeccable and animations are silky smooth. Some have mentioned lock up or frame rate issues, I haven’t seen many of these – however when you add weather to some games, it doesn’t look as good as I think it should.
If you’re living in a vacuum and the only football game you had on earth was NCAA Football 07 for the 360, you’ll really enjoy it. If you know that the regular Xbox version has more features and a deeper dynasty mode, it will probably reduce your enjoyment of the 360 game. The thing is though: the added stuff on the Xbox version isn’t really that big of a deal. While it’s true the match-up stick is gone, you do have the ability now to flip running plays at the line of scrimmage, which to me is more important. You also have the ability to have Lee Corso suggest a play on Defense, which was missing from the other versions of the game.
NCAA Football 07 lives up to the hype on the front of the box. EA says it’s the #1 selling NCAA Football Franchise on the 360 and it’s also the best NCAA Football franchise on the 360. Of course, it’s also the ONLY NCAA Football game so you don’t have a whole lot of options. In conclusion, I would still recommend the 360 version of the game over any other version because 1) you don’t miss the features you didn’t use last year and 2) once you’ve seen this game run on a 360, playing the same version on the original Xbox is like going from an original Game Boy to a Nintendo DS. There’s still some work that needs to be done to flesh out the dynasty mode, and some online leagues would be great, but there’s definitely a very enjoyable game here and it’s worth buying.
