NCAA Football 2003

""Aren't you guys listening too me?" -Lee Corso"

This review may seemed a little biased as I am not only a huge football fan, but i'm also a huge college football fan. I played previous installments of this series and most of the perevious Madden games. That being said, let's start the review.

Graphics 5/10

The graphics in NCAA Football 2003 are, for the most part, pretty damned good. From the players to the big screens everything is looking good when it isn't moving. That being said let's talk about what's bad about the graphics, and the real question is where to start? I'll start with drops in the framerate. For some reason when your team has it's back to the wall the framerate sometimes drops down to almost nonexistent, maybe they should have removed the cheerleaders? It really is inexcusable. On top of that, the animations suck. Excuse the bluntness, but there isn't too many ways of describing them, maybe old and hackneyed. They get old quick.

Sound 8/10

I really like fight songs, and this game has a bunch of fight songs. Other than that, the whistles are cool, and for the first 50 hours the announcers aren't all that annoying, in fact, I hate when I don't have the announcers. Sometimes what they say doesn't really make sense, but other times their analysis is almost correct. Plus they say most of the names that you put into the game, which adds to the coolness factor.

Gameplay 6/10

The gameplay really depends on what settings you play on. Not only can you change the overall difficulty settings, but you can also set individual AI settings. It's hard to get the feel of actual football from the game. The harder gameplay settings aren't a measure of how much better the computer is, just how badly they will screw you over. When playing on higher difficulty settings, expect many holding calls, physical mismatches going the computers way, offensive line forgetting to block, and defensive stupidity. Unless you mess with the AI settings, don't expect too many interceptions, even if the ball is thrown right to your players either. Not only that, but the option to make your own play book is omitted, along with making your own plays. I'd definitely say that those are negatives. That being said recruiting is by far one of the most fun things too do.

Overall 6.8/10

All in All, I have still spent way more time than I'd like to admit playing this game. The replay value is through the roof with dynasty mode. Find a friend and do two player dynasty and this game can be played for ever. Take your school to the next level. It lasts forever. If you are a college football fan and own a gamecube, you should probably own this game. Otherwise, I'd wait until next year to see if it gets better.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/25/02, Updated 11/25/02