2019/12/1: Playstation: NCAA Football 2000, NCAA Football 2001

[VideoGameCritic]

Posted a pair of old college football game reviews for your reading pleasure.
Better late than never!

[jon]

I played 99 and 01 a lot. They are much much simpler than modern football games. They have all the stadiums and I believe every fight song too. NCAA ‘99 imo is the best of them all. That was back in ‘98 and I got excited playing with features like stadiums, real players by number. I think 99’ is probably better

[BlasteroidAli]

I used to like play Gridiron. Recently it is like you need a degree in sports management to be able to play the game. I am a New York Jets fan so the only way I am going to get to see them win the super bowl is by doing it on playstation.

So it is interesting that you played these two games. I vaguely remember them.

[Matchstick]

I always like seeing reviews of older sports games, and I do have a soft spot for the 32-bit titles, as that transition from 2D to 3D was slow and awkward. Once EA, 989, and the like figured out what worked, though, there was no going back, and the big, boxy 3D graphics were here to stay. Still, it was a fun time to be a sports gamer, as it felt like each company handled "the transition" in different ways, with varying degrees of success.

Can't say I'm the biggest fan of college football, though. If I want to watch a bunch of teenagers and twenty-somethings giving themselves concussions on a Saturday afternoon, I'll just head down to the skatepark! I'm fine with pro ball, through. At least at that point it's grown-ass men giving themselves brain damage.

(And, yes, full disclosure, I am someone who played both football and hockey in my youth and high school years. My comments are firmly tongue-in-cheek, though I'm not lying when I say that, in my older years, I wish I hadn't spent so much of my youth getting my bell rung playing contact sports and skateboarding. Oh, well, live and learn.)

Anyway, looking at the current PS1 NCAA football reviews, I do feel like I would gravitate towards the sprite-based gameplay of '98 more than the others. I had a blast with GameDay and GameBreaker back in the day but somehow skipped right over EA's series. I also played Madden '97 and '98, and have fond memories of those, as well.

An interesting game from that transition period was Madden 64. No NFL or NFLPA license (just like the old days!) so the teams had names like "New Jersey" and "Foxborough." And man, that D.Marino guy sure could sling it! The game was essentially the 32-bit Madden '98 without the NFL licenses but with new 3D graphics, and I feel like the game was a bit of a tester for the technology before EA went all-in with their '99 series of games.

Otherwise, it has the same killer menu music from Madden '98, along with the Summerall and Madden commentary and goofy crowd noise and chants. Games are quick with no loading times (though there's no pre-game, halftime, or post-game show) and there's still plenty of spritework, like players on the sidelines and the refs who bring out the chains to measure first downs. My favorite feature of the game is how the stadiums are represented, as they all have their full, proper name (Soldier Field! Pro Player Stadium! Mile High!) and exhibition / early-season games still have the baseball diamond on the field in places like Miami and San Diego. Lighting and weather effects look nice, too, and I love playing snowy games in Chicago and Green Bay.

The series fully "went pro" with '99 and onward, but that 64 version is such a strange middle child of a game. I never cared for any Madden game past that point, though I still hold onto the early Genesis titles and early 32-bit versions. Recommended to anyone who's never played it and is just a mite bit curious about football videogames from the era. Not like it'll cost all that much, as it's pretty much a permanent feature of any N64 bargain bin these days.