NCAA Football 2004 - Huge Update

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EA Sports
Take the rivlary online - Battle Michigan vs. Ohio State, USC vs. Notre Dame, Oklahoma vs. Nebraska, and more in online head-to-head exhibition games. Chat or sing your favorite fight songs in-game with the new voice chat talk feature (broadband only), or follow the stat leaders across the country in the Online Top 100.

College Atmosphere - Rip down the goalposts after a major victory and feel the tradition of college football Saturdays with all-new pre-game introductions. Experience the pageantry in-game with 20 new mascots, cheerleaders waving flags, and cannons firing.

College-style gameplay - Get in the end zone with new trick plays like the Halfback Throwback and Wide Receiver Double Reverse Pass. New animations include sideline tackles, stumbles, new over-the-shouder and basket catches, user-controlled celebrations, and much more. See the receivers better through a new QB Rollout camera and use the Play-Action Pass camera to fake out the defense.

New College Classics mode - Replay 20 of the greatest college football games from the last two decades. Take over the game at a key situation, relive the glorious victory, or change history with an upset win.

Over 136 new teams - Play as one of the 36 new 1-AA teams. Or try playing as one of the 100+ NEW Classic Teams including 1930 Notre Dame, 1956 Oklahoma, 1972 USC, and 2002 Ohio State.

My NCAA - Write your own page in the NCAA history books with the Top 10 User Greatest Games, track single-game, season, career and coaching records, post new school records for all 117 1-A teams, or stock your Trophy Room with brand-new individual player awards, bowl game, rivalry, and conference championship trophies.

Continuing the dynasty - Project the season's top performers with the new Pre-Season All-American Team and revel in your weekly accomplishments with new magazine-style cover keepsakes.

New EA SPORTS BIO - Unlock special rewards in NCAA Football 2004, by playing multiple EA SPORTS™ titles including Madden NFL™ 2004, NBA Live 2004, NASCAR Thunder™ 2004, and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 2004. Track your most memorable accomplishments across all EA SPORTS games.

The stadium comes alive! - Major stadium upgrades include dynamic home/away attendance, crowds on the hill, and over 300 brand-new team-specific and situational chants.

New and improved commentary! - The commentary dream team of Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso returns in full force! Nessler sounds better than ever with a new mid-play commentary system.

More in a second..

[The Jacket]

From IGN Insider

May 08, 2003 - Maybe it's because I'm a jaded journalist, but I wasn't expected many big improvements for NCAA Football over last year's stellar version. And while the changes made aren't nearly a big as those found in Madden NFL 2004, when I began adding up all the little things, I was surprised by just how much EA is adding to their top-notch college pigskin title. NCAA Football 2004 ships for Xbox, PS2, GameCube, and PC this July with enough added goodies and improvements to put a smile on any football fans face.

Here's a down and dirty list of the simple additions, you know, things that basically pad the stats from last year:
36 new AA teams
20 new mascots -- 70 total!
5 new fight songs (there were already quite a lot last year)
165 new teams
10 new formations
Over 200 new plays
More trophies to win
More bowls

Enhanced presentation
As if last year's version didn't have enough college atmosphere, this year EA's adding some extra bells and whistles in an attempt to make as authentic a college football experience as possible. Cheerleaders look a lot better and will have additional cheering roles, like waving flags and firing cannons. A new crowd reaction engine will be more intelligent than last year, allowing for over 300 crowd chants (from "Over-rated!" to "Go! Go! Go!" and beyond), and boos and cheers based on game situations. To add to the sound field, EA is slipping in some stadium-specific sounds, like the air raid siren at the University of Washington. You know a game's trying to be realistic when they start putting in things that truly annoy people at real games.

As dandy as all this sounds, none of it compares to the final big addition. After a big upset, or at the conclusion of a "great game", fans may storm the field and rip down the goal posts. Now that's what I'm talking about.

Dynasty mode
While I didn't get to see much of the Dynasty Mode, it does look like there have been some solid improvements. This year, you'll get to take on a greater role as coach of your team. Recruiting is based on your coaching style and you'll actually pitch recruits on different aspects of your program. As coach, you may be fired, offered a contract extension, or given offers from other schools, based on your performance, which is measured by a job security meter.

Beyond this, your entire team can be in jeopardy based on their ongoing performance. With conference prestige now making a difference (and thus fixing some problems with the poll logic), teams the under-perform for a significant amount of time can actually get dropped from their conference. At the same time, Notre Dame could do well and decide to join a conference.

Dynasty mode for the new year should also do a better job of keeping more detailed records throughout the history of your Dynasty. Better yet, there's new in-game commentary related to career records. Get close to the career rushing record, win record, or any assortment of other prestigious marks and the commentators will give you props.

Toss in alternate unis (each team now has four unis total) and the ability to choose your mascot when creating a school, and you're pretty much set for another year of college football. Ah, but there's even more goodies in store for faithful gamers.

Your own magazine
While EA can't make an official sponsorship announcement as it's still working on signing a deal with a major sports magazine (I'm sure you can't guess which one), I can tell you that there will definitely be some enhanced magazine-style presentation added to Dynasty mode.

Much of the information seen in last year's Dynasty mode is returning with a few enhancements, but the magazine presentation will offer a prettier package. Each week you'll get a new cover based on events across the entire NCAA. One cover I saw had the headline "Upset Saturday", because there'd been five major upsets that weekend. EA plans a preseason issue and then an issue for each week of the season. Beyond the cool covers, which look about as authentic as possible, there'll be some substance lurking in the virtual pages.

A Heisman watch, All-American hopefuls, and conference outlook will all be staples of this changing magazine. Archived covers can be checked out throughout the season but, unfortunately, they don't stay throughout an entire Dynasty.

Part Two in a second..

[The Jacket]

History lesson
History is the one aspect of college sports that is often overlooked in video games. Some teams have over a hundred years of history, have rivalries that can be researched back to one specific play during one specific game. EA's trying to recapture that history by adding in 20 classic games from the past two and a half decades. As with Acclaim's All-Star Baseball 2004, gamers will be afforded the opportunity to hop into key situations in these classic games and make them come true. Can you chuck a Hail Mary like Doug Flutie? If you can, you'll unlock both teams from the challenge for exhibition play.

Nearly 100 classic teams dating back to 1924 will be playable in NCAA Football 2004. Cooler still is that each generation will wear era-specific gear. Teams from the '20s, for example, will wear leather helmets. While this won't have an impact on gameplay, it is definitely a nice visual touch.

Gameplay
Of course, all the glitter in the world can't help if there's no substance inside (just ask Mariah Carrey). Fortunately, NCAA Football 2004 has a solid gameplay base to start from. Though I only played for about 10 minutes, it's pretty clear that there's nothing drastically different. However, some of the extra touches are already evident.

Most notable is the pass and run play cameras. Just like Madden 2004, when you choose a run play, the camera pulls in to offer a better look at open holes, and when you choose a pass play the camera pulls back and pans when you roll out. The new camera changes are instantly beneficially, particularly on draws and play actions. When you choose a play action, the camera pulls in and stays with the running back a good two or three seconds before pulling back and popping up passing icons. Draw plays are the opposite, with the camera pulling back, passing icons showing up, and then changing to the run play camera once the running back has the ball.

This is no small invention to be overlooked. Even when I had called a play action pass, I was fooled by the camera, groaning "What? I thought I called a pass play!" It dekes out human opponents and forces opposing players to guess what type of play your calling instead of relying on tips from the interface. It's simple, but quite genius in execution.

The other instant favorite is the ability to execute eight different user-controlled endzone celebrations. Strike a Heisman pose or dunk the football over the goalpost after a touchdown. You run a 50% risk of getting hit with a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct, but wouldn't it be unsportsmanlike not to show off in front of your friends?
Other gameplay tweaks inclue double reverse passes, the triple option, and much better special teams play. Just receive one punt and it's easy to note the difference. Your special teams do a far better job trying to set up the wedge and create a wall for the return man.

EA Bio
NCAA Football 2004 is the first EA game to utilize the EA Sports Bio. Whichever genius came up with the bio deserves two raises and a bigger office, because the Bio is, essentially, the ultimate franchise mode. It links every future EA game, because the more you play and accomplish the more you unlock across the entire EA Sports library.

You Got Game
Not directly linked to the Bio (though you do earn points for them), is a final cool touch for NCAA Football 2004. NCAA saves your top 10 greatest games. Using a formula so complex even NASA can't understand it, each game is calculated for it's "greatness score". Factors include margin of victory, whether it was a come-from-behind victory, if it was a big upset, and other numerous incidentals. The date, outcome, and box score of your 10 greatest games are saved for posterity.

PS2 Online
Those with a PS2 and appropriate equipment will be able to hop online with NCAA Football 2004 and mingle in three separate skill rooms (beginner, intermediate, and advanced). There will also be regional rooms, such as the Southwest room, and user info available online.

Outlook
It's hard to believe that one of the best sports games of last year could get better, but NCAA Football 2004 looks like it will be an even greater accomplishment than 2003's model. Though I only played for ten minutes (trust me, I'll be playing this baby a lot more!), the gameplay changes were pretty evident and definitely appreciated.

Forever to be marked as the first game to feature EA's brilliant "bio" system, NCAA Football 2004 may only have one competitor in the football arena this year -- Madden 2004. We'll have lots more soon enough.

The above article is courtesy of IGN Insider.