his franchise has built itself up nicely after its no-frills next-gen debut last year. But the problem I found while playing it wasn’t dissimilar to the Uncanny Valley. The more realistic the catch animations were, the more I realized that they were actually gratuitous. The more I reveled in the recruiting options, the more I questioned them. NCAA Football 08 is a fun college experience, but it falls short of greatness.

The strongest leap forward the series makes is simply how it feels. It’s smooth and fairly responsive. Its jump to 60 frames per second is overdue. This gratification, in conjunction with the myriad animations, makes your Saturdays come alive. Although I almost never think twice about replays, the work put into integrating these into your collegiate shrine is really cool, and just another piece of the puzzle that gives NCAA that rah-rah feeling.

I’m glad to see Campus Legend make its debut – especially since the camera has been improved since its use in Madden. Another key fix in place is the ability to sim to only the moments you are on the field. Finally, I applaud having the option to work my way up the depth chart – it makes practicing during the week important.

The game’s other big feature is the new way recruiting is handled. Searching for, finding, and keeping tabs on recruits is very easy, and there are now a number of topics to talk to your prospects about. As deep as this sounds, the more I spent time recruiting, the more frustrated I became. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to a recruit’s thinking. Therefore, you spend lots of time on the phone throwing darts in the dark and getting hung up on. It’s not unlike trying to find a date in high school.

Unfortunately, these niggling annoyances transfer onto the field, where the passing game can be a letdown. There’s no location-based passing, so you can’t pick if you want to throw over your receiver’s left shoulder, for instance. This greatly affects your placement and causes unnecessarily reckless throws – as does your QB’s inconsistent ability to put loft on the ball. Your receivers, for their part, don’t help you any because they often break off their routes and seem incapable of catching the ball over their shoulder, instead insisting on making unrealistic showboat catches that only lose them yards.

For all that it does right, perhaps it’s telling that this series has improved its presentation off of the field, while still lacking some of it on the field. It’s these kind of intangibles (and those above) that need to be addressed to unify all of NCAA’s elements – as well as some of them are done – to create the ultimate college football experience.