"Another year, another [insert sports title],” am I right? Yes, with the autumnal winds blows in the latest crop of sports games, including the harbinger of Maddens to come, NCAA Football 13. As I am tenuously optimistic about Madden 13 being interesting this year thanks to a new physics system, I was hoping NCAA 13, which I didn’t get a chance to catch at E3, was going to be ushering in a similar attempted revolution.

Instead, what we’re left with is more of the same, wrapped with a really pretty bow, as its aging base framework fails to captivate despite all the glitz and glam and high marks for presentation. There are some cool things about NCAA 13, but it’s hard to credit it when the actual footballing has seemingly fallen so far behind on the priority list. Familiarity breeds contempt.