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Ncaa 2005
April 19, 2004 - As the seasons wear on, EA's two popular football franchises, NCAA Football and Madden NFL, are starting to look less like fraternal twins and more like distant cousins. NCAA Football 2005, for the Xbox, PS2 and GameCube, is taking another huge step towards differentiating the game of college football from pro football thanks to the inclusion of the new Home Field Advantage feature. If there's any doubt that EA isn't serious about separating the two football simulations, look no further than the fact that Playmaker control on the right analog stick --a huge addition to Madden 2004-- will not be included in NCAA Football 2005. Improvising on the fly isn't as big a part of the college game as the jitters, momentum and crowd noise of playing in a hostile environment so that's exactly where NCAA 2005 is going to hang its helmet.
The home field advantage will lend ratings and composure boosts to the home team depending on the size of the crowd and intensity of the rivalry. The developers at EA Tiburon have ranked the top 25 toughest places to play in college football with Tennessee at the top at the time of this writing. This means when the Vols host Georgia, the house will be packed and especially vocal throughout the game. The size and subsequent intensity of the crowd is limited by the size of the stadium so that 100,000+ screaming Wolverine fans in Ann Arbor will be louder and more disruptive to the visiting Buckeye players than a full house (90,000) at the Rose Bowl even if it's USC versus UCLA. The volume of crown noise matters because you'll hear the extra roar coming out of your speakers and the visiting players on offense won't be able to hear audible and hot route calls when they're on offense. The "hype the crowd" control will now come with an on-screen meter for the home team so you'll see and hear the crowd getting more and more intense as you repeatedly mash the button. When the crowd-o-meter maxes out, the screen will begin to shake and, if you're playing against a buddy, his or her controller will start to vibrate.
If that's not distracting enough for the visiting team while they're offense, the fact that audibles and hot routes simply won't be heard by receivers and backs could be devastating. This comes with a unique set of animations of wideouts walking around the line of scrimmage, leaning in and straining to hear the quarterback as he's barking signals. They'll shrug their shoulders and throw their hands up in frustration as an indication that your audible wasn't heard. This means that receiver will more or less be running a useless route on that particular play. The thought is, you were calling an audible for a reason; you saw something you didn't like from the defense. Now your receiver has no choice but to run the route that you called in the huddle, since he doesn't know what you want him to do now. Former University of Pittsburgh star Larry Fitzgerald told us that normally he would use hand signals to communicate audibles while playing in hostile environments but crowd noise would force them to keep it pretty simple. However, he's a first round pick for good reason.
Utilizing the home field to your advantage is obviously a way to take audibles away from your opponent at any point in a game, but all of this ties into the new match-up stick and composure meters in the game. If a true freshman is starting at quarterback for Florida at Neyland Stadium, he's going to be especially easy to rattle even before the defense starts riling up the Volunteer crowd. Before each snap you can use the match-up right analog stick to show the composure of each player on the field. There are only three settings --composed, medium and shaken-- so you can be sure the freshmen Gator is only going to be medium at best. When you push the match-up stick in different directions to check the position groupings, the composure meter over each player's head is a full, half or empty circle next to a dynamic overall ratings bar. Rattled players actually lose ratings points in categories crucial to their position while confident players will get ratings bonuses. This way you and your opponent will be able to quickly see who's hot and who's not on any play.
The composure meter simply lets you know who's more or less likely to crack on that next play. To cause a player to lose composure on either offense or defense you simply do bad things to them individually. A rattled QB is more likely to throw an incompletion or an interception so when he does, he becomes even more shaken. Consistently throwing to a receiver for big yards will boost his confidence and totally wreck the opposing cornerback's composure as a game goes on. But the system works on a more subtle level as well. Hitting a quarterback or receiver consistently even when they don't have the ball, when done legally, will eventually build up the composure of an individual. The new tipped and loose ball system will keep plays live a lot longer, so there will be even more opportunity to lay some big hits legally.
The visiting team can take the crowd out of games and stay composed by consistently completing passes, making key tackles, converting third downs and scoring touchdowns, obviously. Team captains are being introduced this year to counter the home field advantage. Upperclassmen can call timely timeouts to calm your players down and get them back into the game with a little composure. Kickers can be iced before a potential game winner as well.
Longtime NCAA Football fans who love building their own powerhouse programs will appreciate the fact that your composure management skills from game to game will build up over the course of the season. If you consistently get your team to perform in hostile environments, they'll come into games with more confidence and won't be bothered by the rowdiest of crowds. Again, Fitzgerald told us that this was the level he was on as a sophomore for the Panthers. The great ones stay composed. Sounds like composure will be a key component in building a Heisman Trophy winner in NCAA Football 2005.
The home field advantage and player composure components of NCAA 2005 are likely just the tip of the football in what will be a laundry list of enhancements to the franchise. For example, there will be all new user-controlled celebrations this time around, but when asked if that means in addition to the ones found in last years game or simply new replacements, EA reps would only re-affirm that there will be all new user-controlled celebrations. Because of this, IGN will have much more on NCAA Football 2005 in the coming weeks and months.
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