One Hour Video Game Review: NCAA Football 2008

Since I bought an Xbox 360 I've been kind of underwhelmed with the selection of games. This week was the first game I was really looking forward to, NCAA Football 2008. This is my one hour review of NCAA Football 2008. Basically a one hour review are some thoughts on the game during first hour of play, sort of like a diary. When I do a one hour review it's true that there are obviously some things that happen later in some games that I won't know but most of the time if you like a game after the first hour of play, you're going to enjoy the game. So let's get on with it.

00:00 As soon as the game begins the voice of Chris Fowler gives a tutorial on one of the new additions to the 2008 edition of NCAA Football. Players can now save highlights and pictures from their games and put them online for their friends to see. Fowler also mentions Super Sim, the ability to sim parts of a game.

01:00 I start the game by choosing the Florida Gators for Dynasty Mode. In NCAA Football 2008 you have the ability to recruit during the season so even before you start your first game you choose what players you want to recruit.

02:00 This year players can use different search options to easily sift through all the available recruits. After entering the desired Position, Tendency, State, Caliber, Height, Weight, 40 Time and Commitment Status you will receive a percentage that shows how closely recruits fit your requirements.

03:00 I decide to find a 5 Star, Scrambling QB from the state of Florida. After I put in all the requirements I find out that there are 0 players that are a 90% to 100% match of my requirements, there are 0 players that match 70% to 89% of my requirements and 5 players fit 50% - 69% of my requirements. I adjust my requirements by not requiring the player to be from Florida. I now have 1 player that is a 90% - 100% match so I put him on my list of prospective recruits.

06:00 After filling up my recruiting board I move on through the other offseason moves like redshirting players, changing the depth chart, and editing your schedule. These are all things that have been in previous versions of the game.

07:00 I start my first game as Florida against FCS Southeast. The kicking system is very different than the Playstation 2 version. I suppose it is a good thing since it is more challenging though.

12:00 While playing my first game I find the controls to be a lot more difficult than the Playstation 2 NCAA Football games but this is not only the first football game I've played on Xbox 360 but it's only the second game I've played at all. So I don't even know all the buttons in order to throw to the receiver without looking at the controller. Hopefully once I get used to the controls it will be much easier to control.

15:00 After going three and out and kicking a three yard punt I decide it's time to see what the Super Sim option is. Basically during a game you can go to the Super Sim screen and choose to skip a play, skip to the next possession, skip to the end of the quarter or skip until the end of the game. So if you're up 40 to 0 and don't want to finish, just sim the end of the game. If you only want to play offense you can play offense and then sim when you're on defense. Very cool new addition.

19:00 NCAA Football 2008 looks nice but not really any better than previous games. The graphics are about the same as the Playstation 2 version. So far I haven't seen any kind of new animations. I also haven't seen any instant replays or heard any commentary from Kirk Herbstreet and Lee Corso. It still looks very good but it's clear NCAA Football 2008 is about improving the options and other modes and not much change to the gameplay, but like I said the gameplay is already great.

27:00 After three and a half quarters my Gators have gone up 54 - 0 so I try the Super Sim again. This time I sim one play at a time until there are 8 seconds left in the game. I figure why not take one more shot at the end zone and call for a Hail Mary. After a perfect 82 yard pass the final score is 61 - 0.

30:00 Now that the game is over I can go to the Highlight option that Fowler was talking about at the beginning of the game. The Xbox automatically records every single play that is seen in your game. After the game you can go through the list of plays and choose any play and watch the replay. When I say you can only choose plays that you see in your game that means that plays you simulated are not available for replays. If there are highlights that you like, you can save them to your Xbox 360 and share them with your friends.

33:00 Another cool feature about the saved plays is that every play has a greatness score based on how difficult the play was, how close the game was, when the play happened and various other things. For example, my three yard punt got a greatness score of 2 and my 82 yard Hail Mary got a greatness score of 688.

37:00 Now that I've finished the first week of the season I now have the option of spending ten hours on recruiting. The player can go to his list of recruits and pitch different positives about their college. You make pitches on several different categories like Campus Lifestyle, Coach Prestige, Championship Contenders and others. What different categories you decide to pitch, how good your school is in that category, and how important that category is to the recruit are all factors when a recruit chooses what school to go to.

For example, one of my recruits I pitch campus lifestlye and the recruit tells me that category is the least important. I try again with Coach Prestige and the recruit says it is most important. I decide to use a hard sell on Coach Prestige and my recruit seems satisified. Another recruit that I'm talking to tells me that Campus Lifestyle is unimportant to him. So just out of curiousity I do a hard sell on Campus Lifestyle and the recruit hung up on me.

45:00 I'd love to play around with Dynasty Mode some more but there are other things to get to. NCAA Football also has a mode where you are one individual player trying to make it. The previous version of this mode was horrible. All you had to do was go to a practice do a few plays and if you were successful the a top school would offer you a contract, you would be the starter and then you'd play every game just like any other game. This time NCAA Football improved it.

If you decide you want to be a quarterback then your newly created quarterback will start as a high school football player in the state championship his senior year. How well you do during the state championships will decide if you get offers from schools. The thing that is really great about this mode though, is that you only play as the quarterback and you only play your plays. For example, the kickoff at the beginning of the game you either sim or you watch it, you don't get to participate because the quarterback isn't in the game during a kickoff. When you do get into the game you control only the quarterback. If there is a running play then the quarterback hands off the ball and that's it. The computer then controls the running back.

After you've finished your high school career you'll get offers from schools to come to their school. I did get an offer from all ten of the top ten schools on my very first try but not as the starter. Some of them were only offering me the third or even fourth string job. So if you want to start immediately you have to go to a lower ranked school. You can go to a top school and try and earn the starting job by doing well in practice though. This is a great improvement on this mode.

51:00 I still have two modes to go so I didn't get to spend a lot of time on any one mode yet. The first is Tug of War. Tug of War is easy it's just like the tug of war we all know. When you start Tug of War there is a football field at the bottom of the screen with the "flag" at the fifty yard line. Each team takes turns running a play and the flag moves depending on how many yards you go with the winner being the one who gets to the end zone first. So if the first player gets a 10 yard pass the flag moves to one 40 yard line. Then the second player runs a play and if they get 20 yards then the flag moves to the opposite 40 yard line and so on.

55:00 The final mode is a Bowling mode. The players, whether it is one or two, start at the ten yard line. The player runs a play and how ever many yards they get goes to their bowling score. Of course there are only two bowls in a frame, not four, so you have two downs to try and score. If you score on one down you get a strike, two downs gets you a spare and if you don't score a touchdown then your score is how many yards you got.

Almost every year NCAA Football is my favorite game and every year I tell myself there is no way they can improve on it even more and they still do. In fact, this version of the game is probably the most improved since the dynasty mode was first implemented. In this version of NCAA they added saving highlights, simulating part of the game, an improved recruiting system, a legend mode that is actually good and both the Tug of War and Bowling modes are a lot of fun. This is definitely a must buy for any college football fan, even if you have a previous version of this game.