When Will They Learn

NCAA 10 comes out tomorrow -- usually it comes out towards the end of August, they must be getting better at tweaking the previous year's version -- and two things come to mind: why won't EA fix some of the glaring things that don't make it feel like a college football game, and why isn't there any competition for a college football game?

My biggest pet peeve for the NCAA games is the sounds of a college football game that they put into...the game. Crowd noise has always sounded pretty good and realistic, but not until the last few years have they added particular crowd chants, but they sound terrible...like a slow-motion cheer. I played the demo of '10 just yesterday, and in the Florida-Oklahoma game, the crowd cheered, "Boooomer Soooooner," only it sounded like it was being played on a cassette player. This is pretty inexcusable considering EA has been making/updating this game since 2001 (When Charles Woodson was on the cover), and doing it on next-gen consoles since 2006. And the other glaring error that I have considered writing many-a letter to EA about, is how the fight songs sound. They are cheap, slow, emotion-less recordings pulled off of a computer, and they sound like crap. "The Victors" sounds particularly bad because it's nowhere near as
fast as it actually is, and it feels like listening to a MIDI recording on a Nintendo or something. For the last several editions, they've even reused most of the commentary, so I've come to be able to predict exactly what Nessler, Corso and Herbie say on particular plays.

The solution is easy: one or two other companies need to get into the college football game business. 2K Sports makes everything else, why can't they make college games? EA has such a monopoly on the NFL and NCAA that they stifle anyone else from trying to compete.

The question becomes: Will the Forcier be with NCAA '10? I think not.

I won't be buying another edition of NCAA Football until EA gives half a crap to make it representative of the college football experience.