NCAA Football 2003

The Spirit of College Football

NA release: 20th July 2002
JP release: N/A
EU release: N/A
Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Sports
NGC Magazine Score: N/A
Mods Used: None

Considering this is an EA Sports American Football game from the same developer as Madden, I was simply expecting this College Football game to just be a slight variant of Madden 2003. Surprisingly, it feels completely different.

The way you choose plays has reverted back to previous games, so I still haven’t got much of a clue about what I’m doing there, but the running and dodging feels much, much better, letting you get some breakout touchdowns.

The options for customising your own team are great. You pick your name, logo and design your kit and a team of players is generated. If you want, you can further customise these and create your own players. One feature I particularly enjoyed was the ability to design your own stadium, with different stands, settings, fields and other little touches.

On top of some various robust career modes, there’s also mascot matches, where you can play where all the players are dressed as each college’s mascot (and there are a lot of them), which makes for some amusing matches. I was quite surprised by this.

Fun

Forget about best college games, NCAA Football 2003 is the best football game out there for serious football videogamers. It has an inherent advantage over NFL titles because college football itself features the most wide open gameplay south of the CFL and ain’t nobody hankering to play as the Montreal Alouettes any time soon. Every videogame is supposed to include a dose of fantasy in a believable world and college football is no different. It’s like you’re the athletic director, university president and coach all rolled into one and everything you say goes.
Aaron Boulding, IGN

Remake or remaster?

EA have just brough College Football back, although I have no idea how it compares.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get NCAA Football 2003.