Rival Stars College Football

App Store Editors’ Notes

G.O.A.T.

This is my favorite sports games, and possibly overall iOS game of all time. It's so simple and yet has so many strategic elements... it's perfect. The way the odds of getting extra yards, a completion, failed play or a turnover actually feel genuine and true not like almost any other game that uses an RNG (random number generator) system that make you feel like it's scripted. The way the player stats, morale and player perks all factor into the plays is genius. Plus, while it does help to put money into the game you really don't have to with the "auto play" feature. I hit the auto play button, do whatever I was doing then when the games over if I won move onto the next game, if I lost either try again or make a few tweaks and try again. It can get frustrating but not like other pay to win games where you wanna throw your phone across the room..... All in all, hit the download button and try. Trust me 👍

Love it but issues

Love this game it's very simple but is fun and the grind to upgrade your team is addicting. That being said the grind for upgrading is my concern especially for later in the game. I quickly realized that upgrading my training giving me more upgrade points per win is what I should focus on so I upgraded a player to level 10 to try to create a legend but didn't realize you need a duplicate of that card to do so. It concerned me because it seemed to get duplicated you would need to drop money on the game cause of how hard the recruiting currency is to get. But at the same time I was fine as I had two guys with duplicates making me think when I make those legend I'll go from 1 prestige to 3 and be able to upgrade my training facility...but no, making a legend player only increases a bar that needs to be filled just to get 1 prestige this to me is a major concern as I will probably need 4-5 legends to get to 3 prestige, not only that but further in to the game when I need to upgrade it more as training players gets more and more expensive how will I be able to keep up with the demand for duplicates of players as the currency to get players is just as hard to get? Seems like I'm going to end up hitting a brick wall where I need to pay to play after being teased with a great game but I hope I'm wrong

Money pit

You want a game where you don’t get to spend your money on anything else but this game? Well you’ve come to the right place. Once you start you get really excited. Recruiting? Check. Play calling? Check. Player advancement? Ding ding ding we have a winner, right? Wrong. You could effectively raise your player to max and he won’t be nearly capable of doing anything the next star up would do. Which really wouldn’t be so bad. Except for the fact that when you do pull a 5 star the game says “ooh good job, now pay me to keep him.” And yeah that’s like $5. Good luck getting me to pay $5 per position. If you don’t pay he drops down to a 2 star and is near useless especially since most of your PvP rival teams are all hardcore pay-to-win players with 4-star, and 5-star talent loading their rosters. Not to mention the fact that these spinners seem fair to begin with. But wait till you get about 4 games in. Then you look at how much of an advantage you have (near 60% red) yet 4/5 times they’re gonna make it whereas if it was slanted the other way around good luck EVER making that play. All in all this game did was raise my hopes for something decent, then toss me in the dirt, grind me under its heel then spit on me for good measure. Don’t let it do the same to you.

Good game; ignore the curtain

Very solid cinematic style football game. Spinner is generally very fair, however if you I’ve noticed that the rivals guess my play correctly more often than they should. I completely randomized my offensive play selection by tossing a coin for 500 plays and the rival played pass against the pass or run against the run 372 times. Of the remaining 128, 85 were balanced or blitz, and 43 were wrong. Given I was flipping a coin regardless of down, distance, score, or time, it became apparent the AI defense reacts to your call often. (Why else would the AI call run defense on 3rd and 17 with 40 seconds to go on the 48 yard line, but only if I actually ran the ball.) That said, the spinner is actually favorable, which makes up for it. I was pretty surprised by the RNG as a matter of fact, in that it really doesn’t seem punishing very often at all. I’ve completed about 70% if my passes despite going against pass defense almost every single time, so I’m not complaining. But I’d let players know there is no point in trying to surprise the AI because you can’t.

AI needs fix and, of course, money grab

The first few weeks are fine. You grow, recruit, and build players to strengthen your team. At this time you can acquire players a number of different ways: gold, coins, and recruiting points. Over the course of the game though, you tend to collect lower ranked players and, once they’re legends, you get modest recruiting points from them. To truly progress, you need 4* and 5* recruits, and lots of the same guy if you want to build his skills. That’s nearly impossible to do unless you spend. I’ve been playing 4 months and it really slows down. Which leads to the main issue: eventually you will hit a ceiling on your team power rating (again, unless you $$$). At that time, you can keep playing and sllooowwwlllyyy grow, but the AI system in games becomes crazy frustrating. For example, if your team is playing someone ranked higher you might win a really close game. More likely, you will either (a) lose a close lead late in the game or (b) come up against a team whose skills you can’t stop and against whom you can’t move the ball. It’s really annoying to play a team that just marches up and down the field whereas you can barely muster a completion. Ok, you say, why not play a lower ranked team. Sure, when the AI gives you a lower ranked opponent (which happens more regularly if you pay to play) then you can expect a close game where you win late. So it seems fun because most games are close, but it’s actually really annoying to lose late or have a last second win against a team you overpower by 20-30 points. I just don’t get the design. Overall, if you’re desperate for a college football fix, play it for a month and it’ll be fun. If you are looking for a game to build in grow in, move on to something else.

Amazing game but 2 concerns

Looks this game has 10 star potential this is easily a 5 star gam but their are two reasons why I'm giving 4 one because of the game clock it runs down way too fast like really over 38 seconds a play? That's ridiculous y'all need to reduce the time taken away from the game clock per play and the second reason is the play cooldown like they're way too long there are times were I have only two plays left because the cool downs are ridiculous and my plays are very normal nothing crazy so the play cooldown needs to be reduced but other than that great game Edit: two more concerns the gold is ridiculously hard to come by once you get past the first season I used to get it no problem now I can barely get 10 gold and it is also ridiculously hard to find a duplicate to create a full star on a card I'll never prestige again because I can't find enough gold to get duplicates which are already super hard to come by but that's all please fix these 4 things I love this game and would like to see it prosper

I hope you like spending money

The game is very addicting. Even when a rival team is better than yours, you’re still able to inch your way to a victory. The “RPG” experience with the game is actually quite interesting doesn’t just stop at getting a good player and then turning around and dominating with him. But then you notice the real issue of the game. It’s really, really, REALLY, REALLY grindy if you’re not planning on spending money to succeed. It’s a great toilet + couch game when you’re bored. But for actual time investment? Unless you have $5 sitting around for every time you luckily land a 5-star player or the money to build a freak team, you can kiss being the best team goodbye. The story mode drags on and gets boring fast. The PvP is horrendous in later ranks cause you’re facing players who actually invest time/money into their dream team. And unless you’re logging into the game every 20 minutes to do all the challenges, refreshes, etc. You’ll never, and I seriously am not exaggerating this, NEVER have enough currency to build an amazing team of 4 to 5-star players with amazing perks and stats. You can kiss that idea goodbye.

Started off promising, and lost that soon enough

The game is a curious take on college football, with no real teams and limited numbers of plays for a playbook. Having said that, I’ll admit it was kind of fun for the first few games. After that, however, you’re basically playing something that uses slot machine logic and programming to keep hooking you into spending more money to be able to do anything further with the game (and you spend more to protect the $ you’ve already blown). You have to be connected to their server to play, so no offline playing on a plane, for example. I have already been screwed on a couple of in-game purchases, paying for them but not receiving them due to server crashes. “Prizes” the game offers are of negligible value (good ones would keep you from spending more money). Oh, and if your team gets too good, players can possess “magic” powers to ensure that you fumble or throw interceptions- as many as necessary to pressure you to lose- so that you’ll rush to the online shop to buy even more to improve your team. It will work briefly, until the game decides the revenue churn from you is thinning out. So remember- you might enjoy it, or maybe just until the first server failure that crashes the game. But essentially, this is a slot machine that sort of has a generic (certainly not college) motif. It is a perfect example of why the trend toward “interactive server games with in-app purchases” was such a mistake from good old standalone games that you could simply buy, install and then they were yours. I should have known better than to experiment with this one. The company, Pik Pok, apparently stands for “Pickpocket.” They should disclose in the game description that there’s limited gameplay for those who want an offline game to play anywhere; the main purpose here is to hook you into a game that’s not really college football to play online tournaments that cost significant $$ to cope with. See above; it’s a slot machine.