NCAA College Basketball 2K3

"Best college basketball game there is!"

This game here took me forever to find. I was hearing good things and bad things about the game. I decided to rent it, but could never find it. I took a risk and bought it at GameStop without renting it. NOTE: When I say ''2K3'', I'm referring to NBA 2K3! :)

Gameplay: 9/10

In my humble opinion, I think the gameplay was very good, especially for this being the first college game released by Sega. When you first start the game, you have the option for the game to ''generate random names'' or to just leave the players with no names and be called by numbers. Those who have played NBA 2K3 should be quite familiar with what is going on. There's the usual Exhibition and Season Mode where games can pick over 300 Division 1-A schools. Yeah, over 300. They also have Gym Rat, a mode very similar to Street Ball in NBA 2K3 except not as good. The game also supports Online playing, but I haven't really tried it. I expect it to be the same like 2K3. You can also start your own NCAA tournament or Conference tournament where you are able to edit the teams to your liking.

The main reason that brought me to this game was the dynamic ''Legacy'' mode. There are two types, Open and Closed. In ''Open'', players are able to pick any team of their choice. In ''Closed'', you only have a select choice of some of the crappiest teams in the game. Your goal is to turn one of those crappy teams in to a big powerhouse. Once you pick your school, you can name your coach and get started. You are given a little meter that is titled ''Job Security''. This meter will keep track of how well a job you are doing. You will also receive a certain goal to accomplish. These goals could be to win half your games or be conference champions. After a couple of seasons, some other schools might be interested in you. You will then have a chance to accept a job offer from another school.

If you are a good coach, you will most likely look at your schedule and look at all the upcoming competition you have. As the coach, you have the option to lower or higher the difficulty of your schedule. The higher the difficulty, the higher chance of your school being recognized and ranked in the Top 25.

When you start the game, you will see the basic stuff. Players warming up and basic intros. Once the game starts, that's where the fun begins. The gameplay is much faster than NBA 2K3. Passes are quicker, no more ugly turn-around jump shots. Players are now able to dive ANYWHERE on the court. The gameplay is a little arcadey. The dunks are sometimes unreal. There are way too many blocks and steals. You can expect to get about 25 steals and force about 30 turnovers a game! There are some weird glitches in the game though. The goaltending glitch from NBA 2K2 seems to be there.

After you reach Week 9 in your schedule, you can begin to scout players from high schools around the country. You can scout 3 players a week. When you scout them, it will list their bias. Some examples would be that they want to play close to home, or they want a lot of playing time and a good coach. Sega has also included High School All-Star games where you can watch or even play yourself. The downside is that you can't scout the players in the All-Star games.

If you want to find out who's the #1 ranked team, you can go to stats and take a look at the Top 25 teams in the country. There's the ESPN Poll, Press Poll, and RPI Rating Poll. There's a glitch in the game where horrible teams with records of 1-18 be #1. The glitch is usually fixed once the regular seasons ends. You will also be able to check out the rosters, teams stats, and player stats. There is also an award option, but you can't select it until the regular season ends.

After the season is over, it will be award time where three awards are handed out to individual players and the Coach of the Year award. If the conference you are in has a tournament, then you will take part in that before participating in the NCAA tournament. Then, it's March Madness time! After the tournament is over and a team is declared champion and the tournament MVP is named, you will advance to the off-season. You will be given a list of players leaving. There will be those who graduate, leave early for the NBA, and those who transfer because of little playing time. You can turn the option off where no players can leave early for the NBA. This is also the screen where you can export the Graduating class to a memory card and import them in to 2K3.

Then it will so your Coach screen and tell you whether you accomplished your goal or not. You will then receive another goal. If you receive any job offers, you get to view the schools and their record for that previous season.

The recruiting part is kind of long. There you see a list of all 1500 recruits where their caliber is rated from 1-5 stars. You can also check a players interest for your school from 1-100 and the top schools they wish to attend. The very first week, you will have 100 points to spend. These points you can use for either yourself or your assistant coach to call the recruits. You will then be told the player's overall rating, offense rating, and defense rating. You will even get a small comment about the recruit from their high school coach.

After the first week, you will have 200 points for each remaining week. You are now able to visit the recruits as long as you called them sometime before. You can even sort out the players by the overall rank, region, position, and interest in your school.

Graphics: 7/10

Nobody expected the graphics to as good as 2K3. The players do look nice though. Visual Concepts has also included the sweat feature that was found in NBA 2K3. The stadiums look rather decent and the crowd could use a lot of work. Up close, the crowd looks incredibly blurry. The jersey's could also use a little touch up because some look nothing like the real life jersey's.

Sound: 7/10

The play-by-play announcing is done by two unknown guys. The commentary is slightly better than 2K3. Sometimes, the games will be going way too fast for the commentary and it will come a little late. What's great is that they will be able to announce new recruit's names.

The fight songs were somewhat disappointing. They were a little off and not many were included compared to March Madness by EA.

Controls: 9/10

The controls are a little bit different from 2K3. Unfortunately, they have left out the pivot move which was a big help in NBA 2K3. The game has many controller setups, even custom ones for your fit.

Challenge: 8/10

The game has the same three different difficulty levels. Even on the highest, the game is rather easy, but it is challenging sometimes. Some gamers will find it way too easy, but like I said, I do find it challenging. Making your free-throws is kind of hard for a beginner, but you will get the hang of it. The same goes for three pointers.

The major flaw of this game is that the developers did not include the beloved gameplay sliders. Like I said above, way too many steals. Too many missed jump shots from the paint.

Replay: 10/10

From what I have heard, Legacy mode is fifty years long and will definitely last a long time. The game is great when playing with friends.

Overall: 8/10

The game is great, take my word for it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/03, Updated 01/08/03