NCAA Football 06 Review

NCAA Football 06 has landed on Xbox which is great news for sports fans (like me) who have been anxious for football season to come around again about two seconds after the last one ended. NCAA 06 does an incredible job of presenting the college game and everything looks, sounds, and plays great. Bottom line, this is a must own game for college football fans.

Much More Than Just "Madden: The College Years"

Something that needs to be said right at the outset is that there is a pretty big difference between college and professional football. All of you haters out there that think this is just Madden with college logos on the helmets are in for a surprise. Basically (and no disrespect intended here), college players are young and inexperienced and even the best of them make mistakes. This means that the college game is much more wide open and faster and high scoring than the NFL could ever hope to be. Defenders will misplay routes which leave receivers wide open, quarterbacks will get nervous and throw horrifically bad passes, and entire defenses will crumble leaving a wide open path to the end zone. It is sloppy football, but that is what makes it so enjoyable. You can score 50+ points and rack up 600 yards of offense in every single game and that is just a whole lot of fun. And you can also play extremely aggressive defense and actually get away with it which keeps things exciting on both sides of the ball. NCAA football just has a completely different pace and feel than the NFL which is just as enjoyable if not more so.

Improvements and Additions

The NCAA Football series has always been very solid in every category, but there are a few new additions to this year’s game that make it the best one yet. The biggest new feature in 06 is the race for the Heisman mode. You take a player right out of high school and then lead the school of your choice through up to four years of football where you try to rack up statistics to try and earn the Heisman trophy. It basically plays like a dynasty mode (also included in this game, of course) without all of the recruiting and other front office type stuff.

The gameplay has been tweaked in a few key ways as well. You can now use the right analog stick to juke and weave through the defense while you are carrying the ball and it also performs swim moves and spins and big hits while you are playing defense. Another great change is that you can now scramble without messing with going in and out of “passing mode” by simply holding the A button to sprint. You can run away from trouble and still make a throw, which is great. Also new in 06 is that the game designates high profile players as “Impact Players” that are given some special boosts and extra tricks that other players don’t have, which is cool.

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