NCAA Football 2011 Arrives Today!

(by 4EverGolden over at California Golden Blogs.
Head over and check out the rest of fantastic covers!)

NCAA Football 2011 is in stores today. And unlike the boys over at California Golden Blogs, I am volunteering to schill this game. Because despite its numerous flaws, I am an avid NCAA gamer.

First off, there's a rich history of BearswithFangs and NCAA gaming.

• I along with some other gaming nerds, used screenshots from NCAA to showcase some of the new Cal uniforms before they were official revealed to the public.
• I also did a writeup about the validity of a possible NCAA Cover curse, ala the Madden curse that has ruined careers and lives.
• Also, broke news about our very own Desean Jackson gracing the PS2 cover for the 2009 version.

The list goes on. But to give you a sense of avid of a player I am with NCAA, let's just say this: In my copy of NCAA 2008, I'm currently in year 2032 in dynasty mode. That's right, that's 24 seasons. My starting QB is Nate Longshore Jr. and my starting WR is Desean Jackson the III. Don't ask me how that happened.

It got so bad, that I think I literally broke the game, and eventually my system. My screen began getting fuzzy during my 108-3 romp over the Furd in my most recent Big Game, and the Xbox completely shut down. I didn't even get a read ring of death, just an error screen that looked like this:



WTF?

So I might pick up a copy of 2011. Or I'll hope that one of the three people who read this blog is an EA rep who has the clout to send me a free copy. Hear that?

Ahem, keep reading for some Cal related info about the game:


The Bears are rated as being:

Overall: B
Offense: B+
Defense: B+

Interesting. I'd rate the offense as being higher than the defense at this point, given the questions we have at some critical spots in the secondary and at outside linebacker, but it is what it is.

A new feature for the game is the emphasis on the various offensive styles. Cal is well known for featuring a pro style offense. You can read a good breakdown of this style of EA's NCAA Football Blog.

"A Pro Style Offense for us is simply an offensive system that's used in college football that closely resembles those that are used in professional football. The majority of Pro Style Offenses want to be balanced on offense between the run and the pass. That doesn't necessarily mean they want to run half of the time and throw the other, but rather it means they want to do either whenever the situation calls for a run or pass. A downhill running game is also important to coaches who run a Pro Style Offense. Being able to run the ball helps control the time of possession as well as setting up the play action passing game."

Anyway, check out the game, as it does look like it's made some nice improvements, most notably the AI in blocking schemes.