NCAA Football '14 is still enjoyable on the field, but conjures a strong "been there, done that" feeling.
The Good
- Enjoyable head-to-head competition
- Well-implemented tutorial.
The Bad
- Unnecessary experience system
- Recruiting process lacks personality
- Few significant changes since last season.
The on-field action should be very familiar for those who have played recent entries in the franchise. Receivers still have a better chance of getting open if they run across the field rather than take off on a deep route, linemen still mush together at the point of attack, and cornerbacks are cursed with brick hands. Still, slight tweaks to the physics system mean that hits carry the weight you would expect from 300-pound athletes, and the option offense has finer control than before. Reading the defensive end's movement as your quarterback runs laterally works well, and it's satisfying to pitch the ball to your fullback just before you get laid out. When you're immersed in a high-stakes game, it's easy to forget that you've seen this all before and enjoy the violent chess match that's unfolding.
Off the field, NCAA Football '14 has followed the trend that is seemingly creeping into every game genre. The game has role-playing elements. Your coach now earns experience points for your accomplishments. Registering a sack or forcing a turnover fills up a progress bar, and once you reach a new level, you unlock special powers on a skill tree. So no longer do you have to be content with merely adding points to the scoreboard when you get into the end zone; you earn progress in the expansive metagame as well. Although this new addition does reward you for playing well, it feels like a desperate attempt to add something novel to a tired franchise. The skills system is added busywork that urges you to spend more time navigating menus than delivering wicked hits on the field.
Recruiting has also seen a revamp, although instead of adding something new, it takes away what was previously there. The minutiae that defined the recruiting process have been completely stripped away. No longer do you decide how much time you want to spend with each recruit, delegating assistant coaches to seek out lower-priority candidates while you, as the head coach, meet with only five-star prospects. Instead, there's just a pool of points that you dole out. Gone too is the interviewing minigame. Before, you would learn the priorities of each high school star and try to appeal to his particular ambitions. This system had a number of flaws, but it was still fun to learn who each player was on a personal level. Now, players are just raw stats, and it's not as engaging to build a dynasty without that human element.
NCAA Football '14 does make a strong attempt at introducing the complexities of the college game to those who are not intimately familiar with it. Nike Skills Trainer walks you through the major scenarios you face during a game, and the time spent on the practice field pays off once you take to the field on game day. Learning how to use your blockers or when to throw a fade versus a bullet is important knowledge, as is coming to grips with the sometimes overbearing audible system. Considering how complicated the core action has become, Nike Skills Trainer is a solid addition that provides a much smoother learning curve than previous games in the series.
Read the rest of this post-----> GameSpot
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