I Received NCAA football in the mail today (what U.P.S. strike?) and have
played a couple of games in Dynasty mode. Here are some quick opinions
on what I have seen so far:

-There is no "flip" play command. I have confirmed this with EA. However, 
many plays do have opposites in the formations. Still, a little disappointing
as this cuts down on the number of plays. However, this can be remedied
by selecting "Global Playbook" which gives you tons of formations and
plays. Otherwise, you use a team playbook, with plays typical to the type a
particular team runs.

-The "skating" many (including me) complained of in Madden is all but
gone. Player control is much more responsive and direct. You still cannot
"speed burst" and turn at the same time, but this is sorta realistic, so no big
deal. There does NOT appear to be a speed-burst button for defenders,
which I find a bit disapponting. There are lefty QB's in the game, a nice 
and realistic touch.

-The running game is MUCH improved over Madden 97. There are holes that
open nicely and plenty of moves with your back, including stiff arms (either
side), spins, dives and hurdles.
Also, if a RB or WR gets in the open field, they are more than likely NOT
going to be caught, especially by a defensive lineman or linebacker. The 
speeds seem appropriate.

-Passing is also improved over Madden 97. DB's do not always stick to
receivers like glue, as if they know the route being run. I have not
noticed if holding down the button results in bullet passes or if tapping will
lob the ball. I have had receivers covered like a blanket and they still 
caught the ball. Time will tell if this is done in an unrealistic manner.

 One nice touch is the QB fades back sideways (like most in real-life)
instead of backpedaling. Little touches like these add up. Most importantly, 
the QB DOES lead the receiver; much better than in Madden 97. This is a 
HUGE improvement and essential to realistic gameplay. It is not quite up 
to par with GameDay 97 IMO, but is very well done; without it the game 
would be a failure.

-The stadiums are very well done, some even downright beautiful. They
appear to be pretty much accurate. Kudos to EA on what must have been 
a ton of work.
One problem; the stadiums with turf are mush easier to play on (and
really look nicer) than the grass stadiums. The texture of the grass makes 
it difficult to pick up the ball in flight, as least for me. I prefer the look
of the turf fields.

-The sound is pretty nice, the crowd reacts well and ths hitting, while
nothing special, can sound vicious. Fight songs are a bit of a
disappointment, nowhere near as well done as in NCAA GameBreaker. 
They only seem to play afterscores and at the half, and are cut short 
during the game. The halftime version of "Hail to the Victors" only 
contained the first two verses and then ended (no words, of course, 
which is fine). But they don't sound as "meaty" as they did in 
NCAA GameBreaker. There is no play-by-play, but an announcer tells 
you the results of each play. he does a nice job and it adds to the 
overall effect. He seems kinda overexcited after a made PAT...
 A create player option is included, but I have yet to mess with it.

-Penalties are well done. They don't seem overexcessive in the least and
they can be toggled on and off. Also, injuries, fatigue, auto-substitutions
and even the point at which substitutions are made can be toggled.
As usual, EA does not disappoint in the features and stats area. There
are plenty of stats, an EA top 25 and an Awards Race, Bowl Watch, and 
injury update screens. Rival mode is nice, automatically selecting a teams' 
biggest rival. Also appreciated is a random team select button.

-Kicking is very well done; the meter (on Varsity level anyway) is not
ultra-fast like NCAA GameBreaker and the kicks have plenty of distance,
loft and hangtime, a big problem in GameBreaker.

-The game let's you save highlights, but each one takes up 6 blocks of
storage on your memory card! With Dynasty mode itself taking up 13 or
so, you can't store one highlight on your Dynasty mode card. So saving
highlights is a nice, if somewhat implausable, option.

-In my first game (Dynasty mode, Varsity level; hell, I figure why not
just give right in!), my Wolverines played #6 Colorado at home. It rained
during the game (including very nice sound effects of water dripping). The
field was muddy, but I don't recall the players getting muddy as well. 
Anyway, I jumped in front with a long drive and by the 4th Qtr. I was up 
21-7. A Colorado TD, a safety and another Buffalo score put me behind 
24-21 with 1:27 to play. I drove to midfield, mainly using flare passes to 
my RB's (screen passes are VERY well-done). The CPU caught on and 
started shutting me down. With :44 left, I found my freshman wideout open 
on the sideline and hit him for a 46 yard TD. I started celebrating. 
However, Colorado quickly completed 4 passes, calling timeouts and 
got to my 17 yard line with 12 seconds left. I feared the worst,
but two passes fell incomplete and I hung on for the upset. A real
thriller to say the least. After the game, I noticed my 84 yard TD pass was 
not listed in the record book. The longest pass was a 75 yarder by the 
CPU. Maybe I needed to enter a user name in there to get the records to save...

-Hitting the START button to bring up the game menus is tedious to say
the least; it takes at least 5 seconds for the menu to appear. The load
times are quite longish overall, but certainly bearable.

All in all I am very, very pleased. I really disliked last year's Madden
'97 for a variety of gameplay reasons. This game addresses nearly all of
them and adds lots of great features. This game will get hours and hours 
of use in the upcoming months.

Now back to my season; the Fighting Irish are gonna get a taste of
Wolverine smash-mouth football!

[The next day...]

As I mentioned earlier, i found a problem where the CPU will not
use timeouts at the end of the 1st half, no matter how close they
are to scoring. This still exists. They DO use timeouts at the
end of the game, but the halftime thing is pretty poor.

Anyway, the AI is apparently pretty good as far as when to try
2-point conversions is concerned. The CPU trailed 23-7 with just
over 8 minutes left to play. They scored a TD to make it 23-13.
Then, as I hoped, they went for 2. If successful, this would have
put them just one score (another TD and 2-point conversion)
from trying the game. This is pretty impressive stuff. I believe
all of last year's batch of games would have kicked an XP, thereby
leaving themselves 2 scores behind.

So while the AI certainly lacks in some areas, it is pretty well-
done in others.

And once again, I gotta say I just can't get over these stadiums.
What a fantastic job EA did here. Can you imagine the amount of work
that went into recreating all these stadiums?

-- 

 Jim S.       

Owner/G.M. - Amity White Sharks 
Weaver League International Baseball Association
http://www.linkeasy.net/silicus/weaver/whq.htm

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