When You First Get The Game?

Do you guys have a ritual for what you first do when you get the game?

For years I would always jump right into a play now game with Penn State vs Ohio State. PSU was my favorite school and my dad went to OSU.

This is the first time Rivals has had a 3-star limit, so I am only gonna play with NU so I can get used to the team before we start up. The very first thing I will do is string together a custom PB on both sides as fast as possible and then play NU vs Bama on AA and then on Heismen to see how the game plays right out of the box.

What about yall

We were thinking of starting an OD with no names and shorter quarters just to get a feel for GP and recruiting. Probably pick a random 3 star team and just fire it up on AA recruiting and AI.

First thing I will do is fire it up and play a quick game with KSU. I've played the demo probably 50 times so I wanna play a quick one to see if the actual game feels, looks or plays any different.

After I get the game at midnight at my local GameStop I hurry my ass back to my house, open the game and create my custom playbook. Then once I'm done I usually start right up with an online game and play the whole night.

Usally my and Virus start up a DYN. We always do a 3star limit on teams so we can build them up. We usually go straight to rosters and sort on specific ratings like THA or find the RB with the most trucking, and test them out to see which 3star teams we want to use the most. So tomorrow I will grab ASU and play someone in a friendly match to see how bad they are...

I think I'm going to start my offline dynasty with either a 1-star team, trying to make it big, or with Oregon State right away. And while in Dynasty I can obviously play the games and get a feel for it. And recruiting as well! I love recruiting.

And probably because the default rosters have odd people with dreads and wrong facemasks I think I'll adjust it for myself. But that's after a 8-hour marathon with a dynasty lol

I'm havin a tough time this year debating on who to be in my offline DYN. Usually I'm the Irish and lead them to the promise land. This year, however, I'm really excited about Utah State. I know their conference sucks, but maybe i'll stick em in the Mtn. West cuz thats where they're headed next year(if u can still customize conferences??). If I could win a NC with Ags would be pretty gratifying. It just might take 8-10 seasons lol

Nice, very nice.

Yeah I might have to dive into an offline dyn with SDSU right off the bat, maybe sim a season and start over or something a couple times to get a feel for recruiting. I had recruiting in NCAA 11 and 12 down pat but I am gonna have to learn the nuances of the new system

Anyone who wants to get some friendly games tomorrow night can hit me up. I love to test new teams out vs users without ruining my online record lol. I got like 5-5 teams who I need to test...

Well I am hoping that by this time tomorrow night it will be finished downloading. Good shit fellas almost there

for sure, ill be up til about midnight or so so ill play you

Damn 7.58 gigs

Lol, Ill check my TV arund midnight

Hey I am still pretty new to the 360 guys, if I never set any sort of power save function my 360 wont shut off mid-download will it?

No ur cool.... I just had my wife start the download while I'm at work haha...

im gettin it tonight, not even sure ill play it ton, but ill prob play a few cpu games to get a feel

Just played my first game, Northwestern (me) vs Oklahoma (at Northwestern)

Everything default, AA diff

I lost 35-14. Threw 3 picks, was sacked twice. Had 71 rushing yards on 22 attempts. CPU wemt 7-7 passing for 141 yards, 91 rushing yards on 17 attempts.

I honestly felt like it played a pretty clean game of football. The bottom line is, the problems that people have that are always there every year are still there (movement, blocking) but the game felt pretty smooth. I was burned deep on a cover 3 play call which I will just chalk up to OU having better players than NU.

First impression: Luke-Warm/Positive

I will play a few more games later tonight, gotta head out for a while

I ran it back with 8 min QTRs and am getting a very different experience, this time it is me Northwestern, hosting Ohio State. At the end of the first QTR I am up 13-0. Hit a deep ball against cover 2 zone (why they were in cover 2 on third and long concerns me only because the CPU did this a LOT in the demo) and I picked off Braxton Miller twice. I can't finish the game but saw some more things I liked in this one QTR of play.

When I get home later I am gonna bump it up to heisman and see how that plays. The new passing is definitely a winner. I am seeing some errant throws when either side tries to lead the ball too much and thats on default AA! Im happy with that

Here are some more thoughts.

I really like how the CPU qb scrambles now, its legit.

I really like the passing.

I really like the auto-drop backs and the new animations

I really like the user controlled option game now

I don't like seeing some really weird CPU quirks, safeties in cover 4 not covering anybody deep (really shocked to see this, a lot of people on OS posting about it too, this was a problem when the game came out last year too), or sometimes the read and react defense glitches and instead of following my WR on a double move, the CPU AI will follow the guy right next to him and leave the guy wide open for no reason. I am sure this will get patched.

I feel like graphically it is a strong game, and the crowd noise is better than before though still not where I would want it.

CPU just still does dumbass shit sometimes that makes me shake my head, this will probably always be an issue with EA football games though

Thus far, after one night, I feel the same way a lot of guys on OS do (read the impression thread). There are improvements here for sure, and a solid base, but it needs tweaking.

After week 7 we are 5-2 with Virginia. Losses to GT and TCU both on the road. Last 5 games have been heisman difficulty and after the two losses we bumped CPU pass coverage and ints down to 45. The CPU is smarter on heisman but I really didn't wanna go there this early. The only really dumb game we had was at Duke and they just sucked bad. I guess I've seen a few weird coverage mistakes but it certainly hasn't seemed consistantly broken or anything. CPU needs to throw screens quicker (get sacked too much on em). The crowd and band is awesome. All in all I'm in so far.

Well my ritual just went to pieces. My gamestop has done a midnight release for this game for the past 3 years and I've gone every time. So I go this year and they don't have one. And they even called to remind me to come at midnight. extremely pissed off

lol damn man that sucks!

Wtf?

THey called and actually said it was a midnight release?

How much money do you have on it there? Is there a wal-mart in your area?

Yea the wal mart is right next to the gamestop. And the game is fully paid, all i had to do was just pick it up. And yea they said be there for the midnight release. And not a soul was there.

Same thing I do every year fired up a Vt (me) vs Boston College game, put it on heisman and had a blast, I ended up winning 41-17 the computer make me pay on a few mistakes like a INT and fumble. I like the way the cpu can run the ball this year. If you get caught up on a OL guy you are screwed. So controlling the LB will be a little different having to wait back for the guy at times. Overall I like it. Now its time to fire up my New Mexico dynasty! Love taking this 1 star team every year and working them up

You using rosters?

Yeah, I just took some from over at OS, they arent great but I rather just have the players names on there.