by:	July 06, 2004

The competition for best collegiate football video game of the year is going to be intense. I mean come one, let’s look at the competitors who are vying for the title. There’s EA’s NCAA Football 2005, then there’s….umm…wait, that’s it. Sega hasn’t made a College football game since 2K3 and 989 Studios’ entire football and basketball line-up is on hold. Even if 989 made a game, EA pretty much has a monopoly on the college football video games. Don’t tell that to EA though, they seem to be competing with someone (internal demons maybe?) and knowledge of the current status of the “competition” might affect there work ethic. Each annual version of EA’s game shows more improvement than its alter-ego Madden, and there are no signs of that progress slowing down. This year will be no different with a few new features and the biggest announcement of all, XBOX LIVE SUPPORT. Yea, you read correct. For the first time ever, Xbox users will be able to enjoy online play and features such as tournaments, roster updates, and more. This means that PC, PS2, and Xbox users can play online (sorry, no cross platform has been announced), leaving the Gamecube in the offline-only pond. No longer will people have to deal with the inferior PS2 version of the game to play online. Xbox has a better online system even without EA support, this is just icing on the cake. NCAA Football will be the first EA game online followed by Madden 2005, the rest of the EA sports line-up and a few other EA games.