Another year, another incarnation of EA Sports' NCAA Football franchise. I buy this game every year just hoping that it will make some evolutionary leap, and every year I am disappointed.

Is this a bad game? No

It's just the same game I've been playing since 1999. Sure the players on the field look better than in '97 (the game runs at 60 fps with very few hiccups), but at some point you would think EA would take a real leap with the gameplay. I've been playing this game for a few weeks and I can't think of one new gameplay feature worth mentioning.

Heck, the big draw this year is that Erin Andrews is the host of the Road to Glory mode. Sure, she looks good, but how does this make the game play any better?  

Oh, that's right, it doesn't.

There is some tweaking of how the game is played, you can choose how aggressive or conserviative you want your players to play. You can tell your O-line to block longer in an attempt to break longs runs, but the only thing that seems to change is the number of holding calls. These options seem to work best with the receivers. The more aggressive you are, the quicker they tend to run deep ... and I mean really deep. To the point where if you are scrambling around as a QB, you might as well tuck and run. That said, if you are losing (which does not happen often), you can run all of your receivers on hitch routes, and almost as soon as they end the route they run deep. So, you get to run a Hail Mary without actually calling a Hail Mary.

I can still throw a 50 yard bomb and complete it 90% of the time and if you have a halfback with 95 speed, just run to the outside and you get 20 yards each play.

The AI is still more than a little odd (an AI Tim Tebow can break one on the option and randomly run out of bounds), but they do play the option better. If you are an option team, they will defend you as an option team. There are some nifty D-line controls with the analog stick, but I found they only responded about 50% of the time.

There are the usual stat glitches with the game. Your defensive end starts year two of your dynasty with the 54 tackles and 12 sacks from last season. It's great if you are trying to break an all-time record, but frustrating if you are not an EA fanboy.

But the thing that bothers me most about this game? The crowd and the sidelines. They are still using the same 16 bit pixilated crowds that they have for years. This does not affect the gameplay, but when you finally get a close game and you get wrapped up in the action, seeing the same row of 10 fans jump up and down in perfect sync ruins the experience. Or better yet, you get a pick-six and as you are running past your team on the sideline, the seven guys standing there jump one every few seconds, and it appears to be in slow motion. Oh and where is the coaching staff?

Sure the game is still fun, but it wears thin very quickly. It's like running into an old friend at the mall. You might have lunch with them and enjoy it, but once you notice that uni-brow and how they eat with their mouth open, you find a reason to leave early and trade them in for a better friend.