NCAA Football 14 Retrospective

[Music] n-c-double-a 14 is one of a select few sports games that has reached legendary status in most cases these games are loved not just because they were great games but also due to scarcity from being the last of their kind games like NFL 2k5 college hoops 2k8 MVP Baseball 2005 and NCAA 14 all fall under this category when a good game becomes the last of its series fans start to hold the game an extremely high esteem the question becomes are these games worthy of their praise or is it simply nostalgia and scarcity swaying popular opinion I can say with full confidence that NCAA 14 is a great game and better than any ea football game created on last and current gen consoles despite having some flaws NC double-a 14 captures the atmosphere of college football while allowing the user to customize the games of their liking much more so than its next-door neighbour Madden as years go by it's no secret why college football fans are still playing NC double-a 14 the game is timeless and each year we can only hope that college football can return the video games but until then NC double-a 14 will do just fine [Music] NCAA 14 received mostly positive reviews from critics with a 77 overall Metacritic score the game was criticized for being too similar to 13 and basically being a roster update however the improvements in the game while small made for a much better experience this was the first and last n-c-double-a game to use the Infinity engine which EA debuted in Madden 13 this engine focuses less on animations and more on physics and while today it's clear that the engine wasn't perfect and had some weird clunky moments for the most part it was a big step up part of the reason many NC double-a 14 fans can't seem to enjoy modern Madden games is because of their over-reliance on animations coming from the Infinity engine it almost seems like a downgrade to play on the Frostbite engine other additions to 14 that differentiated the game from 13 was the inclusion of Ultimate Team and quicker more streamlined presentation if n-c-double-a 13 was the last n-c-double-a game would it have received the same legendary status probably but 14 is a better game the best part of n-c-double-a 14 in my opinion is the fantastic dynasty mode unlike most franchise modes and sports games the dynasty mode in 14 is a crime if you took a small school or created your own and team builder and tried to build your school into a powerhouse it wasn't a few trades away like you've seen a game like Madden or 2k the fact that this is a college game meaning prospects have to choose to commit to your school and rising stars can transfer to a better school made it incredibly difficult to build a good team from a bad one once you eventually get your team some hot prospects and build a roster that can compete you feel rewarded the hard work paid off but with players only staying on the team for a maximum length of four years you need to constantly be recruiting high school prospects to maintain your status at the top one of the biggest issues with offline sports games are that they are too easy the CPU is dumb and getting to the top is usually quick which is why many players choose to play online modes like ultimate team 4 more challenging team-building experience the nature of college football allowed NC double-a four teams dynasty mode to be challenging enough where it was worth investing your time into the offline mode without college sports games there is simply no way to really replicate the team-building challenge found in 14th dynasty mode unfortunately the game was one year short of the college football playoff this does make the dynasty mode feel a bit dated but despite this the mode was still incredibly deep full coaching juries complete school control in a breathtaking number of menus and options to work with resulted in one of the deepest and greatest management modes in sports game compared to Madden 25 or any Madden games since then NC double-a 14s depth and customizability Blue Jays other football game away and is a huge reason why so many people are still playing road to glory is the awesome career mode in this game and while it really isn't any different from previous games that isn't a bad thing starting a high school and playing through a college career with the ability to port your player over into Madden 25 was sick what really made this game stand out at the time as well as continue to live on is the presentation and customized ability using the ESPN license similar to the old NFL 2k games NC double-a 14 feels like you're watching a real ESPN broadcast from the halftime shows to the ticker and scoreboard the presentation is very immersive the sounds of the school's marching bands the crowd and always affecting the game in messing up your play art pre-snap in the commentary from Brad Nessler all create a convincing college football environment that makes the player feel as if they are a part of a real game it's some of the best presentation I've ever seen in the sports game team builder allowed players to create a customized college team by designing the logo stadium and uniforms online and then importing the team into the game you could create your own schools or download ones created by others online customizability is something that should be a priority in every sports game there is no such thing as too much customizability creating your own team is one of the most fun and personal things you can do in a sports game and it's always been one of my favorite things to do it's a shame that many modern games ignore this let the player be create as I mentioned earlier NCAA 14 was the first NCAA game to use the Infinity engine resulting in a more physics based gameplay the play books in 14 are fantastic with modern place such as the read option being a major part of the game running the ball is super smooth and fluid some calling it the standard for football games I wouldn't go that far but cut spins and stiff arms all feel great the real-time physics make it so that instead of seeing the same stiff arm animation over and over each play might have the stiff arm hit the defender in a different area creating a different result while the physics are in a backbreaker level the gameplay just feels incredibly fluid it's fun it's not perfect as the game has aged zone defense is not the best and the running animations look kind of weird but you could say those same things about any football game that's released since what sets this game apart to this day is the overall fluidity lack of a reliance on animations and just how fun it is to play was NCAA 14 the best n-c-double-a game it's hard to say it's definitely the most modern I haven't really played the ps2 era n-c-double-a games but I've heard many people say they were better all around I'll be playing some of them soon for future videos but over the n-c-double-a games I have played which include all the ones on ps3 and 360 14 is the cream of the crop the game has become as popular as ever in 2019 if there was ever a time to drop a new college football game now would be it if not the experts excellent ugf pandas series is any indication interest in this game is booming so why isn't there a college football game why did they stop making them and why hasn't another major publisher tried themselves meet ed O'Bannon Oh Bannon is a former basketball player who issued a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA for using player likenesses without compensation the games didn't use real player names but they did use the same jersey numbers skin colors and attributes that very obviously represented specific players he was joined by former college quarterback Sam Keller and the two lawsuits merged into one big class-action lawsuit against the NCAA EA in CLC the case ended in O'Bannon's favor and the NCAA was now obligated to pay players for their likenesses the lawsuit while about more than just video games as the NCAA was profiting off of players without paying them for quite some time spelled the end for college football video games the NCAA would no longer give ei their license for future games in order to protect themselves from further legal issues and EA was left to either create a generic game or cancel the series EA reportedly was working on a game called college football 15 before the plug was pulled the game was aimed to release on 360 and ps3 as well as on to next-gen with the ps4 and Xbox one yeh was trying to future-proof the game by implementing a new creation suite where players would have full control over team's players stadiums uniforms and even craft their own storylines for a college football season the idea was to put the game in the players hands and let their creativity take over unfortunately we never got to see it come to light the creation suite however was in development for a few years even before the future of the series was in doubt it makes you wonder why it wasn't brought over to Madden most would say the NFL wouldn't allow a creation suite like that but in my interview with Rex Dixon he told me that the NFL never told them they couldn't put create a team back into the game or that it was a lack of resources so who knows why did ei cancel the series no one was directly stopping them from making a college game but no NCAA license combined with the lackluster sales of the series at the time hoped EA decide that financially it made the most sense to move on as great as a generic fully customizable game sounded the hard truth is that at the time the game likely would have sold poorly today a triple a generic college game would likely do decent due to the thirst for a new college football game but back then people really didn't care as much it's similar to all pro football 2k8 EA likely saw how that game performed to help make that decision there are some new games coming out that aimed to give thirsty college football fans something new imv gaming announced plans to create a fully customizable college football game called gridiron champions and received strong community support through crowdfunding they were able to get the money needed to start development however delay after delay has left us with no game many years later with their Twitter account going private and some legal issues surrounding the company it's unclear if we will ever see a game from imv there is a college football game releasing this year however in September Doug Flutie's maximum football 19 is a generic fully customizable football game with a college dynasty mode and a hundred and thirty schools while the game doesn't have any NCAA license all the teams are based on real teams and can be easily customized to more realistically resemble them as promising as the game looks it is an indie game with a small team in budget last year's maximum football 18 was about what one would expect from an indie football game but 19 includes all new player models animations graphics the new dynasty mode and more we will see shortly how far along the game really is but at the very least there is a new college football video game and the more people who support indie games like this the better these games can be I personally would love to see 2k create a college football it's no secret that I'm unhappy with EA and while 2k has its issues with servers and microtransactions their core gameplay customizability game modes and attention to detail are these standard for sports game use go play my league NBA two K's franchise mode if you want to see what I mean my idea is that 2k could do what they did for my career in 2k 16 or what EA did in 1920 and gain the rights to a select number of individual colleges through bypassing the NC double-a rights to individual schools can be purchased giving the game license teams to play with if 2k could secure the rights to 10 or 15 colleges and create generic ones to fill out the game all while allowing players to edit the generic teams and rosters and share the files online the game could work call it college football 2k 20 I'm sure it would sell decently they could even partner with the XFL considering that the league's owner Vince McMahon already has a relationship with 2k with the WWE games and include a road to glory type mode where you start in college and end up playing in the XFL 2k has proven they can make a great football game in the past and I'd love to see what they could do with gameplay in 2019 as long as the game would be fully customizable and would include a deep dynasty mode it would be worth a purchase at the very least it would be another major football game on the market which would bring much-needed competition to the industry regardless of what happens in the future however NC double-a 14 will likely continue to have a huge cult following updating the rosters every year and driving the game's price up to $70 on eBay and it's no secret why the game is solid as can be even today in 2019 people are buying ps3 and xbox 360's just to play this game along with NFL 2k5 NC double-a 14 sits in the football video game Hall of Fame as a recently retired gen as much as we all want a new triple-a college football game realistically that isn't going to happen anytime soon while we wait NCAA 14 will hold down the fort with its feature-rich challenging dynasty mode - the great community of digging the rosters every year into the solid physics based gameplay n-c-double-a 14 is still a fantastic football game some may call it nostalgia or say it's due to the scarcity of the game but at its core NCAA 14 lives up to its hype [Music]

Channel: SOFTDRINKTV

Views: 401,459

Keywords: ncaa football, ncaa football 14, ncaa football 20, ncaa football 19, ncaa football 15, ncaa football return, colleg football 2019, retrospective, documentary, madden nfl 20, ea sports, 2k, lawsuit, ed obannon, 2019 ncaa season, doug fluties maximum football 19, dynasty mode, imv gaming, gridiron champions, electronic arts, softdrinktv, softdrinksports

Id: -Lri1tBTwqY

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 16 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/madden37]

Is this game better than madden 20?