Why? I don't know, it just seems like the NCAA team is more willing to change their game than the Madden guys are. Every year it seems like the game improves in evry aspect and always seems to try new things and more often then not they really work.
This year is no different. The game has been updated for '08 with several new features and most of them work. However, how much they really improve the game as a whole is another question.
First off, the gameplay is solid as always. I easily jumped into the game and was able to dominate the CPU on the default level based upon nothing but my knowledge of '07. The animations are smooth, but this still being the PS2 version, it isn't as pretty as it could be. However, I noticed some interesting things that seem to be tweaked.
Something that you will notice right away is that the number of interceptions is WAY up. Balls are routinely tipped up into the air and brought down by safeties and linebackers. The Defensive AI seems better then it has ever been but it almost seems to create a imbalance. The offense is almost left without a tool to equal things out of this. To make it worse, it seems that receivers drop balls at a more alarming rate than ever before. Now, I know that this could a be a statistical thing, but it seems to be widespread. I'm playing my Dynasty as UNLV and Ryan Wolfe is rated an 88. That's pretty good. Yet he still drops passes a lot.Second is the new Lead by Example system. The basis of the system is the old "Impact Player" system where your team has three players who are capable of "getting hot" and making gamebreaking plays. Well, I always thought to myself: Why can't my Frosh 3rd receiver get hot after making a couple of nice catches? Well, now he can. You still have you impact players, and they receive larger stat bonus when "In the Zone," but now anybody can attain those bonuses on a smaller scale. I was worried about it being too arcady,(Think NBA Jam) but it works out well. One thing that I really Like is the system is dynamic on what it takes to be "In the Zone." For example, It might take a couple of tackles in the backfield for a Defensive linemen to get there, but a Strip Sack will make it happen real quick.
I've always thought that the Campus Legend mode is worthless, and that continues. I never touch it, and it appears to not have changed at all.
What I love is the aforementioned Dynasty Mode. It's still awesome and has some changes. Now, Redshirts, Scheduling and Recruting are all moved to a pre-season session rather than week one. Also included is a Summer Drills session, which is basically a re-hash of Madden's Training Camp mode. The drills are a little different but the idea is the same: To improve a few players on your team through playing some mini-games. Well, It's fun but there is one problem. There are too many drills. It's too easy to improve your team ALOT during these drills. Give me three offensive, three defensive and three Special teams and we are good. There are like 15 drills. That's 15 of 70 players that you can improve. That's alot of players to improve over the summer.
The other cool addition to dynasty mode is some recruiting functions. When a recruit now comes to visit your school, you can give him activities that fall into five cateogories to improve his visit. Well, It works, but it's kind of just an extension of selling a "pitch," something that they added a couple of years ago. Not exactly earth shattering.
Something else that I wish they could have done was clean up the cosmetics of the Dynasty mode menu. They put it on this "Notebook" background which works, but the ESPN the magazine covers are still pretty bland.
One VERY cool thing that is new is the inclusion of the My Shrine, which replaces last years' "Trophy Case." The Shrine is a room where they placed all of your acheivements through gameplay. It includes the trophies, the pennant collection (think Madden Cards), Your ESPN greates games (The mechanic is broken, I've had three point games that don't get included,) and some other stuff. It's just cool to have a graphical representation for everything.
The last thing that I think matters is the "Points Pursuit" Mode. It's a regular game only instead of using a traditional scoring system, you get points for making plays as well as touchdowns and field goals. For example, during a game with a friend, the game turned when he he got nearly 400 points for a sack and strip because it was user-controlled. There are also "Moneyballs" which serve to double, triple or quadruple points received on a particular play. It's an interesting way to combine the simulation game and and an arcade scoring system. It works and it's fun to play with a friend. It also allows you to unlock some stuff by scoring points and your record is viewable in My Shrine.
Overall, The game doesn't break any new real ground, but it's solid. More than anything, I think that the nervewracking part is that the Next-Generation versions seem to have alot of the same issues that I mentioned here.
Get the game. Get it for the Madden Draft Classes. Get it to occupy you until August 14th. Get it because The Dynasty mode is still fun. But don't expect anything you haven't already seen.
Overall Grade: B+
I know I sound negative in the review, but the game is still good. It just isn't what I expected. I hope that next year, the next generation version improves upon the solid base of '08.
