In reading the negative reviews, most of them are from kids, who are under the age of 13. With their attention span less than 10 minutes for everything, do you honestly think they would appriciate the realism of NCAA College hoops or instead flock to the Arcade style of March Madness where you just mash buttons endlessly?

College Hoops takes off where the previous installment left off and builds on each feature. The post play is much improved over last year's title, though executing some moves in the post is frustrating. Turnovers occur more frequently now when you make stupid passes. Balls no longer just "materialize" through defenders to get to the player receiving the pass. If a defender is in the way, the ball is going to bounce off him. You have to make intelligent, on-the-court decisions.

The gameplay may be adjusted with sliders. Personally, I like to make it challenging so games are much more realistic. It isn't fun (or realistic) when you win every game 150-38. If Duke is playing UNC, the game SHOULD be within 10 points. If Duke is playing Radford, well, a blowout SHOULD occur. I like to adjust the sliders to make dunks and layups easy (they are hard on the default setting) and make jump shots a bit more challenging while increasing the defense for both the human and AI. This way, you can play games with realistic scores and stats and feel somewhat satisfied when you play as Creighton and defeat Illinois by 3.

Recruiting is much more advanced than the 2004 title. It is a bit overwhelming at first, but after awhile and a few times doing it, it really grows on you and you realize how much more effective and effecient this version is. You have a pre-determined amount of recruiting points, depending on the size of your school. Small schools have 3000. Mid majors have 4000. Major schools have 5000 (Major schools would include the likes of Fresno State, the A-10 teams like St. Joe and Xavier), and Power schools have 6000 (the big boys like the Big 12 and ACC). Each action you choose to do in recruiting has a point and time value associated with it. Your assistants help you in recruiting if they can, or if they aren't good at it, you don't want them to help. You can email recruits, call them, visit them, scout their games, invite them to your campus, and offer them scholarships. But unlike last year, you can do this all season long during the recruiting period. You can visit a player up to 6 times and you can call him always, limited to one call per week per recruit (as long as you have the points available).

This is a very in depth game and is very good. It appeals to the older crowd though, as kids get frustrated by the realism and non-arcade style. You can make this game like that with the sliders, but it just isn't fun IMO.

A Good Game

This game is a very good game. It's got a very cool legacy mode and that is usually why i buy sports game is for the franchise modes. This mode is decent with a few problems but overall is ok. A new addition is the coaching carousel which is pretty realistic. A good coach from a crappy school goes to a better, but struggling school and the crappy school gets a crappy coach from a crappier school.I like how there is goals for yourself to accomplish. For instance 200 or 500 career wins.The gameplay is a little diffucult at first but then it gets much easier once you get used to it.But the gameplay is pretty fun.I also like the juke box and the ice hockeye in the student lounge.This game cost me 20$ and i got it causeEA NCCA College was 50$ at the time,but now that it is only 30$ maybe now it is better deal.