Hellisan, one of the resident NCAA experts at Maddenmania.com recently posted a review of the Virtual Playbook for NCAA Football 08 up on their website. I've included it here as well:
I have had the opportunity to meet Bert of VG Sports (maddenguides) a couple of times, and he is one of the nicest individuals you could ever hope to encounter. I've also met Paul, aka Kobra, the man with the voice who tirelessly breaks down gameplay and strategy. Each of them display a passion for the world of video football. I recently had a chance to look at the 2008 version of the Virtual Playbook.
The NCAA Virtual Playbook for NCAA Football 08 comes in three parts:
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PART ONE - includes rosters for every Division 1 team in the game including attributes, as well as another section with the team ratings for every Division 1 team. Part one also includes the offensive playbooks for each of the Top 25 teams in the game, as well as five additional playbooks that are noteworthy: Hawaii, Navy, Nevada, Purdue, and the West Coast playbook.
Each of the playbooks include every formation and play within each of these formations, all neatly organized (and printable) from the eBook setup. This would be fantastic for perusing playbooks to find one that suits you, to print yours up for study, or even to scout the workings of an opposing team. Each of the five defensive playbooks are available as well.
Finally, part one also includes a section that shows the top 20 players at each position in the game, sorted by OVR rating and including important individual ratings like Speed, AWR, THP and THA for quarterbacks. This is useful if you're not sure what team you want to use and you need good players at certain positions that suit your style of play.
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PART TWO - the nuts and bolts of the guide. This is what everybody is looking for: strategy articles and information to improve your offensive game. Whatever your weakness or strength, there is going to be information on how you could improve within this guide.
I won't list out every section that is covered in the playbook, because it would take too much time and space, but suffice to say that there's a lot of information to be gleaned. For instance, under the "The Passing Game" header, there's a sub-header called "fundamentals" which has the following topics: General passing tips, Using the Pocket, Manual Catching, Spectacular catch, Route Combinations, and Play action. There are also two additional sub-headers under the Passing header, "Pre-Snap," and "Schemes and Tactics." If you ask me, the schemes and tactics section is where Virtual Guides makes their money - and delivers on the purchaser's investment. There are 13 topics under this sub-header, and each includes detailed information on an aspect of the passing game that are extremely helpful.
Virtual Guides doesn't just give you re-hashed takes like "watch the safeties to beat zone coverage," they actually give you route combinations that are effective against the different kinds of zones you'll see the most, and show you what reads to make while attacking each type of zone defense. These aren't specific plays, they are route combinations that are found in just about every playbook. That way, no matter what playbook you're using, the tips will apply.
A lot of the focus within Part 2 is centered around building a scheme and a style all your own. Whatever it might be, the guide will give you a way to really hone your strategy down to an attack that is very difficult to stop.
Our favorite part of Part 2 is a section that details 19 different general styles of offensive attacks, including ones you might not know how to effectively run, like the Pistol Formation popularized by Nevada. I would recommend the playbook if you wanted to become a better player, even if it didn't include the other two parts.
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PART THREE - It's only half the battle to score on offense, so part three focuses on the defensive side of the ball. This section could be considered the yin to part two's yang. A lot of the same fundamental schemes you just studied up on, you'll now be reading about how to stop. This is especially helpful for online play, because many people who play online would rather just skip to the next time they have the football. They figure if they score every time they have the ball, there's no way they can lose. But if you're well versed on both sides of the ball, you become truly dangerous. That's what this section is designed to help you do.
You'll read about how to cover up "bubbles" in your defensive front when you have to stop the run, effectively disguise your blitzes, and so on. There's also detailed information about how to use the new hit stick and other controls not found in the previous generation of NCAA football video games.
Overall, this portion of the guide details even further than the offensive side the differences in the new game. Topics like mid-air collisions, the new play-calling screen, and many other topics that cover the next-gen style of play. Of course, since the guide is all about the next-gen game to begin with that would be expected, but it's especially useful for someone like myself, who just stepped up to the next-gen system more recently.
What I really like about the defensive portion the most is that it will give you specific strategies and ideas for stopping the different styles you'll come across while playing online. There's a section that talks about defending compression (tight packages), defending the halfback middle routes, the flats, and quick fades, among others. It really helps with that "he's killing me and there's nothing I can do to stop him" feeling that you might occasionally get online.
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Despite MaddenMania's long-standing and valued relationship with VG Sports over the years, I'd never ponied up to see what one of their products really looked like. I'd like to thank Bert for giving me a look at what their product is all about. I'm very impressed by it; whether you're trying to win in the no-holds barred world of online play where the final outcome is all that matters, or playing in a more straight up league, or even playing in dynasty mode, you'll find a lot of ammunition to improve your game in this guide.
For more information about how you can get this guide, go to www.collegefootballtips.com
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