TOM TAKES THE TROPHY
From a vastly increased focus on the Heisman Trophy to new gameplay features and animations, NCAA® Football 06 features a host of improvements, refinements and additions that will take one of the most highly-regarded football games of all time into new territory. In order to learn more about the game, we sat down with Tom Vuong, associate producer of NCAA Football 06, to learn more about what we can expect once we fire up our new season of college football.
EA SPORTS: Describe the journey the individual player takes on his Race for the Heisman.
Tom Vuong: The Race for the Heisman is the ultimate single-player experience where you play as a student athlete at a major Division 1-A program. Your goal is to win the most prestigious award in all of sports -- the Heisman Trophy. You start out by trying to impress college scouts in order to earn a scholarship to play for a top football program.
Once on campus, you can check out your dorm room, complete with a bed and a computer. During the week, you can go to practice, check out your stats, and even read your school's newspaper. Once gameday arrives, it's your time to shine. Perform well and you will increase your skill level as well as your popularity on campus. As the fan mail starts rolling in, so will the accolades and awards. If you continue to pile up the stats and the wins for your program, you may find yourself sitting pretty in New York hearing your name called as the next Heisman Trophy Winner.
Make a quick impact and you have a tough decision of declaring early for the pro draft (to be exported into Madden NFL 06) or coming back for your senior season. Once your playing career is over, you can even continue to leave your mark as a college football coach.
EA SPORTS: Will you need to be at a big school in order to win the Heisman, as is typical in real life?
Tom Vuong: No, you will not need to be at a big school, but performing in big games helps. Of course, it also helps to play for an elite program, but not a necessity as many players from smaller programs have won Heismans in the past.
EA SPORTS: How does the focus on the individual player affect Dynasty Mode -- or does it? How do you continue a career with your team after you graduate?
Tom Vuong: Race for the Heisman is its own mode (separate from Dynasty) based around the player. However, after finishing college as a player (as mentioned above), you can choose to continue on as coach in Dynasty Mode. Now you have the opportunity of engrossing yourself in the the many aspects of coaching, from training to recruiting.
EA SPORTS: What's different about recruiting?
Tom Vuong: For NCAA Football 06, we really focused on the most popular aspect of Dynasty Mode, which is recruiting. Now, in addition to the current off-season recruiting, users will be able to recruit high school prospects during the regular football season as well. We really wanted to introduce the concept of targeting prospects in the summer, inviting them to campus for official visits in the fall, and then getting verbal commitments based on how well their visits went.
We now also have soft verbals, which are prospects who have committed to your school, but are still looking at other schools. So as a coach, you will have to continue to pursue these guys until you're sure they are committed to your program. So the in-season recruiting experience, although familiar, is a totally new game-within-a-game for our dedicated fans. All of this is packaged neatly in our Rivals.com Recruiting feature, which will bring you news and prospect interest movements in the form of headlines of the popular online recruiting service.
For off-season recruiting, we've totally revamped the user experience as well. We've added your school's academic reputation as a factor in dynasty and during recruiting. Now prospects will look at your school based on your academic prestige in terms of program and in terms of graduating players. The flipside of that is that recruiting players on talent alone may affect your school's academic prestige.
Another great addition is the ability to build pipelines when recruiting. Now having success in a particular area will lead to better success recruiting that area in the future. With these elements, coupled with players that do not qualify based on grades, users will have to totally change up their strategy when recruiting.
EA SPORTS: What are the all-new Breakaway Controls?
Tom Vuong: This year, we're introducing the concept of Impact Players, which are players on your team that can break a game wide open. Along with that, we are introducing Breakaway Controls. This is basically a set of simple to use moves on the Right Analog Stick that is available to everyone, but Impact Players can really take advantage of this.
On offense, users can now pull off jukes with ease including the awesome "back juke," where you can leave defenders grasping air. You can also celebrate at anytime, anywhere when carrying the ball. Watch out, though, as showboating will increase your chances of fumbling the football if hit.
On defense, Breakaway Controls include the Impact Stick, which allows for defensive linemen moves as well as laying the big hit. Timing is the key here as you can really put a move on an offensive lineman or knock the ball loose with a crushing hit. The bottom line is that users can now control their players like never before.
EA SPORTS: How have you improved the graphics and physics engines?
Tom Vuong: The look and presentation of the game has undergone a major overhaul for the 06 product. We've gone the extra mile this year in maximizing the power of the PlayStation®2 and Xbox®. You'll notice immediately upon starting the game that the stadiums have received a major facelift. Player models and environmental lighting have improved dramatically. We even improved the grass textures, making the game look as realistic as ever.
We also modeled our three-man commentary crew of Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso and put them into our pre-game show for the first time ever. You'll see Lee Corso with his famous tradition of putting on the mascot head when he makes his prediction. To top it all off, we've added broadcast-quality in-game overlays and cameras. All this adds up to a great visual experience and the best looking NCAA Football game to date.
On the physics and gameplay side, we've reworked our ball physics to be more realistic on passes and bounces. We also worked extensively on blocking ,as you'll now see offensive linemen aggressively opening up holes in the running game and creating lanes in the passing game. This year, we've also added the ability for users to break tackles by jamming on the corresponding button. So if you have a impact power back, you can pound the ball in there and drag defenders for that extra yardage.
On the defensive side, we've added gang tackling to help counter this. Of course, impact defenders will have an advantage wrapping up the ballcarrier and jarring the ball loose in crucial situations.
EA SPORTS: Do things like the Stadium Pulse still exist?
Tom Vuong: The Stadium Pulse was part of our Home Field Advantage feature which was very well received by the NCAA Football community. We've been able to tune this, along with the Dynamic Player Ratings feature (which allows for player ratings to fluctuate throughout the course of a game), to make it much more realistic. In fact this works seamlessly with our new Impact Players feature for 06. Impact Players can be "In the Zone" based on the current game situation and their performance. An Impact Player who's In the Zone can pull off moves others can't and can change the momentum of the game on his own.
EA SPORTS: What are the mini-games like?
Tom Vuong: Our Spring Drills feature is based on the drills used in actual college football practices. The most unique is the Oklahoma Drill. There are many different versions of this drill, but in ours, a ball carrier and an offensive lineman square off against a defensive lineman and a linebacker. The goal is to get the ball in the end zone with the running back or stop the score with your linebacker. First person to score seven times wins. This drill is the most fun playing against a friend.
Another unique mini-game is the Pass Skeleton. This is when the quarterback and his receivers face off against linebackers and defensive backs in coverage. There are no linemen on either side. In this mini-game, the goal is to march down the field and get as many touchdowns as you can in ten snaps. This drill is very useful when you want to learn how to read coverages because you can do so without worrying about the pass rush. Because of this, we also added it as a practice mode, so you can run the plays you want against any defense you wish in order to improve your passing skills.
We also have the Option Attack drill where you can learn to master running and defending the option. Round this out with the popular Rushing Attack and we have a great way for our fans to satisfy their NCAA Football cravings when time is a factor.
EA SPORTS: What makes this game better than past versions of NCAA Football?
Tom Vuong: For all the reasons mentioned above, we believe NCAA Football 06 is not only better than any previous versions of NCAA Football, but better than any other football game out there, period. It's got something for everybody. If you're a casual fan, we have a fun-to-play football game. Also the Spring Drills feature provides that quick fix when you want to get in and out quickly.
If you're more of a diehard football fan, we've gone even deeper in our Dynasty Mode with Rivals.com Recruiting and the emphasis on academics. If you're into the single-player experience, we're introducing the Race for the Heisman mode where you try to win the coveted Heisman Trophy as a player. If you like the multi-player aspect, we have a great head-to-head game filled with strategy and taunts. Also, our Play Online feature will keep fans who are itching for competition happy throughout the season. Overall, NCAA Football 06 is the complete package.
EA SPORTS: Anything else you want to add about the game?
Tom Vuong: I've been here since NCAA Football 2000 and this is the biggest development team we've ever had on this product. This has allowed us to add the big features stated above, but also many of the little things that won't be uncovered until our fans actually play the game. We have a great team (programming, art, production, marketing, and QA) who truly care about creating the best possible game and it shows. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge their efforts and thank them for their hard work.
