The new EA Sports college football video game is less than two months from release, and a group that included On3’s Andy Staples was given the chance to play the game early and share what they learned.
And just in the basic gameplay, Staples noticed an array of differences. From how a user inputs to have their quarterback throw to the computer mechanics at play with line play, Staples ran down a number of big things to note in the gameplay of the new college football video game. He also ran down features in Road to Glory and Dynasty mode.
One thing, though, was clear to Staples after playing: This is not just Madden — another EA title — reskinned for college football.
“Does not feel like Madden when you’re playing, and here’s why,” Staples said, “one thing the designers said, and I think this is an important distinction to make, and it’s really an important distinction between actual college football and the NFL: The difference between the best and worst player in a college football game is so much bigger than the best and worst player in an NFL game. So you notice in Madden, the matchups are usually pretty even, even when you have a superstar player, that person can’t really dominate the person they’re playing against. In college football, you absolutely can have domination in a matchup. And it will test you.”
One of the biggest changes is to the playbooks, which Staples said are far more diverse than in past games, and reflective of the play style and preferred personnel of various teams. These playbooks being more diversified will also likely aid players in maximizing new elements of the gameplay itself, something EA apparently made a point of with this game.
And the game mechanics themselves have evolved greatly since the last NCAA football video game, which was released more than a decade ago. Staples started by noting that the way a user impact how hard a quarterback throws, and if the throw is layered, has leveled up.
In previous iterations, throw velocity and loft was determined by how hard a user pressed the button, but that’s not been replaced with a power meter, similar to the shot bar in the 2K NBA games.
“And you kind of need to layer the passing game a little bit, especially as the difficultly level of the game goes up or if you’re playing a team that is, in terms of rating, much better than your team,” Staples said. “You need to be able to throw with some touch to go over the top of the defense or, if you have a guy who’s wide open, you need to be able to laser beam it in there. Now, instead of just saying ‘I’m going to press this button hard to throw the laser beam,’ you can see exactly how hard you’re going to throw it, because that meter’s there for you. And obviously the meter changes based on your quarterback’s attributes.”
There’s also improvements to the running game, Staples said, which might stem from EA changing how CPU trench defenders and blockers interface with one another. In past versions, Staples explained, the lines interacted in blocks of players, meaning, for example, the right side of an offensive line was a singular unit of code, going against the left side of a defensive front, as a singular unit of code.
Now, it’s far more individualized, which makes not only the running game better — Staples professed that it’s evolved to the point that the pass-happy nature of football video games could be challenged — but also impacts another new addition: Changing protections.
Now players can set their line to do half or full slides or max protect if they suspect a blitz is coming.
“If you’ve actually played football, that was a piece that was missing from this game. It’s no longer missing,” Staples said.
And when the plays begin, the new line mechanics lead to a smoother experience.
“It makes it much easier to figure out, ‘OK I’ve got to cut here, I need to juke here. I need to try to spin here.’ It really makes that easier. And, I will say, the tackling in this game requires a lot more effort from the player than the old game did,” Staples said.
He also raved about the new option mechanics, including a change to the read option where the handoff is now the default choice and a user has to input to make their quarterback take the ball. It used to be the other way around.
“I felt like I had more control over that. They’ve also change the pitch on the option where, based on the depth of your button press, you can pitch softer, pitch harder and obviously the harder you pitch it, the more chances of maybe something bad happening,” Staples said.
And of course, there’s the vaunted homefield advantage in college sports that just doesn’t exist in the pros. Staples explained that EA did not underplay such an element.
“When you check to see what those matchups look, your route lines are going to be all squiggly,” Staples said. “And in fact some of the times you’re going to have a question mark over different guys where it’s not even going to tell you what button that person is. Now, if you have a good memory, you’ll know what button that person is supposed to be. But you get in the heat of the moment, you might forget, and that’s the point. They want you to feel the pressure that an opposing quarterback would feel when they are playing in those stadiums. They want you to be distracted. But also, even when you call audibles in those stadiums, there are going to be times when certain players don’t hear it and run the wrong play, like they do in real life. So you need to be ready for that.”
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