NCAA Football '08 came out today. I know I'm one of the few on this forum that actually prefers college football over the NFL and also prefers NCAA over Madden. There are several new features on this year's game that makes it just a little better than the previous versions of the game.
Last year, I believe I posted on another forum the results of the first complete season I played on the game. Turned out the national championship game was Florida over Ohio St. Florida actually won 3 of the first 4 first season NC's on my console that I simulated. That tells me that my PS2 is psychic. And I'm serious. I'm putting my trust in my PS2 to predict this year's national championship. So that means that it will be...
USC 52
Oklahoma St. 7
What in the hell?! Oklahoma St.? That's what you all just said huh? Yeah me too. Especially seeing how West Virginia also went undefeated in the season causing a bit of controversy.
I actually believe Oklahoma St. is a sleeper to win the Big 12 this year. They have a great QB named Bobby Reid. He plays similar to Troy Smith and is a playmaker. As long as their coach decides to let him have the snaps and not split time with him and some schmo like he did last season, then they have a legitimate shot at the Big 12. Undefeated though? No way.
So screw my PS2's psychic abilities! It's still a great game and one of the reasons...along with Madden that football is the most popular sport in the country. Here's a column that I put in today's newspaper. Just thought I'd share it with you guys.
Quote:
Today marks an important day towards the beginning of football season and it has nothing to do with a live game being played or a training camp starting.
No, instead, today is all about my video game console.
My television will be occupied for the next several months by Electronic Arts Sports’ NCAA Football ‘08, which was released to stored today.
Laugh if you must, but video games are key in figuring out how football has become the United States’ new favorite pass time.
Every year, television ratings and stadium attendance falls a little lower for baseball — our former favorite pass time. However, the NFL’s attendance and ratings flourish season after season.
One of the biggest arguments for this changing of the guard is that Americans are not a patient people. Everything has to be fast to us. We don’t have the desire to wait several minutes between every pitch at a baseball game. This is also why soccer is not a popular sport in America.
But I will argue that as a reason why the gridiron sport is flourishing over baseball. If it was just fast paced sporting action that Americans wanted then wouldn’t basketball be more popular? After all, that action is almost nonstop. There are at least 20 seconds between each play in football unless you’re watching game film of an old school Buffalo Bills’ game from the early 90’s, when Jim Kelly quarterbacked a no-huddle offense.
This makes me lean towards the argument that video games have fueled football’s popularity. EA Sports’ Madden franchise is probably responsible for the most American youth’s knowledge of NFL players and what teams they play for.
I fervently believe that the top selling sports video game of all time is responsible for Atlanta Falcons’ quarterback Michael Vick’s popularity with this country’s youth. They use Vick on Madden, rush for 2,000 yards and pass for 3,000 yards in a season and immediately enshrine him as the greatest quarterback of all time. As we all know, Vick isn’t nearly effective outside the realm of video games.
This year’s cover of the slightly less popular NCAA Football ‘08 is a great example of forever enshrining a player in the minds of youth. Boise State quarterback Jared Zabransky wasn’t even drafted by an NFL team this past fall, but will still grace the cover of this year’s college football video game.
Certainly he’ll be remembered for leading Boise State to that thrilling overtime upset over the Oklahoma Sooners in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl that featured two mind blowing trick plays. However, the cover of NCAA Football will probably be the most face time he receives this year, as he tries to earn a roster spot with the Houston Texans as an undrafted free agent.
The fact is that football transcends to the gaming world better than any other sport does. There’s more strategy involved and the game play can be made to look like real game action. EA has had a tough time trying to copy this success over with baseball and basketball.
Madden is tied with Tetris as the fifth best-selling gaming franchise of all time with over 60 million copies being bought. Both 2007 versions of Madden and NCAA sold over 1 million copies last year.
Today’s youth learn about football from video games. This was how it also worked for me as a kid. I could tell you the rosters for most NFL teams thanks to my obsession with playing Tecmo Super Bowl on my Super Nintendo.
The success of football to transcend its game to the gaming world simply ensures its popularity with the next generation. As EA puts a little bit more of the real game into the video game, as their slogan proclaims, it puts the sport further into the limelight of America’s conscious.
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NCAA '08
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