Another year brings us another college basketball game, and while most developers will forgo any real enhancement to college series to work on full NBA games, Visual Concepts and 2K Sports have really added decent content to make this worthy of looking at.

The biggest change from last year is the addition of the 6th man meter. This feature attempts to show how home-court advantage really helps the team dominate. By completing successful plays in succession, you fill up a meter that represents the hype of the crowd, and by topping off that meter the "away" team starts to fumble more and more. Realistically, it is a nice concept and definitely helps with the crescendo of crowd noise, but the meter fills a little too uniform to be believable for real life. On the court there are two major enhancements to gameplay; Maximum Passing and Lock-on-D.

Maximum Passing is a worthy addition to the game as you are given multiple choices for passing by pressing a shoulder and face button combination. Gone are the days when all you had was a gentle lob, now you can step it up to bounces and heavy passes completely changing how you approach passing. While this is for the most part a good thing, it does start to weigh down the controls. Many casual gamers might be deterred from using all these options even if they go through the very helpful training camp tutorials.

Lock-on-D is another addition which you will either love or hate. Hardcore gamers may judge it as a cheat while casual gamers may look at it as a savior. Similar to its NBA 2K8 release this function allows you to lock on to a ball carrier and with minimal input on the analog stick you can almost assure nothing gets past you. Good or bad, you decide.

The additions don't stop there though; you can also build your own plays and create your own chants. For as cheesy as it sounds, creating your own chants is a big enjoyable waste of time. The plays are sharable online, unless you just want to surprise your online foe with your awesome prowess. The online functionality is a definite selling factor for this game, as it is just as robust as the game itself.

Career legacy mode is another excellent section of the game. Playing an either big or little school coach you can scout the high-school circuits watching potential recruits play. If you play the games yourself you have a higher chance of getting said recruit, but by combing the circuits and wooing players you can build a team and try to take them to the top, or if you are a lower school coach, use them to springboard to a better school. After a while the recruiting process seems a little banal and repetitive, but it is still a worthy feature in this already solid package.

Graphics seem to be an afterthought with this game, while in no way would they be considered "bad", it just seems like not enough polishing touch was used; players look slightly blocky, lighting seems off especially in floor reflections, and crowds are uneven. Sound on the other hand is excellent, as the 6th man meter makes the crowd ambiance unmissable, and the play-by-play announcements are quite good, even if they are generally repetitive due to the no-named players they are commenting on.

College Hoops 2K8 is a definite improvement for the franchise, and while the control scheme is catered to more serious gamers, there are plenty of other options to warrant casual gamers taking a look.

Mar 21, 2008 | 0 comments
Paul Bishop