I'm a big fan of basketball, so I've caught many a college game on TV. The teams getting airtime on CBS are the ones you would expect to be right on. I've also been to a few different arenas to see some smaller teams, including years of watching home games at my alma mater UCF (University of Central Florida). So this is my best basis for comparison. We're an upper mid-major school now playing in Conference USA but not far removed playing in the backyard with other members from the Atlantic Sun (which we won the previous two years). UCF has been given an excellent representation of our arena, a pretty fair shake on ratings, players that are identifiable, and incorrect band music. Not bad at all.

You can tell that the players (without proper licensing) have been created using in-game creation tools. They have a generic look that pales in comparison to some of the models seen in NBA 2K6. The UCF players have the right skin tone, hairstyle, and body type, and the attributes were unexpectedly close to reality. At the very least, they knew that Josh Peppers and Troy Lindbeck were good 3-point shooters and that Justin Rose was our best all around player. That's some good research considering the size of the project.

Unfortunately, the overall look of the game does suffer, at least in comparison to the pro version. The generic players and the bad cut scenes with the cheerleaders are one thing, but the monstrosities that are Greg Gumbel and Clark Kellogg and poor, poor Knightro (our mascot) were a butchered collage of polygons. Outside of those deficiencies, everything else looked great. The floors seem to have a little more shine to them, like the lighting has been kicked up a notch over NBA. The players still get next-gen sweaty, and the cloth movements are as good as ever. All the animations seem to have carried over from the pro version, although nothing has stuck me as new yet in that area.

My first couple of games felt just like NBA 2K6 in the gameplay department apart from the obvious different in rules, which is fine but would have been easier to swallow had this been released closer to the start of the season. One major improvement during gameplay is the ability to provide coaching directions, change lineups, and change playsets without having to enter a pause screen. It's all done at the bottom of the screen while in a timeout or on a dead ball. Where College Hoops looks like it's really going to shine is in the career mode. I love all the recruiting and weekly practice options, and at the same time I find them all a bit overwhelming. I also like the idea of starting as a coach for a small team and having to earn bigger contracts with more prestigious schools.

4/21/06
After playing a few more games in different arenas, I don't believe there were any updates to the graphical package. I think the upgrade in lighting that I was seeing was just a particular arena floor. I also ran through all the creation options. You can build a team from scratch including the players, the coach, and the arena. You get to pick the logo, the mascot, the fight song, and design the arena floor. The logo selection is small, but you have a large color palette to work with. Most people though, will want to stick with established teams, which is why we buy an NCAA game in the first place.

4/25/06
The career mode is pretty frustrating, which is unfortunate because it's the main draw of a college game for me. The whole interface is too damn confusing, and there's not a word about it in the printed manual. You have to read the in-game manual to get any clue, or hope that the pop-up help is of some use.

Part of the problem is the way recruiting takes place over the course of the whole season, and you start before you first game of the first season. You recruit not only high school seniors, but also underclassmen and junior college athletes. It's a lot to manage, if you take the task on yourself. Alternatively, you create a list of prospects and have your computer-controlled coaches do the work for you. But even creating the prospect list is clumsy because the menu navigation is overly complex. I can appreciate that there is a lot of information that needs to be presented to he user, but I don't think it's managed very well.

You also can't get a good feel for prospects early in the season. Everyone in the recruitment list has an interest level in your school, but no sign of whom else they are interested. So what happened to me was, I spent a lot of effort going after some HS seniors that had moderate interest in my school only to find out a few game weeks later that they were way more interested in other schools.

The Legacy mode is interesting, where you create your own coach and start at a small school. I chose the University of Louisiana Monroe and was rudely awakened. Man, you really have to be dedicated to try this part of the career mode. Be prepared for lots of brush-offs by potential recruits and some serious ass whoopings by the major teams you play out of conference. No one has ever done this mode as well as 989 with NCAA Gamebreaker 2000 (football). In that game you started at an entry-level position as an assistant coach in one of many positions like defensive coordinator for Oregon State or wide receivers coach at UCLA. You had goals to achieve in order to work your way up to better job, like the defensive coordinator position would have you keep your opponents under a certain number of yards or points per game. So win or lose, if you did your particular job well, you were still viewed in a positive light. Someone else needs to run with that.

	Over 300 college teams represented
	The research shows with mostly faithful arena and player abilities
	Same great 2K6 basketball gameplay
	Line up and play calling adjustments on screen during dead balls
	Recruiting is more of a chore than the fun side game that it should be
	Graphics take a hit because of the generic looking players (can't be helped, I know)
	Drastic contrast between on court models and off (especially mascots and announcers)
	Limited fight songs included
	Should we expect more than NBA 2K6 with college teams and rules?

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