NCAA Gamebreaker 99

"989. football games. I want sony back!"

INTRODUCTION

Pro football has always been my game of choice. But when my birthday came around, my parents took me to the video game store and said you can pick any game that you want. Well, they weren't really big on selection that day, so I ended up choosing NCAA Gamebreaker 99. I went home, and I didn't expect too much for two reasons. First, I have never liked college games as much as I liked professional sports games. Just maybe that I follow professional sports more and am more familiar with the rule changets, current stars in the divisions, etc. The second reason why I was apprehensive about Gamebreaker 99 was Gameday 99. I had played Gameday 99 not a month earlier and had been disapointed. So I was not looking for too much out of NCAA Gamebreaker 99, which is the college football version of Gameday 99. I must say that Gamebreaker is better than Gameday, and the game did exceed my expectations, but don't get your hopes too high, as Gamebreaker 99 has a good share of flaws as well.



GAMEPLAY

NCAA Gamebreaker 99 has a complete roster. It's so complete that it's completely complete. There are all of the big name divisions, conferences, teams, etc. Big names like Perdu University and Nebraska all the way down to colleges that you rarely ever hear about like Western Michigan Universtion. I was quite pleased that they were in Gamebreaker 99, as a good friend of mine works down at WMU. But on with the review. Not only are the current teams available, but tons of legendary teams are available. One of these is the 1993 Florida State Seminoles, another of my favorite teams. Overall, NCAA Gamebreaker 99's roster is very complete and definitely a great roster overall.

NCAA Gamebreaker 99 features a nice variety of modes. You can play exhibition, which is a regular game: team vs. team. You can also customize some of the options in the Vs. mode. For instance, you can change around the scoring, and make all passing plays that go for forty yards or more worth four points, touchdowns worth nine, and an interception could get your team five points. This is a great method of play and provided a lot of fun with me and my friends. Another mode is the tournament mode. You can select either an eight school tournament or start at the sweet 16, it's your choice. You select all the schools that are entered, than you can play against the computer. It's best though when you've got eight or 16 friends over, as each friend can represent and play as a team. This is a great multiplayer mode. Of course an unforgetable moce is the season itself. You select a school and play a season that has about ten to twelve games. cht the end of the year, you'll be assigned to a bowl game to finish off the season.

The statistic tracking in NCAA Gamebreaker 99 is superb. All of the statistics are tracked very accurately, and the league leaders are really made a big deal of. The different trophies that are assigned to NCAA players is also here, like the Heisman trophy. You can actually see during the season who's leading in votes. There is very little, however, in the way of off field interactions with other teams, but since you rarely see a ''trade'' in college sports, this is totally acceptable.

NCAA Gamebreaker 99 plays very close to NFL Gameday 99, Gamebreaker's pro football sister. However, the game can differ in a few ways as well. The largest difference is in running. You must control everything in the runner this time, the game provides no help for you. I thought this a bit odd and disliked it. The rest of the game, for the most part, is the same. Passing is entirely too easy, as I just need to drop straight back in the pocket and throw thirty five yards to a guy that's triple covered and he'll still catch the ball and possibly run another 40 yards to the end zone. When you drop back, you press X, and a menu icon screen comes up. Each receiver has his own icon that they corresponde too. If you press square at this point, you will throw the ball to whoever has the square icon. This is a very basic mode of passing and is very good. The Easter Eggs are a classic Gameday/Gamebreaker feature that had to be included. Easter Eggs are passwords that you input to change the environment of the game, such as give the players big heads and little amusing things like that. The Easter Eggs were not meant as part of the sim, but rather a good way to mess around with the game a little bit. The controls in Gamebreaker 99 are for the most part, rather sluggish. The game is easy enough to control, but there is a slight delay it seems in the control. Overall, NCAA Gamebreaker 99 plays average, but it has fair share of problems in the gameplay.

GAMEPLAY SCORE: 6.6/10



GRAPHICS

The graphics in NCAA Gamebreaker 99 are above average. However, they did not quite match Gameday 99. The playgs look close to their college counterparts, and there are no problems depicting who is who, but there is no extremely great detail put into the players. The stadiums are for the most part generic and weren't worked on too hard. The players don't have too many FMV sequences on cutscenes where they do an end zone dance or slap high five with a teammate. Little graphical areas were not payed too much attention too. The graphics, however, are decent enough, especially in the closeup of the players. The stadiums are a bit generic for my liking, and 989 really spent much more time on Gameday's graphics than Gamebreakers.

GRAPHICS SCORE: 7.3/10



MUSIC/SOUND/EFFECTS

The music in Gamebreaker 99 is highly what can be expected from a college game. The marching bands of the colleges are playing in the menus. The home team's fight song plays when it's halftime. There are also short tunes for when touchdowns or field goals are made. During instant replay there is a percussion only beat that plays to accompany the instant replay.

The sound effects are very good. Kieth Jackson provides color commentary. My only problem with him is the fact he can get quite repetitive. He has a lot of his favorite lines in there like, ''Oh nellie, what a tackle,'' or, ''Get a wrench and tighten him a little bit.'' In my opinion, they should've, like Gameday 99, provided a color commentator to put in his two cents before and after plays. However, this was a problem in Gameday as the announcers in Gameday are frequently behind the action, but by himself Keith Jackson keeps up quite nicely. Sometimes the players will taunt there opponents will things like, ''Yeah baby!'', or, ''I'm feelin it!'' The sounds of football being played are excellent. They give the impression of a younger generation of players by having the sounds of the players grunts being high pitched. I guess this was a good idea that Sony originated and 989 decided to keep it. The ball hitting the turf is very accurate and sounds good. The only thing that slightly bugs me is the whistle. It sounds exactly like a whistle, but one ref blows it. The thing I was amazed about with NFL2K was this in one aspect. You heard about two or three whistles from the two or three officials that saw the player's knee hit the ground. After all, there are six officials on the field I believe. The crowd, which is something Sony has never been too proud of, is pretty decent. They won't really get into the game as much as I would've liked, and they also do not favor the home team. This is something I wish more sports games would do. Overall, Gamebreaker 99 has pretty good music and sound effects.

MUSIC/SOUND EFFECTS SCORE: 8.3/10



DIFFICULTY: HARD

NCAA Gamebreaker 99 should provide a good challenge. Like the real college football games, the offensive units on most colleges are high powered, and the computer will allow for a nice high scoring game that gets into the fifties on the same time length that Gameday would have let you get into the lower thirties maximum.



REPLAY VALUE: AVERAGE

NCAA Gamebreaker 99 has an average lasting appeal. It wares off eventually, but I will admit I played Gamebreaker 99 for a good few weeks after I bought it. It has a great difficulty level that is just at the place where I like it, where the game gives you good run for your money, but it's possible to beat, so the game doesn't ware off quick because it's too easy or too hard. For all I know, you may play this game for a long time, I particular didn't though.



OTHER GAME INFORMATION

RENT/buy?: POSSIBLE BUY

Genre: SPORTS



OVERALL SCORE: 7.2/10

NCA Gamebreaker 99 is an above average game. It has a nice share of flaws, and I didn't really fet into it too much. The graphics were overlooked a lot from the NFL'S game of Gameday. I think you may buy this game if you are into football games. If not, you may just want to rent this game for a few nights and call it quits. It's a nice game, just Gamebreaker 99 is not the game for everyone.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/00, Updated 08/10/00