Madden 12 vs. NCAA 12

[Warning Track Power]

I'm having a difficult time deciding which one of these games I want to buy this year. I will only buy one, as I cannot bring myself to buy two different football games even though they are two completely different versions of football.

 

I generally am a NCAA guy because I typically refuse to play a franchise with anyone other than the Packers, but don't have that problem in NCAA where I can avoid playing the Badgers pretty easily.

 

I bought NCAA 11 last year and absolutely loved it. Excellent video game that I always enjoy. Problem is everything I have read makes me believe NCAA 12 is really just an updated roster version of NCAA 11 and I could probably make due with NCAA 11 to whet my appetite for college football and the Packers success in 2010 and hopefully in 2011 has really made me want to play Madden. The problem I am having now is, Madden always feels rehashed. Always. I know sports games generally are nothing more than updated rosters, but with Madden I always feel like I could pop in my Madden 2006 copy and not much would be different.

 

Madden doesn't come out until next Tuesday so I know reveiwing that game is futile until next week but I am hoping someone who owns both NCAA 11 and NCAA 12 could give a little insight if they felt it was worth it to purchase 12. I'm sure playing for the new Big 10 Championship plus the Leaders and Legends Divisions would be pretty awesome, but so would trying to repeat as champions for the Packers.

 

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[patrickgpe]

i will buy 1 and haven't decided. I like the NCAA franchise to play the trick offenses like Navy's option. Its also fun to take a garbage team and try to get them into the BCS. Madden has appeal this year though as the Packers are the superbowl champs so they will be a focal point of the game like be a default team.

[berniebrewer4life]

I picked up NCAA 12 and i like it. You can do a lot of changes with the franchise mode this year(you can start off as a coordinator, or full on head coach). At the end of each year, you can play with the Conferences, switching whoever you want to where ever, changing the names of the divisions, what conf plays in what bowl games, ect. For example, after a season, i got tired of having Eastern Michigan(i like a challenge) in the MAC, so i moved them and Army into the ACC. You can also change things like who is a protected rival, night games in november, ect. It's a lot of fun. As far as the actual gameplay, it's pretty much the same as last year. Recruiting is the same as last year as well. In all, it's not that much more different when you are actually playing football, but if you tend to burn through a bunch of seasons, the changes will help from it getting boring too quickly.

[PrinceEatMeat]

I'm in the same boat as berniebrewer4life on NCAA 12. I tend to burn through a lot of seasons in dynasty mode, so I like the options I have there. Gameplay is pretty much the same though. I usually buy both NCAA and Madden. I really like imported my NCAA draft classes into Madden, so I have all the real players instead of the generic invented ones. So I usually spend a lot of time playing dynasties in NCAA, and then move on to playing franchises in Madden. I tend to play more Madden online than I do NCAA. If I had to pick one it would be tough. I'd probably have to go with Madden just because I have more fun playing it online with friends and stuff. More people buy it.

[pitchleague]

They don't make either game for the PC anymore so I'll be playing my 13th season of NCAA '99 and a modded version of Madden '08 with the new schedule and rosters (when they're released in Oct./Nov.).

 

That said, I always liked how Madden put the defending champs as a "focal point" of the game, using them in the demo, screens, etc. Plus some bumps on the ratings.

 

I'd probably pick Madden to play right away and then NCAA when it's on sale/clearance.

 

Is it just me or is Madden releasing late this year. Isn't the annual "Merry Maddenmas" around August 8th-10th or so? Was the lockout the reason it's so late?

[PrinceEatMeat]

Yep, Madden is always released in early August. Definitely late this year. No idea if the lockout was the reason. I don't think so. They said Madden would be released no matter what.

[brwrsfan]

My guess is that they couldn't include any of the rookies in the game with the lockout in place. Those players weren't in the players union and I don't think they could use them in the game. So if they released it before the lockout ended, they'd have to send all those players through a roster update or something, which could have been a mess with all those players. It also allowed them to get the rosters as accurate as possible post lockout.

 

I'm not sure on that, but it would be my guess. As it's usually out in the first week or so of August.