EA Sports College Football 25 : retour mitigé sur PS5

EA Sports College Football 25 Review (PS5)

Ten years is a long time to wait for another entry in a game, especially in a franchise that once had yearly releases.

EA Sports College Football 25 looks to pick up where NCAA 14 left off. Unfortunately, a lot of what made the NCAA special and popular among football game fans is missing.

Giving It The Old College Try

Naturally, playing the game of football in EA Sports College Football 25 stands as the biggest draw to picking up the game in the first place. For the most part, the experience looks and feels much like other EA football games before it. Perhaps to a fault, it seems like the developers considered this difference when working on this game. Highly skilled players react exactly as you expect them to. However, the mid and low-grade players play some sloppy football.

I got my first dose of this on an onside kick. The ball bounced past the block team, as expected, but the receiving player started after the ball far too early. The player performed an animation for scooping up the ball, but he stood 10 yards away from the ball. Since this animation triggered early, the player did not adapt to where the ball actually was.

Thankfully it only happened the one time, but it was a sign of things to come as I continually noticed the hyperbolic way players interact with each other on the field. Many times I move a defender to tackle a strictly forward-moving ball carrier to egregiously miss the tackle. This happens often. Naturally, this occurs far more often when trying to cause fumbles. In general, defense is not this game’s strong suit.

The Influence of Broadcasting

With each sports game comes its own twist on how a TV broadcast looks and feels. These scenes inject much of what makes EA Sports College Football special. The band belting fight songs between players, fans in the stands cheering, and the commentary narrating the experience. As expected, these get relatively lengthy. An argument can be made that 20 to 30 seconds is manageable to sit through. But when you sit through multiple 20 or 30 second cutscenes 10 or more times a game, it adds up.

At least 200 seconds of these cutscenes per match, over however many matches the average player might get through in a session is an even greater time-sink. And you can’t skip these cutscenes. You can skip some of them, but not all, and there’s no way to tell the difference.

Priority Road to Glory

As mentioned at the top, EA Sports College Football 25 is missing two major things that made the NCAA franchise a fan favorite. The first is being able to customize your roster. In all likelihood, this omission won’t affect everyone’s enjoyment of the game, with the modern focus on online modes where this isn’t an issue. For careers mode fans though, this is a significant blow.

The second is a biggie for me personally. Dynasty players you create as well as dynasty draft classes cannot be exported to this year’s Madden. The compromise here, of sorts, comes with the ability to export your Road to Glory player. Road to Glory only lets you play as a quarterback, running back, wide receiver, linebacker, or cornerback.

In previous games, I enjoyed playing as a safety and a tight end as well, and building them up into the NFL experience felt so cool. Tight ends play a major role in football, so seeing this position omitted of all of them hits the hardest.

Dynasty With Compromise

Dynasty Mode limits your ability to customize your teams. Certain things like player numbers and uniforms can be adjusted, but their names, images, and likenesses cannot be changed. This allows the players to fiscally benefit from their image appearing in the game. This is a very fair and sensible trade-off for existing players.

That’s not my issue, my issue is that not being able to make your own roster in Dynasty Mode feels so limiting. Maybe EA plans to release this in a later patch, or perhaps it appears in next year’s game. For now, EA Sports College Football 25 lacks significant player customization in Dynasty Mode.

Now, what I absolutely love about Dynasty Mode is playing as a coach. Sometimes, I don’t want to play the game of football but instead mess with numbers and players and team building. Dynasty Mode makes this fun. On the fly, you can make it as simple or as involved as you want. I think it’s being able to influence numbers and build school acclaim, but seeing potential recruits and doing what I can to bring them to my team just feels fun.

It gives me a similar rush when pulling for cards in Ultimate Team modes but without wasting time or money to get more in-game currency. With Ultimate Team being its standard affair, having a more involved Dynasty Mode will keep me invested in EA Sports College Football 25 for much longer.

A Serviceable Return to A Beloved Franchise

For a return, EA Sports College Football 25 does a lot right. Strengthening Dynasty Mode and bringing back Road to Glory help to establish a foundation for the franchise’s comeback. The offensive experience feels more emboldened than ever. Running still feels great, and the revamped controls give you more control in the passing game than ever before.

Playing defense feels limited, with lesser ranked players flubbing up plays, creating chunk plays that just feel cheap. Then, creating players is only available in Road to Glory and not Dynasty Mode. Also, Road to Glory doesn’t allow you to play all available positions.

To top it off, the game doesn’t show you all the controls, making the first few hours feel like a chore that could easily turn people off. It’s not perfect execution in the least, but there’s enough here for fans of the sport and college ball to have a good old time.

EA Sports College Football 25 is available now on PS5.

Review code kindly provided by the publisher.

Source : www.psu.com