Side Quests: College Football 25 Review - Returning To Glory

Sports games have always had a special place in my heart since I was a kid and were some of my first console games. Many hours were spent playing College Football 97’ on the Sega Genesis. So, when EA shut down the production and development of college football games after the release of the 2014 installment, it was a gut check for fans like me. Fast forward a meager 11 years later, and the glorious College Football franchise has returned.

A huge point that EA touted in their marketing leading up to CFB 25’s release was the overall update to in-game presentation and how that would be a main focus. Schools and teams have long standing traditions of pre-game entrances and post game celebrations and the ones I was able to watch all looked great. So, bravo to EA for taking the time to ensure these were included and for taking great detail to get the presentation of such things right.

One aspect of College Football 25 I was super excited to see was the updated presentation during gameplay. In previous versions of the game, all you got was your play-call window and maybe some game stats. Now, I was able to see multiple windows of information that were directly tied to what was going on in the game. Replays, stats, conference standings, or even the wear and tear status of my team’s players—all of it presented on screen, easy to see.

Commentary for various modes was great—at first. Yet, over time, it became repetitive and stale. While EA did a great job bringing in multiple actual college football analysts to do voice lines (much like they do with NFL analysts in Madden), some of the in-game voice lines get repeated often, which I ran into on multiple occasions during dynasty mode. 

Other times, it did not sync up to the situation in the game. As an example, as I was playing a team, the commentary came up and reported on a game happening elsewhere. The problem was that they mentioned the team I was playing but in a completely different game.

Basic tackling and hitting feel