NCAA Football 11

Now I dont know about you guys, but I was very excited about the release of NCAA Football 11; and it didnt disappoint! Overall the game has improved a lot since last year. The menus are different, the gameplay is different, and the game is overall better. 
 
The first thing you see when you load up NCAA is the menu screen. Everything now is a scroll feature, where one row has Play Now, Mascot Mash Up, Practice, and a one button mode (for noobs). Another row has Dynasty, Online Dynasty, and Road to Glory mode. There last important row is the Xbox Live row for all online games( and teambuilder). The Menu's look very well done (especially in HD) and are suprisingly easy to use. These menus make a great first impression even before playing the game. 
 
Next off are the jerseys. I guess EA decided to nurture are needs and give us A LOT of jerseys! The pro combat jerseys look very good and there are many alternate jerseys for many teams(not all though). These jerseys just add a touch to the great gameplay that comes into play. 
 
This years gameplay has taken a tremendous turn.... towards Madden. They have added the gang tackles from Madden which makes NCAA more realistic. The game has also been turned down a notch(literally). The game speed has been turned down to Madden style. In my opinion, I liked the fast paced style of NCAA but i guess many gamers didnt :( The good thing about this is it makes it easier to run the ball, and pass because you have more time to look around the field, and hopefully not throw an interception to the AI. Speaking of the AI, they have been turned up tremendously this year. Last year I could beat the computer 70-0 on Heisman;  but this year, if I play on All-American with a mildly decent team, its a tighter game. Overall the gameplay improvements have made the game more challenging, while still maintaining the new smell of the game.  
 
My absolute favorite mode in NCAA has to be Online Dynasty. Get together with your friends and battle it out for the National Championship, or Conference Title. I hadnt heard to much about this mode, so I was skeptical that EA wasnt gonna update it at all; but surely enough MAJOR CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE. First off, when you start an Online Dynasty you DO NOT have to ask your friend, 'um excuse me mister? but what team do you want to be?" THOSE DAYS ARE OVER! now your friend can choose what team they want to be. Now that thats out of the way.... The Pre-Season is very well done where you can do all the redshirting, depth chart, and recruiting all in one week instead of them being their own weeks and having to advance. But once you get into the Regular Season you see the setup really shine. There is the column that you start out on that shows you highlights of your earlier game along with a more info button. Playing your game, Recruiting, and advancign the week can also be done by this column. The 2nd column is Dynasty Central. This column shows all the users in the Online Dynasty, who they are playing, and the score of their game. The next column is the ESPN column. This shows the Top Stories, Scores/Schedules, Top 25 polls, Conference Standings, Heisman Watch, Players of the Week, and Toughest Places to Play. Next is the Team Management where you can view your depth chart, edit your roster, shows your coaching philosophy(percentage of the plays you want to run EX: 60%passing - 40% running), view the injury report, practice with your team, and even do formation subs. The next column is the Stats and Records. These show the season stats, career stats, team stats, school records, and NCAA records. Also on the right side it shows the Passing Leaders, and by pressing the LB/RB button you can view the Rushing Leaders, Recieving Leaders, Tackle Leaders, Sack and Interception Leaders.  
 
Do you remember when you wasted minutes on a guy trying to recruit them in Online Dynasty? Well not anymore. Now you call them by how many topics you want to talk about. 1 topic = 10 min, 2 topics = 20 mins, etc, all the way up to 6 topics. Also you can not offer a guy a scholarship by Quick Calling him ; now it counts as one of your topics. Also new this year is the point system for Recruiting. When you have a new recruit and you call him and lets say the topic is Pro Potential but it is unknown how much he likes it, you click sentence that asks him what he thinks about it, and the more he likes it the more points you get towards him liking you. Now next time you call this guy and you land on Pro Potential you can pitch it to him. If he is Very High on the subject and your school has an A+ then you will get around 70 points ; but lets say he is Very High on this same subject but your school is a C+ at it, then you will get around 25 points. Their are two bad things about this system. First off, the topic is randomly selected, but you do get chances to switch the topic if you dont like it (twice a call). Also, recruiting takes vast amounts of time this year. Overall, you will be happy with Online Dynasty mode this year and will like how the recruiting works. 
 
NCAA Football 2011 is a majpr upgrade since the predecessor and lives up to the hype. It exceeds in gameplay, menus, and most importantly.... the dynasty modes. Hopefully this review helps choose as to whether you should buy this game or not.