#61 NCAA Football 2002

Game Info

Publisher: EA Sports

Developer: Tiburon

Platform:  PS2

Genre(s): Sports

Players: 4

ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)

Release Date: July 24, 2001

Intro:

Showing the mascots of the various teams and the cheers of the crowd, NCAA Football 2002 really does capture the excitement and feel of a broadcast college football game.

Getting Going:

While many things are shown in the manual and on-screen, the controls are complicated and numerous.  I didn't realize I had to move my controller over the team I wished to control and so I spent a good 5-10 minutes just watching the teams make plays.  This wasn't bad, but I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing.  Once I finally figured this out, things were more interesting, but, having limited football knowledge, still tough.

Fun:

I admit that by half time, this game had me sucked in.  I was playing as the Wisconsin Badgers and I wanted to win.  I was a little disappointed that I seemed to only have three plays to choose from at any given time, however.  The game boasts team-specific playbooks, but I found myself wondering if the other team wouldn't catch on?  Fortunately, the AI didn't seem that specific.

Visuals:

I saw in a review that someone mentioned that EA still couldn't get the player's eyes right and it was creepy.  I was watching for this and I didn't notice that at all.  Bucky Badger was perfect.  The animations for tackles and play were somewhat realistic.  It's a 2002 game so I didn't expect the graphics our next-gen consoles are currently offering.  The uniforms, the movements, the close-ups of the players on the field, all add to the experience in a positive way.  There were a few glitches.  I saw a referee walk right through a player.  Not cool.

Sound:

This game receives constant commentary from Brad Nessler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit.  I'm not going to pretend that I know who any of those players are, but the commentary is appropriate to a broadcast game and it sounded natural.  My only complaint is that, in one game, I heard some of the same comments two or three times.  But, we're human, so that could happen anyway. 

Intelligence:
As stated in "Fun", I noted that, for most areas of the game, I only had a choice of three plays.  I thought the other team would catch on, but they didn't.  On the other hand, the game does an excellent job of defense and offense in the AI and it felt like real play.  I also noted that the announcers stated both at the beginning of the game and at the end that I, as the Badgers, was playing a team far above my level.  It felt like, if I had played a team closer to my rank, I might have had an easier time in the game, but it also made the game feel more realistic to me.

Immersion:
Again, I have a very tight view of immersive play.  I was into the game.  I was drawn in.  I wanted to win.  I was thinking.  The world around me didn't fall away, but, I played football on a Sunday and, for this type of game, that was immersive enough.

Cameras: 
I felt kind of lost with the camera angles, as if I didn't have much control.  I was playing in Easy Play, since sports games aren't my forte, and there was often an arrow on the screen in one of the corners, while the player I was trying to tackle was elsewhere.  I was never really sure what that arrow was for.  I tried to move in the direction of it, which kind of worked for tackles, but ultimately, the arrow confused me.

Controls:
In a word, complicated.  There are so many of them and the game is much too fast to figure out which control to use on the fly.  While it doesn't feel like a twitch game, during a run, it plays like one.

Ideas:
This game will get traded simply because it's not my type of game.  But, I learned a thing or two from playing it.  For instance, I learned that decision-making, when done frequently, should offer varied options.  People are excited about familiar voice-acting and familiar icons.  That is something I'll take into game design.  I noted that in myself in Fallout 3--I wanted to play because I wanted to walk through a devastated Washington DC.  If nothing else, I will try to use familiar icons in my environments.

Memory: 
I didn't win.  The Badgers lost 12-20 against the Oklahoma Sooners in Norman, OK.  I was vested in the game.  It felt as if I lost.  It felt like I was part of the team in some way.  There are a lot more features in this game than I explored.  It offers, for instance, the opportunity to name your players and have the announcers announce them by name instead of "number 22".  However, I figured in 2009, that I'd have to go back and find that roster because they certainly wouldn't know the new names.  That would be really cool, but time-consuming.  It offers blue chips and recruiting in Dynasty Mode.  I'd have to educate myself in a big way to get into that, and I wasn't interested.  But, it's a nice feature.