A great college basketball simulation that will keep you hooked

When I decided to pick up College hoops 2K7, published by 2KSports, I thought it would be an interesting sidelight to Crackdown, which I picked up at the same time. I was so very wrong on that, though, as I haven't played Crackdown much, being in a basketball groove. What better game to play with March Madness upon us? I love this game, and only a couple of minor problems (and one unforgivable one, in my opinion) keep it from being 5 stars.

College Hoops 2K7 is, obviously, a college basketball simulation. You can play a single game, set up your own NCAA tournament, or any other kind of tournament. The best play mode, however, is the Legacy mode. That's what I spend all my time doing (not counting testing a couple of things for this review) and it's what gives the game its staying power in my heart. Unlike many other "franchise" options in sports video games, you have two choices: you can be the coach of any team that you wish, or you can do a true legacy and start at the bottom, working your way up. If you do the latter, you start at a small school (I chose Eastern Illinois, but you get several choices) in a small conference, and you have to make your team successful so that you get job offers to move up in the ranks. It's a lot of fun, giving each game meaning and allowing you to play your own style.

Gameplay
One good thing about the control scheme as opposed to other basketball simulations is that all of your moves are mapped to button combinations rather than the right analog stick. This makes it a lot easier to control your crossover dribbles and spin moves by learning combos instead of making your finger move the stick in a variety of different ways. Since I'm not the best joystick-jockey around, this made it a lot easier for me to dribble with the best of them, and soon I was making power moves to the basket with no problem.

Instead of dribble moves, the right analog stick controls your shot. You pull back to start your shooting motion and release at the proper moment to get off your best shot. Of course, your success isn't just a matter of hitting the perfect spot, as your player's skill rating has some effect on the shot too. You're not going to be shooting 100% no matter what you do.

The rest of the controls are intuitive as well. The Y button causes you to attempt a rebound or block a shot, the X button also shoots but you have less control. The other buttons are part of the dribble combinations, so it's impossible to go through them all here. Everything is quite easy to learn, though hard to master unless you're already an expert at these games (I'm not). Even so, you'll be doing basic crossovers and spins without too much trouble.


Graphics
The graphics are good, but not great. They are very fluid, making the gameplay and player movement virtually flawless. Unfortunately, they also look a little rough, and the players' close-ups make them look like mutants. Maybe that's a stylistic decision, but I've never seen bigger ears and weirder heads in a video game than I've seen here. There also seem to be very few bases from which to make the faces, causing many of the players on the same team to have the same basic face with only coloration and hairstyle differentiating them.

On the other hand, the arenas are simply wonderful. The college atmosphere is infectious and all of them look very realistic (at least compared to what I've seen on television, though I am familiar with Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa, and it looks fine). The crowd is three-dimensional and can get quite animated when the home team is doing well. Cheerleaders are on the ends of the court doing their thing during breaks in the action and everything is quite well done. Of course, close up they are again a bit rough, but if that helps the framerate of the game, that can only be a good thing.

Sound
The ambient sound adds to the atmosphere, with authentic fight songs, the crowd going wild, and various crowd chants (see "Other Stuff" below) cheering their team on. The sound of the ball hitting the hardwood and sneakers squeaking on the floor also add to the authenticity. I can't say anything bad about the sound itself.

I wish I could say the same for the announcing, however. Verne Lundquist and Bill Rafferty do the play by play and they do a decent job except for the fact that you'll have heard almost everything they have to say by the third or fourth game. The same goes for sideline reporter Bonnie Bernstein, except that I would guess you'd hear it all in two or three games. There are a few new soundbites when the NCAA tournament rolls around (and possibly the NIT tournament, though I haven't been in that one yet), but not that many. You could probably turn them off after you've played a few games. Or maybe not, since I've discovered that the loss of commentary is a precursor to your disc becoming unreadable (this is my system's problem, though, not the game's, so needless to say I can't really comment on the game's stability).

Other Stuff
One interesting new feature to play around with, in addition to the Create-a-school and Create-a-player features, is the "Create-a-chant," which allows you to customize chants for your crowd to say at certain times of the game. There are a lot of choices here, from drum beats to actual words, and they can be anywhere from 12 "beats" to really long 32-beat chants. It's a fun feature, but I didn't use it much after I tested it out. It's very intuitive and easy to use, though, so you might want to have some fun with it.

As for "Create-a-school," unfortunately it appears to be broken. No matter what colours you choose for your school, your uniform will be red and white.

Another new feature is "Team Unity," which functions much like momentum meters do in other sports games. It adds that "behind the scenes" boost of energy or skill that you won't see but you may feel as you play the game. I didn't really notice it much, so I can't speak to how it affects the game, but it's an interesting idea.

Legacy Mode
I'm giving this its own section for a couple of reasons. First, it's the mode I'm most familiar with. Secondly, it's where most of the minor problems are. The Legacy mode is very deep, involving not only playing the games but also recruiting new players, keeping your own players happy and trying to advance your own career. In my first year at Eastern Illinois, I took my Panthers to the NCAA tournament by winning my conference tournament (my regular season record wasn't anything great, though it was a winning one), and was the 15th seed against the 2nd seed Kansas Jayhawks. As it should be, Kansas kicked my butt as they were a powerhouse. Everything seemed so realistic, with some games going well and some not so well (maybe this is part of the Team Unity thing).

For each game, you can either play it, simulate it, or simulate it using the "College Gamecast." This is an interesting feature as you watch the score build change, the stats pile up, and you can pause it to make coaching decisions at any time. It's very similar to "watching" a gamecast on the Internet. Since I prefer to play all my games, I can't comment on the staying power of this feature, but it was interesting the couple times I tried it out.

As part of the Legacy mode, you get a weekly "College Hoops This Week" with Greg Gumbel and Clark Kellogg, as well as a pre-season show and NCAA tournament selection show. This is a great feature and this type of thing is why I love 2KSports franchises. They are always doing stuff like this. The broadcast actually shows highlights from a couple of games during the previous week, as well as highlights during previews up some upcoming games. These highlights start to seem the same after a while, though.

Online
I don't play online, so I can't comment on the quality, but I can tell you that you can play in online leagues, online tournaments, or just play a one-off game against somebody. Many of the Achievements are for online, so you must play online in order to get them all.

Miscellaneous faults and good stuff

1) First, I'll point out the major problem with this game, mainly regarding Legacy mode. The manual is horrible in this aspect. It gives you great information on how to play the game itself, but literally nothing about the Legacy mode except that it exists. I can understand that, because a mode this deep would require a lot of instructions, but there's not even anything on the disc about it. There are so many little questions about skill ratings and markings that you have to guess at. Some of them are easy (I figured out that a picture of a red shirt on a player means that you've redshirted him) but others aren't. There's a shirt icon on one of my best players that I still can't figure out.

This is almost unforgivable in my opinion, and I can't even find anything online that explains this stuff. I didn't even know that there was a "world" icon on the map for recruiting until I stumbled upon a mention of it in a discussion forum. You can recruit from all 50 states and also international players, but it took me a while to figure that last part out.

2) One thing I'm really impressed with is the player names. As college students, real players cannot be featured in the game, but the game makes up its own names if you want it too (you can just go by jersey numbers too if you want). Not only that, but the commentators, as well as Gumbel, Kellogg, and the PA announcer, will actually say the names. I can't tell you how that adds to the immersion factor of the game. Nothing throws you out of a game faster than when the announcer says "And Number 5 drives to the hoop." For those of you who don't want fake names, you can edit in your own if you want, but I doubt the announcers will actually say those names.

3) The Legacy mode is full of niggling little problems that are minor annoyances, though they don't detract from the overall quality of the game. During the NCAA tournament, players of the week on "College Hoops This Week" often come from the NIT tournament (at least both times in first season I played) and Greg Gumbel talks as if they're from the NCAA tournament. Texas Tech won the tournament my first year and wasn't even ranked in the pre-season poll the next year, to name another annoyance.

One minor niggle in overall gameplay is the irritating tendency of AI players inbounding the ball from under the basket to hit the backboard with their inbounds pass, thus turning the ball over.

But these are minor problems, and I have to say that College Hoops 2K7 is a standout game that I am now addicted to. I have to see how I can advance the career of coach Dave Roy (Coach R to my players). Maybe Iowa State one day? Or even Duke? Without the problem of the missing Legacy instructions, this is easily a 5-star game. Adding that to the rough graphics and other petty annoyances still allows for a 4-star rating. This game is awesome.

Note: I haven't played EA Sports' March Madness, so I can't compare the two at all. Thus, I have no idea if this is the best college basketball game out there. I just know that I'm enormously satisfied with this one and I don't feel the need to see if there's anything different in the other one.