Day 56, Game 56 - NCAA Football 13

OK sports fans, let's be real here for a minute. When the football season is in the off-season, sports in general just aren't that interesting. I said last week, on a podcast that I was on, that the NBA All-Star weekend was the worst weekend in sports all year. Unless you were a hockey or regular season college basketball fan, there was nothing to watch even remotely interesting. Well, a week later, and I honestly don't feel that much different about the previous weekend and now.

Sure, we have competitive NBA games, and while teams are starting to jockey for playoff position, there are only a couple teams outside of the playoff race that can make a push into the playoffs. It just isn't that interesting. Baseball spring training started, and while I am super pumped about the upcoming MLB regular season, there is nothing to watch currently. All we get are news stories about how bad the Yankees are going to be. While that isn't something I am opposed to, it just gets old after a while.

Hockey is still blah, NASCAR is driving in circles and car crashes and even those aren't fun anymore (what? too soon?). College basketball STILL isn't interesting, and won't be until the tournament starts. Golf isn't fun or worth watching except the Majors, and that's only if the big names are playing to win on the last day. So that leaves football, which unfortunately, isn't played year-round. There is a bit of football going on, however, thanks to the over hyped, over analyzed and over covered NFL combine. But hey, if LBs running 40-yard dashes gets better ratings than other, actual competitive sports on TV, then more power to the powers that be making those TV network decisions.

Because of this sports lull, and in honor of college athletes trying to show off why they deserve to be in the NFL, I decided to give NCAA Football 13 a whirl. I had high hopes for this game, but I'm not quite sure why. Maybe because the visuals in Madden are so pretty now, I expected NCAA to be on par. I should have remembered that wasn't the case from reviews when the game came out, but alas, I can't remember every little detail like that. I'm not saying the graphics are bad, just not jaw-dropping like I hoped they would be.

I played a few different games tonight. For one, I just wanted to experience the game as a whole, but then it turned into flat out trophy hunting. I'm not even ashamed of it either. To get a lot a trophies in the this game, you would have to dump some serious hours into all the different modes featured. If you were all about playing this game and nothing else, that would be a breeze. But for me, I find sports games in general (not just this one) tedious and repetitive after a while. But hey, I know LOTS of people who will play multiple seasons and careers in a game, playing each game of each season. I appreciate the dedication, buy my ADD won't let that happen.

The absolute best feature of this game is the Heisman mode, where you can play as a former Heisman winner for a season in an attempt to replicate or better their award winning season, all while trying to win the coveted prize at the end. It's a really cool concept, but even better, they got the legend Barry Sanders to be apart of it. I tell you what, I haven't had so much fun playing as a RB in a football game since, well, I played THIS GAME. Barry is one of the best football players I can remember ever watching, and being able to play as him in a game, where I actually felt like I was controlling him, was SWEET. I was surging to get the trophy for winning the Heisman with Barry. That is, until the game froze up and I lost everything. Awesome.

Well, I don't plan on wasting much time playing this game, but it did rejuvenate the sports fan in me. Maybe I can start enjoying some sports again. Or I can just keep watching guys do football drills in front of hundreds of people. Either way, it's nice to be back in the sports mood.

On a side note, I am in the beginning stages of doing something special for the March Madness tourney coming up soon. Of course, it will be video game related. Look for it, if I go through with my idea, up shortly. It might be an epic crash and burn of an idea, or the greatest thing since a sliced bread maker ... we will see!

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