Official Website... NCAA 2006
Your quest for the Heisman Trophy begins with NCAA® Football 06. Create an Impact Player and lead him from high school summer camp all the way to Bowl victories as a collegiate legend. With all-new Breakaway Controls, in-game analysis, and studio commentary, this is college football like you've never seen or heard. Get your acceptance speech ready -- the Heisman Trophy presentation awaits you in NCAA Football 06.
Take Home the Heisman Trophy: Begin your career as a prep star in search of scholarship offers and work your way to becoming one of the nation's top collegiate players. Continue your post-college career in Madden NFL 06 or coach a Division 1-A program.
Year-Round Recruiting: Issue official on-campus visits all season long in Dynasty Mode as you track prospect interest via Rivals.com.
Impact Players: Game-changing performers single-handedly break games wide open with highlight reel moves and special animations.
Breakaway Control: New analog controls allow you to pull off special moves and animations like ankle-snapping jukes and QB sidesteps as you break tackles on the way to the end zone.
Totally Redesigned Graphics: From turf texture to sky color, every detail has been redesigned, including innovative stadium lighting and revolutionary player models.
New Dynamic Analysis: Watch Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso provide new in-studio commentary and analysis on each team's impact players prior to kickoff.
All-New Mini-Games: Hone your skills in four new mini-games: Pass Skeleton, Oklahoma Drill, Option Attack, and Rushing Attack.
----------------------------------- From a vastly increased focus on the Heisman Trophy to new gameplay features and animations, NCAA® Football 06 features a host of improvements, refinements and additions that will take one of the most highly-regarded football games of all time into new territory. In order to learn more about the game, we sat down with Tom Vuong, associate producer of NCAA Football 06, to learn more about what we can expect once we fire up our new season of college football.
EA Sports' NCAA series has been the only college football game in town for a while now. So the recent announcement of the publisher snatching up the NCAA collegiate football license was not exactly surprising, and not nearly as surprising as the news of the company's deal to acquire the NFL license in December of last year. Of course, the NCAA Football series is operating in a different environment from the Madden series, as it is free of direct competition right now and, remarkably, the series has remained stable in terms of quality from year to year. In much the same way Madden NFL 06 will need to make an impression now that it's the only pro game in town, NCAA Football 2006 will need to shine in order to maintain the series' relatively sterling reputation.
The game changes but one thing remains the same: Boise State's uniform and grass is still all jacked up.
We've already seen the game's main new addition in a previous preview, the "race for the Heisman" mode, where you'll take a created player throughout his three- or four-year college career in an attempt to be named the best college football player of the year. Here, we want to give you an overview of the rest of the new features of NCAA Football 2006, which you can expect to see more detail on in the coming days and weeks leading up to both E3 and the game's release later this year. So, without further ado, here's a laundry list of what's new in NCAA Football 2006:
Impact Players
In order to win the Heisman Trophy, you're going to need to be a play maker, which is a deadly combination of speed, power, and precision where you can literally change the course of a game with one big play or carry a team upon your shoulders for the length of a game. In the world of NCAA Football 2006, this type of high-octane powerhouse is known as an "impact player." Impact players in NCAA 2006 will be highlighted on the field and be capable of supreme bouts of skill during select moments in the game. If the game is on the line and it's time to step up and make a play, your impact player will be the man to go to, whether on offense or defense. Though you ideally want your created player to become that impact player, a strong team such as USC or LSU might have impact players across several positions, any of which will be able to step up and make a play at any time. Plus, when these elite athletes really hit their stride and get "in the zone," their abilities will increase into near-gamebreaker status a la NFL Street to help you clear a path on the road to victory. Not every impact player can become a Heisman winner, but even if you don't take home the trophy, you can still become a legend at your school (and improve your Madden NFL 06 draft ranking while you're at it).
A New Look, A New Feel
Let's face it, only a select few college football players even are considered NFL material. Most college ballers are simply above-average athletes who find their way onto a team thanks more to hard work than God-given talent. The player models in NCAA 2006 have been overhauled to reflect the slightly more modest look of most college football players. Sure, you've still got your beef on the lines, but for the most part, the player models will be slightly thinner and slightly less muscular than their pro counterparts, all in keeping with the collegiate air of the game. These player models are bolstered by a host of new animations, numbering somewhere in the 300 to 400 range. Especially welcome are some new juke animations, reflecting an altered control scheme that will let you dodge right, left, or back with the right analog stick. Speed burst is now tied to the X button, which will also allow you to scramble out of the pocket when playing as the quarterback. A subtle change, but one that seems to make the most sense to your thumbs. Of course, this means the X receiver will now be assigned to the triangle button, but we doubt this will disrupt the passing game too much.
For those who love to run the ball as much as the college game demands it, some offensive line-blocking artificial intelligence tweaks have been included to make running both up the middle and outside more effective than ever. For fans of the option, it looks like the EA developers have taken to heart the concerns players had over the option play, as halfbacks will now more closely follow their lead blockers, which, in effect, could make the option play more effective than ever before.
Finally, the broadcast team of Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, and Brad Nessler is still intact, and the new look of studio-style game introductions inch ever closer to that ESPN College Game Day presentation style that fans of college ball love. And yes, love him or hate him, you knew it was coming: The Coach will don a gigantic mascot head when predicting his winner.
Matchups and Dynasties
While the good news is that popular features of the series, such as the matchup stick and create a sign, return in NCAA Football 2006, the series' always-involving dynasty mode will be tweaked as well. Of course, you can expect the game to completely comply with the newly realigned conferences, such as Conference USA and the ACC, but the changes go much deeper than that. EA admitted that some of the flaws in last year's dynasty mode--too many upsets in simulated games and an overly fanatic discipline system that could easily unduly hurt your program--have been addressed. Even better, the recruiting system has received some substantial tweaks, including goodies such as in-season recruiting and an expanded pipeline system.
With pipelines, you'll be building direct feeds into neighboring regions to your home school in order to grab the best talent from those regions. The more you make your presence known in a particular area, and the better your team does, the stronger that pipeline becomes and the better chance you have of stealing away talent from rival teams. Of course, part of stealing talent comes in knowing as much as you can about the athletes you're looking for, and NCAA 2006's improved scouting mechanics will give you accurate ratings based on scouting reports you assign to staff members. Once you've got some target talent, it will be up to you to pitch that potential recruit on any number of motivational aspects: playing time, academics, coaching style, school prestige, program prestige, and so on. The system will keep track of the types of pitches you use on a particular player, so you won't have to worry about unduly repeating yourself (unless you want to). You'll also get more detailed feedback from your potential recruits, which will give you a better idea of how to approach them on the next go-round.
In-season recruiting is the biggest addition to NCAA 2006's dynasty mode and, as the name implies, adds a year-round approach to picking talent for your team. As your season progresses, you can keep an eye on a recruiting board that will list the top players in the nation and their interest level for their top schools. As you might expect, a player's interest level can be manipulated, provided you've got something to offer. That's where an on-campus visit will be ideal. Yes, that's right, you'll be able to schedule on-campus visits for those top recruits you're really going after. If you're smart, you'll schedule the visit on the weekend of a big game. Be careful, though, because if you come away with a big win over a rival, you'll likely have an excited prospect looking for a dotted line to sign on; but tank the rivalry game and all you'll be met with is blank stares and unreturned phone calls. In-season recruiting will often result in soft verbal agreements, but you'll still need to spend points on recruiting those players as the season continues.
NCAA Football 2006 is looking to cover a lot of ground this time around. For those who hate recruiting, the first-person approach of the race for the Heisman mode will be ideal. Those looking for more meat on the dynasty side will likely also be pleased due to some of the noticeable upgrades. We'll have much more on NCAA Football 2006 as we approach the game's release later in the year.
Electronic Arts announced this morning that the 1991 Heisman Trophy winner, Desmond Howard of Michigan, will grace the cover of NCAA Football 2006 this year. No doubt motivated by the game's new Race For The Heisman mode where players can work through their prep and collegiate careers to win college football's most coveted prize, EA is taking it back by honoring one of the more highlighed winners of the past.
"Desmond Howard provided one of the most vivid Heisman moments in college football history and what better way to capture the essence of NCAA Football 06 than by putting his memorable Heisman touchdown pose on the cover of our game," said Todd Sitrin, Vice President, Marketing at EA's Tiburon studio.
"I'm very excited about being chosen to be on the cover of NCAA Football 06," said Desmond Howard. "Winning the Heisman Trophy was one of the greatest moments of my football career and it's cool that EA SPORTS is now giving gamers the chance to experience that for themselves in NCAA Football 06."
NCAA Football 06 is scheduled for release in July for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
Great....changing the X passing button to the Triangle....how long's that going to take getting used to after nearly 15 years of playing with X as the passing button? And making the running game better....the article says the option will probably be more effective than ever. I can see people online now rushing for 500 yards per game.
[img]http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k102/ETWNAPPEL/calgraphic.gif?t=1238543058[/img]
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