Running video games (and consoles) thread

Anyone picked up NCAA 13 yet?

 

I played for a couple hours earlier tonight. Thoughts:

1) The super slow loading menus is really effing annoying at this point. It seems like every EA game with a franchise / dynasty mode, the lag on what's essentially menus is too much. If the graphics are slowing things down, then please, just give me the option of using mostly-text or graphics reduced menus, so that I can navigate them without having to jam on the X button.

2) The game itself plays similar to 12. I think there are less nerfing things, like the aforementioned Intercepting MLB of Doom. However, I'm mostly used to the 10 and 11 editions of the game, and the interceptions are definitely ticked up from those editions, which featured stonehands DBs.

3) There is a Max Payne / Mass Effect 2 and 3 "bullet time" or adrenaline rush feature, if you're playing in RTG or Heisman mode. Basically, if you hold L2, time slows down a bunch and you can juke and beat dudes. You can use it for up to five seconds on an individual play, and while it drains from play to play, you can restore time via long gains, timeouts, etc.

4) One way around the slowdown - disable the online connection. Once I did that, I noticed that things were much smoother. Along similar lines, you REALLY need to disable the autosave. Otherwise, it friggin' saves after everything, even something as mundane as adding a guy to your scouting board.

5) One annoying new "feature" - it's tougher to organize who you're recruiting. On the target screen, you can't sort them by rank. You can sort them by overall rating - thanks to a new scouting feature, you can learn a prospect's overall before signing him. But I'm playing as 1-star Idaho, so it's more important for me to just get bodies vs. highly rated guys, so I'd prefer if I could just sort by their scouting score or star rating vs. overall rating. (Like most past editions, it's much easier to find P, K and CB with high skill ratings vs. other positions.)

So, that's that. I got the game via GameFly, so unfortunately, I can't comment on the online features - I don't have an EA Sports pass. But I'll probably dig in a bit more tomorrow and over the weekend, and I'll let you know how it goes.

 

I would be down for an NCAA 13 Xbox league.

 

Anxious to hear what people say about NCAA 13. It's rare that I get a new video game (I usually get them used off ebay) but I'm thinking about this one. I haven't gotten a football game since NCAA '10, so I could stand an update.

 

There are enough new features from 10 to 13 that you'd probably like the update, but it's up to you whether you want to pay $20 for 12 or $60 for 13. Obviously, if you're into online play, go for 13 - more support - but if you just want the single player experience, then I think you can get away with just purchasing the year-old version.

 

You can get 13 for $45 on Amazon. I wouldn't pay $60 for any EA game at this point. They keep dropping the prices.

 

Ah, sorry - didn't realize that the EA sports games were lower priced than normal new releases. $45 strikes me as an acceptable price if you haven't bought an installment in a while.

I played a bit more last night. Even on Rookie level (I'm a puss when it comes to games sometimes), the computer plays pretty good pass defense, but the run defense isn't so great. I'm playing as Idaho (D- rating overall) and I was barely able to beat B rated North Carolina.

Dynasty mode, the menu slowdown still sucks. You still have the usual 10 hours to recruit, but unless you use the quick recruiting (which seems a bit scaled back in terms of effectiveness vs. previous years), it takes a pretty significant amount of time to recruit each week.

 

That discounted pricing is usually just for the first week. Amazon is big on that. Brick and mortar shops not so much. It's still listed at $60 at Best Buy and Target.


It does end up on sale within 2-3 weeks at BB and Target, though.

 

Amazon's price has been $45 for quite some time now. A friend of mine bought his copy, IIRC, in mid-June when it was first posted there as a pre-order.

 

Why do you still have to buy the damn disc? Why doesn't XBox make some way where you go in the online store and just pay with your account to get a download?

 

That would be nice, but it wouldn't do people like me -- who don't play games online or anything like that -- any good.

 

No, what I mean is you can buy the game and download it to the hard drive and play it off that. I usually rip the game to my hard drive as soon as I get it anyway. I never play online, people only use one or two teams and when they start to lose they leave.