The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

NCAA 2006: The Deal Breaker

I promise that this will be my last NCAA rant. Really, I mean it. We've hashed out the good and the bad of this game for quite a while. While Todd still plays the game in order to draw his own conclusions, today marked the last time I ever play NCAA 2006 against the AI. Ever. I really do enjoy the game as a 2 player game but you tell me -- how acceptable is this? At what point am I allowed to say that this game is fundamentally friggin' broken?

I'm wrapping up year 3 in my Akron dynasty. We're 8-2 going into the rivalry game @ Kent State. After this, I doubt I even play the Bowl game. My gripe about this particular game has nothing to do with drops, even though KSU dropped 11 passes and Akron dropped ten. Bitching about the same old stuff, I mean why bother? Despite the drops, KSU threw for 433 yards and I threw for 234. It was an offensive explosion of a game. I ran a punt back for a TD. My HB had 145 yards on the ground. As crazy as the drops were, it was an undeniably fun game. Until...

I have the ball with :55 secs left; 4th and 6 at the KSU 20. Score is 45-42 Akron. I decide to kick the FG to make KSU score a TD even though the QB has 5 TD passes. I nail it. 48-42 Akron with about :53 secs to play.

A good KR sets the ball up at the 30. I go Prevent/Dime and the KSU offense throws some short passes of 10 and 8 yards. Tick..tick..tick.. (they have 1 time out, I might add.) Then they hand the ball off on a direct snap to the HB for a nice 8 yard gain. They are now past mid field but they burn their last time out. Coming out of the time out, Kent State runs the ball on three consecutive plays while running the hurry up offense.

What. The. Hell.

In fact, they run the ball on the last play of the game but Akron was called offside (I jumped the snap with my LB). They get one more shot at the end zone and I sack the QB. Game over. Go team.

You can debate the dropped pass issue, the importance of the QB simmed stats, the deep pass problem and even the over-powered Impact Players. This you cannot defend. This makes the solo game unplayable because the AI is flat out busted. This was a rivalry game! And for it to end like this is just unforgiveable. You know what the kicker is? KSU ran the ball maybe ten times the whole game. The QB had like 40 attempts, but then they run the clock out down six with under a minute to play.

Even with all of my griping I was still playing the game, trying to get as much fun out of it until the release of Madden. Well, it's now being demoted to a once per week game when my buddy comes over and we play in a MP dynasty. Nothing is more infuriating than late game AI that is as smart as Paris Hilton.

What sucks about all of this is that I have always been a huge fan of this series up until the 2005 version. Like most people who play NCAA, the game has provided some amazing gaming moments over the years. I think I played 12 full seasons of NCAA 2004 using Ohio State and then SMU, and even more with 2002 and 2003 with a group of friends in a MP dynasty (which is stil the most fun I have ever had with a sports game that wasn't called High Heat Baseball.) Playing as UTEP and TCU, competing against my friends during recruiting, etc. It was a weekly ritual at Casa de Abner.

I take absolutely NO joy in ripping this game. I hate the fact that it's broken. But it is.

And there's just no other way to say it.