Gameplay:  
This is where NCAA steps away from the same style as Madden in some aspects, while paralleling the excellent play within the games themselves.

The games themselves function exceptionally well. The sometimes-clunky movement of Madden 2002 is gone, and the movement of the players is incredibly fast and responsive. The running backs can cut on a dime and accelerate back the other way quickly but realistically. The jukes are fluid, and the flow of the game runs very well. The game only seemed to show slight signs of slowdown when there are essentially 22 players on the screen at once, like when the teams first come out of the huddle and go to their positions, or when the line is stacked on a 3rd and short or a goal line scenario. Even in those cases, it wasn’t slow once the play started running, just when the teams were setting up in their formations. It’s a small complaint, but a complaint nonetheless, and my role as a reviewer is to give you the straight skinny on what’s in the game, so there you go. Journalistic integrity at its finest.

There are your typical options for what kind of game you want to get into. Exhibition and Season allow you to play, well… exhibitions or seasons. There is also a rivalry game mode where you can play as one side of a heated rivalry and attempt to win some kind of rivalry prize, be it a traveling trophy or just bragging rights. There is also a Mascot game where you control a team full of mascots. You unlock new Mascot teams by using your in game earned points to buy pennants, which are the NCAA equivalent of Madden cards. However, the meat and potatoes of the game lies within the NCAA equivalent of Madden’s Franchise mode: Dynasty mode.

Dynasty mode is the year-to-year management of a team for a span of up to 30 years. Nearly every aspect of college football is covered here, from recruiting, to deciding on red-shirting players, to assigning your starters. I say “nearly” every aspect of college football is here, because they somehow failed to include the aspect where the football players are constantly pursued by all the skanky little freshman girls at the school, or where a football player gets caught in a particularly compromising position with one of said skanky freshman girls. But since these technically don’t relate to the playing of the game itself, I am willing to overlook it this time. (But it had better be there for 2004, or I’ll be furious!)

Each year consists of a series of phases. I’ll run you through a typical year with my created school (yes, you can create your own school, right down to the uniforms, fight song, and team logo): the La Crescent State Feral Penguins. Yes, they are actually called that. The logo I chose for my team was a penguin, and I needed to make it seem a little more fearsome, so I made them the Feral Penguins. Got a problem with the 4 time defending NCAA champs’ name? Didn’t think so.

Right out of the gate, you are presented with your schedule. Now, if you are in a conference, (Big 12, Big Ten, etc…) there will be a chunk of your schedule that is locked in and can’t be changed. But you can then change around your non-conference games so that you can play a different team that is available that week, if you don’t like the teams that the computer scheduled for you. I personally schedule the highest ranked teams that are available, because when I beat them I will earn valuable points in the bowl rankings later in the year. (I’ll get to that in a minute.)

Now, after you have planned you schedule, you play the games. After Week 8, some extra things will come available, such as the Bowl Rankings and Player Award standings, for such things as the Heisman Trophy, Offensive and Defensive MVP’s and the All-American Teams. The Bowl Rankings determine who will play in the National Championship game at the end of the year, so you definitely want to be in the top two there at the end of the year. Otherwise, you’ll hopefully be off bowling elsewhere, since there are tons and tons of bowls these days, and all of them are included in the game. (I think that at this point there are only about 4 teams in the nation who DON’T go to a bowl at the end of the year.) So once you wrap up your season and have hopefully collected all kinds of awards, you move on to…

The Off-season. This is where you have to maintain your stock of players, and hopefully improve them if possible. First, it tells you which of your players are leaving, whether they are graduating seniors or just an underclassman leaving early for the Draft, you’ll see that they are leaving, and then can plan accordingly when it comes to recruiting. (You can even export a draft class to Madden, so you can continue the careers of your All Americans in the pros if you have both games. I don’t have Madden yet, but I look forward to this feature immensely.) Recruiting is the main key to building your team, so you need to be very careful to try and cover your needs as best you can. You receive a certain number of points each week, and you distribute them among players you want to target and offer scholarships to. As each week goes by, you will get commitments from players, and those who remain undecided, you will get more information on them, so you can determine if you still want them as a target. The players are rated from 5 stars, which are the blue chip prospects, down to one star, which is essentially the bottom of the barrel. The more prestigious your school is, the more likely you are to have a lot of blue chips want to play there, so keeping your prestige high is important. The recruiting is set up very intuitively, and allows for you to sort players in numerous ways depending on what you want to see.

Once you have all your commitments from your players, you see how well the returning players progressing in off-season workouts, set up your starters, and start the next season. It’s very thorough, but not frustratingly complicated. You’ll probably find yourself simming through years and years without playing a game just to see how well you can maintain your program. It’s addictive to try and build and maintain an actual dynasty, and will keep those who love college football (and many who don’t) occupied for hours on end. The Dynasty mode adds an endless replay value to the game, and will probably be the only mode most players will ever need.

Sound:  
Now, there is really only one aspect of a football game’s sound that matters, and that is, naturally, the commentary. Most games (and I include last year’s Madden in this category) feature a very limited batch of sayings that generally will get recycled several times within the course of a single game. Annoying. Due to this general practice of devoting minimal resources to the sound, I had little in terms of expectations for the commentary of NCAA 2003. I’m not sure if it was my lack of any kind of expectations or the quality of the commentary itself, but I have come away with a new respect for what can be done with in-game commentary in a football game.

First of all, the commentary in NCAA is done by a three man team, which I think has a lot to do with how it stays fresh. The variety of having three broadcasters alone keeps it a bit fresher than hearing a virtual Madden drone on and on about a nickel defense while a virtual Pat Summerall is in the background trying to slash his virtual wrists. (This year of course, it will be a virtual Al Michaels attempting to take his own virtual life as Madden rambles endlessly about the virtues of having a great tight end. God, that last line sounds horribly wrong to me now that I read it.) The team, made up of former college coach Lee Corso, former Ohio State QB Kirk Herbstreit, and former adult movie actor Brad Nessler, (Actually I have no idea what the guy used to do, so I’m just guessing here.) keeps the dialogue fresh and keeps up with the flow of the game almost up to the second. Corso fills the main role of Madden, talking coaching strategy, while Herbstreit gives more of a player’s-eye take on the happenings. Nessler is the main play-by-play man, and does a great job of calling the plays as they develop. Corso and Herbstreit even have an excellent rapport during the game where they’ll make comments and take little digs at each other. It’s all in good fun of course, but it is a nice touch, and adds another sense of realism to the game.

Madden on the other hand, I am convinced makes those around him seem all the less interesting. Madden could have JFK in the booth with him, and instantly any shred of charisma that Kennedy had would evaporate, and he would end up with as much flair and personality as your average bowling shoe. I fear for what will happen to my opinion of Al Michaels, who I think is a good broadcaster, once the Madden effect takes hold. I don’t mean to get down on Madden as a person, but I really don’t like his style of broadcast. I’ll buy his games, but I don’t have to listen to them.

Control:
The control scheme is similar to that of Madden, but with a few tweaks here and there for features unique to the college game. A is your run button and snaps the ball, B, X, Y, L, and R are used to pass to receivers on those respective buttons. When you are running the ball, X is a spin move, Y is a hurdle, B dives, R is a juke move, and L is a stiff arm. The main addition to the college gameplay is the option. This running scheme allows you to pitch the ball to waiting running backs, and the pitch is mapped to the Z button. It definitely takes some getting used to, but can be a deadly tool once you get the hang of it. There are many teams on the game, just like in real life, that will option you TO DEATH!!!! If you play Nebraska, you had best have a defibrillator ready, because they will keep optioning you, and optioning you until you are completely deceased.

The controls as a whole are basically what you used in Madden, and fit the bill well. The few additions are necessary to fit different aspects found only in the college game, and capture those well. The controls are responsive, and allow the game to flow at a faster pace than that of last year’s Madden.

Multiplayer:
As of now, I have yet to play a multiplayer game, but it is offered for up to four players, and should at least provide an equal multiplayer fun factor as that of Madden, which was definitely fun for more than one player. There’s no online feature in this year’s version, but hopefully next year, EA will be supporting the GameCube with online plans for its sports titles.

OVERALL:
I came in with high expectations for NCAA 2003, and had every single one of them met and exceeded. The game plays great, it offers a lot of depth for those who prefer the team management aspect to the playing of the game itself, and really captures the feel of the college game. From the fight songs to the cheerleaders and mascots, there is just about everything that IS college football in this game. The interactivity of sending your players to the Madden draft is a sweet addition to what is a great game in and of itself, and allows you to take a player all the way from high school graduation, through his college years, right up to his retirement from the NFL. As a whole, this is the most fun football game I have ever played, and if Madden 2003 can follow suit, I will definitely have a winning pair of games that will hold me over well until next year’s versions of each. Now, it's time to go look for freshmen girls. I think I can convince them that I’m a football player.

 

The Lowdown on  NCAA Football 2003 Aesthetics: Awesome Control: Very Good Gameplay: Awesome Multiplayer: Very Good Sound: Very Good Innovation: 4/6 Lasting Appeal: 6/6 Overall: Awesome! "Top of the Genre"