NCAA Football 12 Demo - Share Your Impressions

[Escobar]

Finally got to play my first demo game on All-American. Oregon(me) 28 - UT 0
I think I had an advantage tho, because on NCAA '11 I basically tried to recreate Oregon's real life offense using Tulsa's playbook and pretty much had it down. The fixing of zone coverage made my offense alot better because I use the 4 WR Trio and Trio Str formations alot, so it's easy to read man or zone pre-snap. Against zone coverages, I'm pretty sure it was Cover 2 it seemed like I called the right play every time hitting #7 in the middle just after he cleared the MLB. Also on defense I liked to use zone alot last year, and kind of had a way to fix the broken drops. So this year I'm glad to see it actually works, but I just didn't like how my MLB would drop deep 10 yards even tho I was playing Tight Zone Coverage. It may have something to do with his ZCV rating tho, because he was the only player I had a problem with. I called Cover 4 when UT tried to make a run in the 3rd and the SS played perfect coverage on the slot receiver and picked the ball off in the endzone. It looked like I was Usering him myself. On offense thanks to the suctionless tackles the holes really opened up on the inside runs from 4 WR sets. The new HB Off Tackle play out of 4WR Trio STR worked beautifully the first time I ran it. I cut inside of the G, because UT overloaded the outside and I got 12 yards before being tackled by the safety. All I can say is I think my offense will be even deadlier this year.

Now I will play with 'Bama to see how I do with an offense I'm not familiar with. Then I will play with Oregon again on Heisman. I can't stand UT so I will never play with them

[Iron Dragon]

Now that I've got some peace and quiet, I'm installing this right now and ready to play it.

[Rudy]

NCAA 12 Demo Impressions

It’s awful hard to get good impressions on a football game with only 2 minute quarters as it hurts your ability to run many plays and you tend to play hurry up and pass more than usual. What really hurts though is the inability to access the sliders. I’d love to see sliders available in next year’s demo. The game does not fit my skill set on either AA (cpu offence is really weak) or Heisman default and so my fun factor isn’t as high as it could be. Overall it’s a pretty decent demo where I don’t see a huge difference over NCAA 11. It looks like it may be a nice improvement but the feel of the game will be similar.

Graphics – these looked good. I saw some jaggies during the pre-game but I don’t really care. The lighting in the night game at Texas looked good. Things were definitely brighter. I did see a goof up in the Bama game in the 4th quarter as a handful of players had a blue tint to them for a few plays. You don’t notice the new 3D grass really. Chip Kelly has a visor but is not that fat lol. I know some things are probably due to likeness issues but he can’t be happy with that gut.

Playbooks – I saw some new plays in the playbooks and the 3-4 defensive playbook looked good. I like the predator formation and there are some new LB blitzes in there as well. Nice. The play call screen got a fix as they now let you scroll through three plays at once without having to hold L2. You can cycle through formations nicely but they removed the ability to toggle between calling your own plays (formation) and “ask coach”. You used to be able to hit R3 and toggle back and forth easily but they removed it. Not a big deal but I don’t know why that had to be changed.

Player Movement – Still a real lack of player momentum imo. I’d really like to see more weight to them or an option to let me get something closer to the way PS2 players felt. There may be less momentum than last year. It doesn’t look good on replays and it just doesn’t feel quite right. The speed of the game felt pretty good although a touch fast for me as I was used to Slow speed last year. The new tackle/collision system can definitely be seen and felt but I feel it’s a subtle improvement and not a big change. There are new animations so that’s nice.

Gameplay – Screen plays don’t seem to work well for either me or the cpu. Play action seems to work better. Other than Bama the cpu offences appear to suck on AA. On Heisman the game wasn’t as tough as I thought. One HUGE negative is the number of pancake blocks in the game. It’s freaking ridiculous on Heisman. The game’s blocking system resembles Tecmo Bowl far more than real football. It’s not uncommon to see the cpu OL bowl over every DL on your team. You can also see this with Bama against FSU on AA although not quite as bad. The Bama OL was knocking down my defensive players left and right. It is awful and needs to be fixed big time. I don’t mind my DL getting beat but have the OL hold his block longer and/or push my DL backwards but don’t have them throw my entire line down on the ground like I’m playing a super arcade like football game. Awful.

I didn’t see the ease of returning TDs on kickoffs but I’m not that good. As usual the cpu sucks to return kicks even on Heisman. This area needs a big boost for the cpu as does the cpu offence in general. In 5 games the cpu attempted two fakes near midfield on 4th down. I hope this isn’t overdone. I don’t think I’ve seen as much blitzing by the cpu on 3rd down although the jury is still out.

Zones work a lot better. I tried calling them quite a bit and they worked. They certainly worked against me as my normally weak passing game just got worse. Play action passes give you more time this year which is nice.

Cpu spread – jury is out. This sucked on AA and I couldn’t tell how it would be on Heisman. I hate that cpu running QBs slide in NCAA. I’d rather they removed the slide altogether than see a cpu QB slide on a read-option play which I saw. I can understand sliding after a scramble (and I did see a few of them! – I like!) but not on a read-option play through an open hole as a defender approaches.

Fumbles and drops seemed good on default.

There isn’t enough arc on passes still. A LB lurking 5 yards downfield can still defend 10-15 yards behind him even though you know you should be able to complete that pass over him. The super swat is toned down but it’s still there imo. Overall the passing game seemed fine. I was able to run the ball, even on Heisman when I tried. No real complaints with that other than the horrible pancake blocking that I mentioned earlier.

Presentation – the new pre-game stuff is nice but will add little long term. The new replay system is better and the gameplan stuff is nice. I liked the halftime analysis. The commentary needs an overhaul. I have no problem with Nessler but Herbstreit just doesn’t work well anymore. He’s good in real life because of good analysis of what is going on but we don’t have enough smart and specific commentary. The commentary needs an injection of energy and humour – bring back Corso! I miss him!

Overall – This game will probably be really good with slider adjustments but the pancakes need to be toned down big time or I will be very unhappy. I hope this is a demo thing only. It feels similar to NCAA 11 but the refinements should be nice. I like the improved playbooks and the fact we can actually use zone defences and that alone should make playing defence more fun. The cpu offence on default AA is so weak that I probably will stick to playing on Heisman unless I’m FSU taking on Bama’s super pancaking OL.

[jaymo76]

I need to ask the Q... for all of the people who are getting 20+ points... how? Or more specifically, how do you play the game? I'm on AA and the most points scored thus far is ten. Now I pass/rush 55/45 and do a lot of short passing. I have never understood how people score so much on the demo when you have 8 minutes in total for BOTH teams???

[skipwondah33]

Man the QB's hold onto the ball compared to past years versions. It's refreshing to see when you think of the past as QB's always got the ball off before the pressure.

With that said they should get the ball off sometimes atleast throw it away

[Rudy]

I need to ask the Q... for all of the people who are getting 20+ points... how? Or more specifically, how do you play the game? I'm on AA and the most points scored thus far is ten. Now I pass/rush 55/45 and do a lot of short passing. I have never understood how people score so much on the demo when you have 8 minutes in total for BOTH teams???

Play a few more games. In my second game I beat Oregon 28-0 with Texas on AA and I'm not good on offence. My passing skills need work. Part of that 28-0 comes from getting turnovers or just stuffing the cpu offence.

[AustinWolv]

Just played several more games on Heisman.

'Bama's running game is stellar once it gets going......the RB cuts back a lot and seems to find open holes with ease.

Not seeing the KO ease on 360 on Heisman. I DID return one for a TD but my guy broke a tackle to do it.

Not sure why people are seeing problems with screens. Several of my biggest plays have come on screens. The PA HB screen has set up simply beautiful for me twice already for nice gainers. A HB slip screen also set up great also, as did a WR bubble screen for a short first down. A WR slip screen got eaten up though.

Agree with Rudy that the sliding QB on CPU read option is silly.

[ram29jackson]

To the people that give a damn about it, yes it does. When I go into Ohio Stadium and I see TBDBITL in the right location ... no, it's not the end of the world if it was wrong, but it's a nice nod to the hardcore community when it's right.
You know I'm fine with criticism, but it'd be nice if you didn't outright bash guys making an effort for the community. Just ease up a little. I'm sure they weren't remotely as bad as some people I've heard on the radio (namely myself), nor as bad as your comments make them sound.
There are people who have said, since Day One of next gen NCAA, that it "looks the same as PS2".

I'm sorry but I have to speak up here. I dont see any bashing at all in what I said " try,try,try to sound like you know what you are doing" is a decent critique and more of a plea- "you efing suck and dont know what you are doing" would be bashing.

I realize, thanks to the internet, any average Joe can just throw crap out there but if you are going to talk about a large interest consumer item, you try not to sound like 3 guys half asleep in the kitchen with dead air pauses and "yo, whats up bro" time killers. If you are taking up air/internet space then do your best and give me substance.

for instance , the guys here are succinct and to the point in the last couple things/podcasts I heard. Its not that hard.

thats all, no bashing, and at least it lead me to check out their site haha

and lastly, words on a screen tend to look harder/meaner then if/when you actually speak them and I'm not looking to bash anyone. but I did listen for 15 minutes and feel I have an opinion on what I sat through.
Happy NCAA 12 gaming to all even you bastards who get it early

[Iron Dragon]

Finished my first game.. Oregon 7 (me), Texas 3. Only TD came on a 31 yard QB scramble when the pocket broke down.

Text under players is too spread out.. hopefully the player's last names will look different?
Texas ran a toss play to the RB and the ball went through the RB's hands, fumbled it and fell on it for a 8 yard loss.
I threw a pass that would have been completed on NCAA '11 but the Texas DB adjusted and made an easy pick.
Texas called a fake punt pass and the punter scrambled around and got pummeled.
Texas called a timeout with 16 seconds left... in the third quarter. And they had the ball.
Texas had to go for it on 4th & 16 and Gilbert dumped it off to a WR 13 yards short of the first down in double coverage.

[ram29jackson]

I need to ask the Q... for all of the people who are getting 20+ points... how? Or more specifically, how do you play the game? I'm on AA and the most points scored thus far is ten. Now I pass/rush 55/45 and do a lot of short passing. I have never understood how people score so much on the demo when you have 8 minutes in total for BOTH teams???

yeah, i''m not even worrying about scoring. Just looking at how things work and what they are doing. I'm not even punting because I want to see what happens in as many scrimmage plays as possible

....people say they use varsity because it makes the players play closer to their ratings ?

[joshuahuskers]

I think the CPU is calling timeout late in the third because they are aware there is only 2:something left in the game.

[steelerfan]

You don’t notice the new 3D grass really.

I'm 99% sure this is only in the demo. It probably had to be "dumbed down". I know I could see it during gameplay in my 3 trips to Tiburon.

One HUGE negative is the number of pancake blocks in the game.

I'm also reasonably certain this build is from somewhere between my April and May visits. Some of the problems (such as what you're describing) that were present in April had been alleviated by May. Again, I'll know more tomorrow.

Man the QB's hold onto the ball compared to past years versions.

This was also better tuned in May. More scrambling and throwing as opposed to waiting to get sacked. I cleaned up on the user sacks in April, it was better in May.

[steelerfan]

....people say they use varsity because it makes the players play closer to their ratings ?

No. AA does.

[psusnoop]

Exactly Joshua about the timeouts. While early that is my take on it too.

[ram29jackson]

I'm 99% sure this is only in the demo. It probably had to be "dumbed down". I know I could see it during gameplay in my 3 trips to Tiburon.



I'm also reasonably certain this build is from somewhere between my April and May visits. Some of the problems (such as what you're describing) that were present in April had been alleviated by May. Again, I'll know more tomorrow.



This was also better tuned in May. More scrambling and throwing as opposed to waiting to get sacked. I cleaned up on the user sacks in April, it was better in May.

on heisman- the FSU QB seemed to have no problem running up field on me haha

[steelerfan]

on heisman- the FSU QB seemed to have no problem running up field on me haha

Specifically, I've seen instances of the CPU QB taking entirely too long to make a decision. This was much better in May. I expect it to be better in retail too. We'll see.

[cdj]

On “The Madden Round Table” tonight, Ben stated the build was from late April.

As steelerfan said, some of the stuff in the demo was not prevalent in the May build. I'm anxious to see how it is in retail.

[umhester04]

yeah, i''m not even worrying about scoring. Just looking at how things work and what they are doing. I'm not even punting because I want to see what happens in as many scrimmage plays as possible

....people say they use varsity because it makes the players play closer to their ratings ?

Playmakers over on OS makes some great Varsity sliders. He really has some strong opinions on how Varsity plays better. Definitely worth it to check it out, maybe check out the thread he created last year and read what he has to say.

[ram29jackson]

Playmakers over on OS makes some great Varsity sliders. He really has some strong opinions on how Varsity plays better. Definitely worth it to check it out, maybe check out the thread he created last year and read what he has to say.

dude, its a video game. I dont see doing alot of reading on it, I just copy the settings and see if I like them.

that said, since most leagues are AA, I tend to stick with that unless its completely crappy.

[steelerfan]

On “The Madden Round Table” tonight, Ben stated the build was from late April.

As steelerfan said, some of the stuff in the demo was not prevalent in the May build. I'm anxious to see how it is in retail.

Thanks for confirming the date the demo build is from, cdj.