For NCAA Football 13, EA Sports and Tiburon have made many welcome enhancements and other much needed changes. Quarterback play is now more realistic than ever before thanks to the 20 new quarterback dropback animations, 8 new moves in the pocket and 25 new passing trajectories. What all of these features add up to is a realistic game where you must use your vision to read coverages as well as being aware of how to move in the pocket to avoid the defensive pass rush. You’ll also notice a number of other important offensive enhancements including the ability to abort play action after the snap, use a shovel pass, call new hot routes and more. The receiving game has also been overhauled with over 430 new catch animations to help ensure no play looks exactly the same. If that wasn’t cool enough, NCAA Football 13 takes realism one step further by adding the necessity to see the ball to make a play on it for both offense and defense. These vital enhancements do come with a fairly large learning curve even for NCAA Football veterans, but once you’ve learned how all of the new game mechanics work, you’ll appreciate NCAA Football 13 as the most realistic and entertaining football game ever.
While the team behind the game spent abetter part of the year overhauling gameplay, there are still quite a number of noteworthy changes in returning game modes. Classic favorites such as Play Now and Mascot games return. Dynasty mode returns with some new enhancements that allow you to better scout your prospects and streamline the whole process when needed, and online dynasties are still an option for those who wish to share their custom conferences with other players around the world. Road to Glory also returns with more tweaks and improvements making your run up the college ranks and into the pros that much more exciting as you complete special challenges to move up the depth charts and increase the ratings of your customized college football star.
Of course, the most talked about new feature in NCAA Football 13 will be the all new Heisman Challenge game mode. The new mode allows you to take nearly any former Heisman Trophy winner in recent years and play through a single year of football, as you relive their best season of their college career. As you complete certain tasks, you’ll unlock additional players to use in the mode and videos of the player you’re currently using to get a better idea of what winning the Heisman is all about. One of the best features of the mode is the ability to place these former Heisman winners on your team of choice. Maybe you’re a fan of Tim Tebow but not of the Florida Gators, so this mode will allow you to place Tebow on any team including rivals such as the Georgia Bulldogs. Heisman Challenge is a great game mode especially if you were already a fan of playing as one player in Road to Glory mode, and you can now get the same sort of solo gameplay with an established college football legend.
NCAA Football 13 once again looks great in its newest release. Different game modes have different presentations such as the ESPN sports ticker, studio updates and interviews from sideline reporter Erin Andrews in Dynasty Mode or the Reaction time feature that slows down plays to allow your stars to break big plays more easily in Road to Glory and Heisman Challenge. The game’s graphics look great across all modes, but sometimes, the game’s attention to details fails, and you’ll notice a sideline character or crowd member bug out, online games may lag up for a second, Kirk and Brad may repeat the same lines or stress an inaccurate statement and other minor problems. Still, it’s easy to look past these minor flaws when the game’s presentation is so near perfectly executed.
It’s another year and EA Sports has delivered yet another wonderful college football title with NCAA Football 13. The game’s almost flawless execution carries over numerous features from last year’s model while adding many new enhancements and a new game mode to keep gameplay refreshing and entertaining. You won’t find a better college football game around, and that statement would hold true even if they were other titles to compare the game too. We’ll have to wait another month to see, but Madden NFL 13 could be in serious trouble of losing the title of best football game around, because NCAA Football 13 is one spectacular game.
NCAA Football 13 is now available for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and can be purchased for the MSRP of $59.99. NCAA Football 13 is rated E by the ESRB. For more information on the game, check out the official NCAA Football 13 website.
Game Features:
Game Details:
Developer: Tiburon
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Sports
Rating: E for Everyone
Platform: Xbox 360 (reviewed) and PlayStation 3
Release Date: July 10, 2012
Score: 9.5 out of 10
