Mode Madness

Entertainment Arts (EA) has given NCAA® Football 2005 some major upgrades over previous titles in the series. For the first time, Xbox® gamers can play online play Xbox Live®,work the hometown crowd to their advantage, and manage their player’s confidence. EA and developer Tiburon also added a few new game modes for gridiron generals to prove their chops and spruced up the existing modes.

You’re the coach.

Aside from the addition of online play, the biggest differences in NCAA Football 2005 are in the newly expanded Dynasty Mode, which puts players in charge of the team from the head office during the off-season as well as on the sidelines during the game. As you manage your 70-man roster, you’ll be required to track each player's stats, improving them as the season progresses in practice and on the field. Along with the contract and salary negotiations, you’ll have to keep an eye on your student player’s academic performance and their off-field behavior. A great player who can’t keep his grades up or stay out of trouble with the law is useless to you. Worse, poor performance and bad behavior can cost your team scholarships, reduce your positive TV exposure, and even get you barred from playing in bowl games. To keep a lid on your college rowdies, you can discipline them by benching them for a quarter, a game, or the rest of the season.

Players will also request to be traded to other teams if they're unhappy. Of course, players from other teams may want to join your squad as well, so it's up to you to keep your roster as vital as possible as the season progresses. You can scout promising newcomers, even setting up a pipeline to a particular region or state so that your scouts spend the bulk of their time looking for the kind of players you want. The conference schedule rotations are true-to-life, so you’ll face a wide variety of opponents as you build your team’s legacy, and you can even crib some offensive and defensive coaching tips from the Dynasty Mode and apply them to any game you play.

You hate those guys.

Two other game modes let players keep old grudges alive: the Rivalry Game and the Pontiac College Classics. Rivalry is just what it sounds like, the chance for two teams with a score to settle to go out on the field and prove who’s the best. Whether it's the military school warfare of Army versus Navy, the old Southern charm of South Carolina vs. Clemson, or Portland vs. Eastern Washington in the nasty Northwest, college fans can earn console bragging rights and rub it in as much as they like.

The Pontiac College Classics are recreations of classic games from the past two decades, except you get to play. Want to avenge Virginia State's 1998 loss to Syracuse? How about leading Miami to victory against Ohio State, rewriting the outcome of their famous 2002 contest? You can even venture back to 1980 and give Southern Methodist University another crack at Brigham Young. These games all feature some of the best players from college ball history playing their hearts out against each other. Revisionist history has never been so much fun.

Dogs vs. Bugs.

Finally, NCAA Football 2005 lets those unsung heroes of college football take the field in a Mascot Game. Field eleven identical guys in funny costumes and let them go to work against eleven other guys in equally funny costumes. It's good, goofy fun as Duke's Blue Devil squares off against the University of Washington’s Harry the Husky, but don’t forget that these mascots are also the standard-bearers for their teams. If you put a late hit on Pee Dee the Purple Pirate, you can bet all the ECU fans are going to hold it against you for the rest of the game.

By Nino Mann