NCAA Football '07 - E3 Preview by Jason "Rodzilla" Rodzik   Posted on May 17, 2006   NCAA Football ’07 is the next installment in EA’s college football franchise, featuring updated rosters, but more noticeably, updated graphics and animations. The first thing I noticed when playing the game was that the interface for selecting plays had been revamped. Instead of being presented with three options for the play layouts, you now had a view of six different options on screen at once, making it much easier and quicker to find the desired play, saving precious seconds on the clock. When the football game was about to begin, I was given a fly-over view of the stadium, which was amazingly detailed and true to the actual stadium as it exists today. While previous games have attempted to do this, none have come close to the level of detail that NCAA Football ’07 presents. As the first play was about to begin I noticed that the details of the players were also greatly improved over the previous game, and the distinction between watching someone play this game and watching a real game on TV is beginning to become even less distinguishable. In addition to graphical updates, the animations have been heavily overhauled as well. Player movements now look incredibly lifelike, with noticeable foot movement and appropriate running/walking animations, as opposed to feet simply sliding around on the ground. No matter what type of movement a player was performing it looked essentially real, and while previous games have featured the traditional tackle movement of players diving/falling over on the ground and touching a player, NCAA Football ’07 fully animates each attempted tackle and the interaction between the ball carrier and the tackler. Emotions have also been more heavily integrated into the game, with each player’s emotions and their reactions directly corresponding to in-game events. For example, one of my receivers had both hands on a perfect pass and then dropped the ball at the last minute. It was perfectly clear from his expression and physical movements that he was mad at himself as he stomped away and then brushed it off and joined the team for the next play. Despite the tremendous graphical improvements, I don’t really see much of a compelling reason for owners of NCAA Football ’06 to rush out and buy NCAA ’07. However, for those looking for an amazingly lifelike college football game, look no further.