Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: NCAA Football 2003

Written by John Scalzo on August 27, 2002

Full Review: Maybe next year, Tecmo will show EA how to use breast physics for the cheerleaders.

In college you take a lot of notes for your classes. You can't get way from it, if you want a good grade you have to take page after page of notes. I also ended up taking a lot of notes when it came time to put my thoughts about NCAA Football 2003. It's almost rather fitting that a football game that emulates so much of the college experience was able to make me recreate that part of my college life as well.

Whenever I review a game I always take notes as I'm playing and I think NCAA Football 2003 created more pages of notes than any game before it. As I read over these pages to try and combine them into a cohesive and readable review (like that'll ever happen) I noticed the word "Options" written on a few of the pages. In the college football world, an option can also refer to a play where the quarterback can throw it to almost anyone or run it himself, but that's not the only options NCAA Football 2003 has. There are so many different modes of play that it's almost too big. Flipping through my notes again produces this list of all the options: Exhibition, Season, Rivalry Game, Mascot Game, Create-a-School, Create-a-Player, Campus Challenge, Trophy Case, Favorite Team, and Dynasty Mode.

Exhibition and Season Mode are pretty self explanatory, but the real meat of NCAA Football 2003 is the Dynasty Mode. No lie, the Dynasty Mode can keep even the most hardened Franchise Mode fans glued to their controllers with it's wealth of options (there's that word again). Franchise and Dynasty Modes never used to appeal to me. I just never got that charge out of following a team for years of game time. I'd always prefer to go back and try to win it all with a new team full of scrubs than play as the same team over and over again. Maybe it's because NCAA regulations prevent developers from using actual names (even fake ones) on teams to start, so it feels like a new team each time. Maybe it's the high turnover rate of college football players, so a fresh group of players is at most three seasons away. Or maybe it's because I can play through season after season just simulating games and still have more front office features than I've ever seen. Maybe it was all of these things, but Dynasty Mode is a blast to play.

As the coach in Dynasty Mode, it's up to you to control every small detail a college football program has to offer. You'll be in complete control of creating the schedule, red shirting players, running practices and tryouts, and the all important Team Prestige meter (a six star rating). Team Prestige runs everything in the Dynasty Mode. In fact, on the Coaches Contract screen your main goal from year to year is to maintain the level of prestige the program had when you started. Team Prestige is not some arbitrary number though, it's a complex formula of win, losses, margin of victory, opponent's records, skill shown in televised games, skill shown in rivalry games, and on and on and on. All of these things will affect your prestige which is key to the end of season ritual of recruiting players.

Recruiting can get as involved or as simulated as you want to make it. You can go through the recruiting class of each state (and Canada) and attempt to woo the players of your choice through visits and calls. It's almost deep enough to be a game all in it's own right. After you recruit your new team it's time to cut those players that just aren't good enough through the use of more stats than you'll find in the Game Rankings database. As an added bonus you can export your graduating class to Madden 2003 to see if your stars can cut it in the NFL. The Dynasty Mode doesn't even require you to play games to be great fun. It's deep enough to keep you busy for a long time and a true stat monkey's dream come true.

If Dynasty Mode isn't your thing though there's plenty of other options to keep you busy. The football engine itself is based off of the same code EA uses for Madden and it shows. The feel of the game, while still being unique because it's a college game, is still just like Madden. Right down to that complex, yet familiar, Madden control scheme, everything is in place. The running game has been greatly improved and is the best it's been since Madden 64. Everything feels so much more fluid. The players no longer run like they have weights in their cleats and no longer drop at the slightest contact. But for those hoping for similar improvements in the passing game will be disappointed. Passing in NCAA Football 2003 isn't bad, it's actually quite good, but can't compare to the running game. Previous games in the series can probably give you a good idea what to expect on the defensive side of the ball. It was good but I kept feeling the computer A.I. was trying to cheat me. Too often will the computer run off a string of perfect passes and 10+ yard runs. No college QB is that good and it's insulting for EA to pass this cheating A.I. off as anything else.

If Dynasty Mode isn't your thing NCAA 2003 still has plenty of options to keep you occupied for a long time. Out of all the other modes my favorite has to be the Mascot Game. Here you control an entire team of mascots against another team of mascots. Seeing a team of Orangemen take on the giant Trojan (thankfully not the condom) of USC is a sight to behold. Fun too. Although I'm a little disappointed that EA omitted a few key mascot teams. I wanted to field a whole forest as a team of Stanford Trees and get into fights with the Fightin' Irish. Unfortunately, that's not an option.

Playing as mascots isn't for everyone so EA was sure to include several more modes in NCAA 2003. A great rivalry has a sparked more than a few of the best college football games of recent years. NCAA 2003 captures this with its Rivalry Mode. Instant access to over 30 rivalries and the trophies that go with each one. Win the game, win the trophy. Then by pulling up your fully customizable profile you can see all of the trophies you've won. It's little touches like this and the Campus Challenge (think Madden Cards) that make NCAA 2003 special. In Campus Challenge by performing difficult (and some not so difficult) tasks you are awarded with pennants that add mascot teams, all-time teams, and cheats that can be used during the game. Finally, EA has included Create-a-Player and Create-a-School modes that are so deep and with such an amount of customization they can keep you busy forever. Every tiny detail can be changed and how you want everything to look is literally up to you.

All of these options come alive through NCAA Football's high quality graphics and sound. At this point it's almost worthless spending too long discussing the graphics. The players are lifelike, the movement is realistic, and little details like mud on the uniforms shine through at every possible moment. Only the most insane graphics whores can nitpick over a game of this caliber and frankly I'm tired of hearing how many polygons a game can push. The graphics are beautiful and that's all I have to say.

The game comes up slightly less well off soundwise though. Play by play is provided by Brad Nessler, Lee Corso, and Kirk Herbstreit in game and while it's fairly accurate (much more so than Madden) it's very repetitive. The same phrases are repeated over and over again, it's aggravating and after awhile I start hoping for the P.A. announcer that is used during "non-televised" games in season play. On field sounds come off much better with cheerleaders, crowd noise, and fight songs all combining to make it sound like you're there. One touch I really liked was the inclusion of every college's fight song and a few extras for created schools. You can even customize what fight song plays during the menu screens through your profile.