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 Its been a busy news week for football sims. Earlier this week, we saw the scans of the Game Informer issue with All Pro Football 2K8 news, then EA dropped down the Madden release date by about two weeks to match the potential release date for APF2K8 (From Aug 28th to Aug 14th- if EB/Gamespot can be trusted..) .and now we see that EA is dropping some good info on the NCAA 2008 next gen product.
Here's the IGN preview Here's the Gamespot preview Among the nuggets contained in the news:
IGN's preview specifically mentions gang tackling. Okay...lets say that one more time- GANG TACKLING APPEARS TO BE IN NCAA 2008. It also claims that NCAA runs at 60fps..a solid improvement from last year's NCAA and Madden that clocked in at around 30fps. Both IGN and Gamespot are reporting about a new motivational system in NCAA 08 as well, where even non-impact players have a chance to become hot in the game. (That's some welcomed news since too many people rely too much on impact players with the old system.) There's also an improved replay system that lets you save replays from a game and share them with your friends. Campus Legend now starts in high-school, where you play to get noticed by college programs. There's also a new feature called "Super Sim" within Campus Legend so that you can sim either your teams offense or defense, and the game jumps back to real time for your Campus Legend player's side of the ball (be he offense or defense). The game also makes use of real-time weather via online data streaming from the Weather Channel. Yes, EA has a deal with the Weather Channel to provide real-time weather at any stadium in the country if you'd like to have super-accurate real time dynamic weather. But- remember- all of this news is preliminary. They have much more to tell. But I've saved the best of the preliminary news for last. Here's a snippet from the IGN preview:
"While we didn't get our hands on NCAA, the new football engine that EA Tiburon is using for both football titles on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is just plain rad. Gone are the days of running out of bounds because you're stuck in some animation. The focus on the field is dynamic gameplay, and thanks to a new branching animation system, your quarterback can sprint left on the option, get gang-tackled, pitch the ball to a halfback before falling down, who then sprints to the sideline to outrun a defensive end before cutting straight upfield, hurdling into the air before being spun around by a mean-spirited free-safety that doesn't like guys hurdling on his football field. The ball is knocked out, a senior stud cornerback picks it up, spins an O-lineman out of his shoes and takes it to the house..." (end quote)
 Dynamic gameplay? Not getting stuck in some long animation cycle? I'm there. For too long I've had DBs in perfect position with both Madden and NCAA where they get stuck in a long INT animation- yet miss the ball...and the WR they were covering already has the ball and has turned up field, while my DB is still acting like he might have the ball in his hands..and he even would slow down. Won't miss that!!! This is good news.And, lastly, Gamespot's Brian Ekberg has a blog post in Gamespot's sports section about the football news. Brian has always been a 2K guy when it comes to football, IMHO- and has been hard on EA's football games on next gen. (I'd say deservedly so..) But..my point, Brian is anything but a EA football fanboy... And look what Brian has to say about what he's seen so far (but can't really report) about Madden 08. (Quote) "As for Madden, well, we're going to have to wait a few more weeks before we can spill the beans. Without giving anything away, though, I'm happy to report that I appreciated the theme and approach of this year's Madden demo--it was proof to me that the team behind the game is most assuredly listening to its knowledgeable and vocal fanbase. I wish I could say more but, trust me, the information is coming." (end quote.)
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