NCAA Football 2004 Critic Reviews

Throughout the action, the controls handle sweetly, combining the depth of a large number of moves with smooth playability.

If you're a "Madden" fan you are definitely going to love owning this game. It offers a faster play clock, fast pace, more action, and a lot less emphasis on possession and clock management.

The basic game play is nearly identical to that of last year's version, but the College Classics feature makes the update worthwhile.

No videogame fan, let alone a college football fan, should miss the experience of this complete game. Not many sports games recently can say they have all the simulation must-haves and all the fun arcade elements that make a sports game fun to play.

This game is so good, it's almost impossible to think that there's a possibility that the NCAA Football series can improve.

The real reason to pick up this version over last year's are the presentation upgrades.

The option is a huge part of college football, and Tiburon has done an extraordinary job of replicating it in NCAA Football.

The Cube game looks the worst of the three and the controller is a bit frustrating to tackle, so while the game is still fun on its own, if you own another system, leave your Cube for Link and hit the field on your PS2 or Xbox.

The new teams are the big draw here. The game has been tweaked and seems to be a fuller experience.

Online play isn't an option here, and the training mode is nowhere to be found. While the core game is still fun, there is little reason to choose the GameCube version unless the little purple box is your sole game system.

Solid through and through and the new animations are nice, but the changes for this year aren't the kind which make you alter the way you play the game. For a long-running series, this is what's needed to keep it fresh.

If you're a casual college football fan and you already own last year's game, then there really isn't a huge reason for you to buy the Xbox or GameCube versions of the game, especially since neither features online play. But if you're a hard-core fan, then you will certainly enjoy all of the new features.

Despite the unfortunate lack of online compatibility in both the Xbox and GC versions of NCAA Football 2004, this is still the premiere college football game and is clearly the best of its breed. If you also own a PS2, though, I'd go with that version instead.

This might be the football game of the year.

It's so full of bells and whistles that the gameplay seems almost secondary.

In many respects, NCAA Football 2004 is deeper than its NFL counterparts. In fact, it's the best football game currently available for the GameCube. However, if you own multiple consoles, the PlayStation 2 version boasts inferior visuals but rather impressive online play, and the Xbox version has noticeably better graphics.