Reviewed: February 16, 2006
Reviewed by: Richard Cross

Publisher
Grey Dog Software

Developer
Grey Dog Software

Released: December 9, 2005
Genre: Sports Simulation
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone

9
8
7
10
9.1

System Requirements

  • Windows 2000/XP
  • Pentium III 2.0GHz
  • 512MB RAM or higher
  • 1024x768 with 32-bit color
  • 20GB hard drive space
  • Optical Mouse

    Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)

    		•
    There is one word that comes to mind when I play Bowl Bound College Football, and that word is massive! Bowl Bound College Football, referred to as BBCF in this review, is a college football text simulation game from Grey Dog Software.

    Those of you that are familiar with text sports simulations may remember Mr. Arlie Rahn, creator of BBCF, from some of his earlier creations. Mr. Rahn was the creator of Total Pro Football 2004 and Tournament Dreams College Basketball to name a few. Total Pro Football 2004 is still one of my favorite sports simulations and the sim community has continued to play and support this great product.

    Here are just a few of the features found in Bowl Bound College Football:

    • Specialize in six distinct college offenses and seven college defenses
    • Choose from 15 college-based offensive formations and 10 defensive formations
    • Customizable playbook that can incorporate over 350 offensive and defensive plays
    • Streamlined gameplan that makes use of your playbook preferences
    • Accurate simulation engine
    • In-depth recruiting process
    • College transfers and early declaring juniors
    • Full college budget involving college and recruit scouting, conditioning, assistant coaches, academics and other main priorities
    • Summer training program to maximize player development
    • Detailed play-by-play results that provide the actual play call, formations and specific results for better team management
    • Full historical archive that tracks all players, team performance and career leaders over time
    In BBCF, you take on the role of a head coach in the world of college football. You are ultimately responsible for the success or failure of your entire college football team. You are also responsible for the success of your coaching staff. Your team has certain strengths and weaknesses, and the board also has certain expectations that you must meet each year. There are a total of nine categories that you can manage. These categories include the following:
    • Budget
    • Gameplan
    • Off-season training
    • Player recruiting
    • Player transfers
    • Scheduling
    • Staff hiring and firing
    • Student academics
    • Team roster and depth chart
    It was nice of Grey Dog to give you the option of allowing the computer to handle some of these management choices for you. The setting to allow the computer to manage these options is in the options menu and is called “staff delegation”.

    The one thing that I would note here, though, is that BBCF does not come with the real NCAA player rosters. The game includes all fictional players and fictional teams. There have been numerous user mods created by the sim community that are available free-of-charge. These mods include the real player names, arena logos, and team graphics. The user mods also include instructions on how to install and use them and are readily available on the Internet.

    The one thing that I need to emphasize is that there are many more options available in BBCF than what I cover in this review. The good news is that you can download the demo from Grey Dog Software and you can actually try the game for free to see if it is worthy of your hard earned cash. I believe that you will find that it is and I encourage you to download it and try it out.

    When you first begin the game, you have to create or load your league. As I said before, you will be responsible for all of the coaching decisions if you so choose. There are numerous options available when you create your own league. This game is all about customization and it starts at the very beginning of the game. I am thrilled that GDS actually put in a map of sorts that shows the game’s stages. This feature actually shows you the steps that you need to follow to complete that stage of the game. Once you have completed the current step, you check the box and continue on to the next step.

    Obviously, you don’t have to be a creative genius to come up with your team, league, and division names; you can just select the computer generated names and begin playing. You also have the option of selecting the league name, the championship trophy, and the starting year of your franchise. From here, you then choose if you would like this to be a single player or multiplayer game. The postseason can also consist of bowl games or playoffs whichever you choose. Like I said before, this game is all about customization. There are many more options to choose from, but for now, we are going to continue creating our league and begin the football season.

    Of course, being a Purdue Alumnus, I chose the head coaching job at Purdue. My team is expected to finish in the top 20 nationally and around second in the Big Ten Conference. I thought that this was a reasonable request considering I have never played real college football before.

    The next step before the actual season begins is the off-season camp. This is where you get to spend the team budget, select a scouting service, setup the team roster, select your formations, set your game schedule, and view your possible recruits. There is a lot more to organizing the budget than I would have ever thought possible. For example, if you want one of the best scouting services, you are going to pay more for it than you would a less talented one. In doing so, you end up limiting the funds that you have available for the rest of the process. During your budget setup, you get to set spending amounts on the categories listed below:

    • The five recruiting regions on the map
    • Recruiting positions (i.e.: QB, RB, etc.)
    • Staff positions (i.e.: medical, conditioning, academic, etc.)
    • College scouting
    Once the budget has been set it’s time for the games to begin. I actually scheduled my first two games to be against the Akron Zips and the Ball State Cardinals. I figured these two choices would be easy teams to beat and they were thrilled to accept the invitation to play at my home stadium. After setting my depth chart, playbooks, and gameplans, I was ready to play ball. Needless to say, I stomped on Akron 51-3 and pummeled Ball State 30-0, but it was a great learning experience.

    There are two options for playing the games in BBCF. I usually choose to have the computer simulate the games and statistics for me rather than actually playing the entire game. The other option is to play the entire game by selecting each play, running it, and seeing the results. This option tends to take quite a bit longer and I personally enjoy simulating that part of it.

    BBCF is very different from Madden NFL Football on a console system. Madden is all about actually playing and executing each and every play, whereas, BBCF is more about the simulation engine and the generation of statistics and doesn’t rely on your hand-eye coordination. I finished the season with an 8-5 overall record and a 6-2 conference record. My team traveled to the Outback Bowl where we endured a miserable loss with a final score of 38-20.

    At the end of the season your team receives a graded evaluation of how they did. I finished with a “B” in team performance, an “A” in talent and recruiting, and an overall grade of “B-“. I feel that I finished the season on a good note and now I am confident heading into my second season…or am I.

    As a head coach in the college ranks, you will receive job offers in the off-season from different schools and you must choose for which school you would like to coach. For instance, in my first year I was the head coach for Purdue. My record was decent and they would have welcomed me back for another year. I guess I wanted a challenge, so I decided to take a new job with the Utah State Aggies. Wow, talk about a challenge, they received an overall grade of “D-“ and a big fat “F” for the board expectations for the coming year. I guess I have my work cut out for me; I should have just stayed at Purdue and had the easy life.

    The graphics are very well done for this really being nothing more than a sports simulation game. The background graphics, in-game graphics, and menu graphics are exquisite for this type of game.

    I found that at 1280x1024 the text was a bit difficult to read on some of the screens. It would be nice if the game text would scale up or down based on the resolution you select. I generally don’t change the video resolution on my system; I just squint a little more to read the text. It may also be that old age creeping up as well.

    BBCF is now at version 1.04. If you were to purchase the game today, you would download version 1.04 so that is the version that I am currently playing. The developers that are creating these types of simulation games are very tight with the gamer community. I have nothing but positive things to say about the entire GDS crew for the effort they put into monitoring the online forums and helping users to exterminate bugs. The developers also add some new feature here and there per user requests.

    The sound effects in the game are well done. The background sounds and noises are good and the in-game sounds are very good. People generally don’t play these types of games for the sounds, but for the content. You definitely won’t need that 6.1 surround sound system with the 700-watt amp that you use to blast the Nazi’s in Call of Duty 2 for this game. The sounds do add some realism to the game, but even if it didn’t have sound it would be an outstanding simulation game.

    These types of games are all about replayability and each time I play I find a way to make my team better, or sometimes worse. I am continually trying to better my team and my skills as their head coach. I am glad that after a long day at work I can come home, get the kids to bed, and then find some time to relax by spending an hour or so playing in my own world of fantasy football.

    There are also online leagues available for BBCF. With the ability to join online leagues the excitement and challenges of BBCF are never ending. Each league requires one person to act as the commissioner. The commissioner handles all of the actual simulations, but other than that, you control every aspect of your own team. You can check out the GridIron Glory League at http://www.gridiron-glory.net/.

    To sum it all up, I’ll just say that this game is excellent. I believe that Grey Dog has hit the nail on the head again. Time after time this company doesn’t disappoint, they just continue to put out brilliant, well-designed sports simulations.

    There are just two college football text simulations out there that I am aware of. Front Office Football – The College Years, and Bowl Bound College Football. The College Years has been the only game in town in recent years, but with the introduction of BBCF, Grey Dog Software has really stepped up to the plate and hit a home run. BBCF has the polish and shine of the new king in town and they will definitely have the competition gunning for them.

    Of course as with any game, there are a few things that would be nice to have added in a future patch. A few of the things that I missed were the lack of some HTML reports within the game and also an easier way to sort and find much of the stat data. There are numerous HTML reports currently in the game, but not every report has this option. These were very minor things as they didn’t affect the gameplay whatsoever, but it would still be nice to have these added features. The ability to use updated roster files from the modding community is another great addition to this game as well.

    I would highly recommend this game to any sports simulation player that would like to try his luck at coaching a college football team.