Re: Madden 25 Vs. College Football 25: A New Battleground
Back in the day, NCAA was my go to for the fact that it felt good to build a dynasty, especially with the roster players and potential recruits that could be created.
I, like many, would send money to a guy to send me a pre-loaded memory card (Can't remember his name, but he did a great job). Then online DLing became a thing, but I still sent money to the guys PayPal because the dude took time that many of us didn't have to get it right. NIL has screwed that up for all of us, just like NIL is screwing up college sports.
I did not do anything to the ratings when I would get these memory cards. The guy that took so much time to get rosters pretty darn close did a great job in this painstaking process.
Then in terms of recruits, I did create probably the Top 100 in each position as per the ESPN rankings and added several from the Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati area as I follow high school sports in this area closely. It was awesome. You could watch these kids develop in your franchise, you could watch the progress of local kids several years down the road to see how they panned out with other schools, and then export draft classes after each season to Madden. Again, it was awesome.
EA needs to figure out this roster creation and editing BS for NCAA. I play offline, no one is going to see who I have created, there is no NIL in my house. I don't post videos online so that someone may accidentally see their name (another byproduct of this fiasco, people who constantly upload videos thinking people care about your juke move or Brian Boitano triple sow cow deke).
I think NCAA is visually stunning compared to our last game NCAA 14. But the game is lacking, and beyond one season, it doesn't have the fun factor for me. I mean 70% of the skilled position players you recruit are white. Another example, there were 11 recruits from Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati alone that had Hawaiian names. Kentucky and Ohio are not a hot bed of Hawaiian migration, why would it be? We don't have lush green mountains, miles of beautiful sandy beaches with crystal clear water. It's concrete jungles in this area with industry, highways, and a poop brown river that separates us.
On the other end of the spectrum, there were 58 punters/kickers you could recruit, with 45 being black. This immersion throws off the game balance feel for me. Not to mention the numbers they are assigned are ridiculous for the most part. I saw several QB's wearing numbers in the 20's. While not unheard of, it is very rare, much more rarely than what I am seeing it in NCAA.
Again, EA needs to figure this out. At a minimum the naming of recruits. I can live with the rosters they give us once the Official Season Roster is dropped, though I am sure there will be many errors, but not being able to edit recruits names, numbers, that is almost becoming a deal breaker. I will still play the game, but unlike older versions, I am sure by November, it gets shuffled to the back of the line because I don't want to play with a bunch of players in year five of my dynasty with the UC Bearcats with players like Tua Mata'afa from Newport, KY.
As for Madden, it needs a title update... Draft classes can not be found. I have made the game playable with slider adjustments, but I have a feeling now that I have found a good balanced, competitive slider combination that plays pretty good, EA will patch the crap out of it and it will be broken again. So like NCAA, I am torn. Do I start a Franchise to just know it will be a moot point when they patch the game? It just isn't fun when I know at the end of year one, I am drafting a bunch of nobodies.
Both these games look good. But both these games need some patch work before many of us can invest our time with the game. For those that play the MUT type games, you guys aren't really affected because you play with fantasy drafted players anyway, but like every game EA puts out now, the offline guys suffer, hoping and waiting for a fix that will fix, or better yet, won't break the game. And this year's fixes that are needed are pretty crucial to offline players. Madden will get it figured out with the roster and draft class downloads, but NCAA, I don't think we have a shot in Haiti that will see customizable rosters this year, next year, ever... And if that is the case, I guess NCAA25 will carry me through for the next several years. At least until they hit EA Play for free at season's end.
I will give EA a little credit this year though, they gave us more face choices when creating players and I was able to find some pretty close facial scans of players I needed to create who weren't on the game as undrafted rookies, that probably won't make their rosters but probably will make some practice squads. And the created players aren't black silhouettes. I hope EA Canada learns from this with the NHL series. (EA CANADA, OPEN YOUR EYES, TAKE NOTE!!! IT CAN BE DONE!!!)
These issues with roster editing, customization and downloading will drive my nuts enough until NHL comes out and when it does, I am sure the let downs from EA will be far worse and I will go on another rant about what they did to rob Peter to pay Paul for the Online players, and gave us offline guys the middle finger once again. They obviously never look at Wishlists from players that actually buy their games who have great ideas!!! NFL has coaches, no reason the NHL can't have them either...
