Reviewed: January 6, 2006
Reviewed by: Tyler Whitney

Publisher
2K Sports

Developer
Visual Concepts

Released: November 30, 2005
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-2
ESRB: Everyone

9
8
8
9
8.6

Supported Features:

College Hoops 2K6, from veteran publisher/development combo 2K Sports and Visual Concepts, strives to bring this same feeling of magic and school pride that runs rampant from December, into early April.

You have to be realistic too about said recruits- you can’t just go to the premier camps as coach of Brickshaw Community College- and land a 7-foot behemoth. Your best bets are the smaller camps, and work your way from there, who knows, you may find a diamond in the rough, or a veteran Juco transfer. I found it was best to balance these attributes out, you don’t want to end up with a bunch of walk-ons, while you may be an amazing coach, the players make the game after all. The charisma aspect is most interesting sometimes too, due to the allotted times you can meet with disgruntled players. Depending on your charisma level, they will get a small, or large, boost in confidence. Cool deal.

If rising from the slums of basketball doesn’t suit your fancy, you can always take over the reigns for coaches like Tom Izzo, Coach K, and more, with stellar athletes and nerve wracking conference play. And hell, if you really want to focus on coaching, you can just go into Coach Mode, and solely focus on calling the offensive/defensive sets, while passively watching the action. That’s hardcore, man. However, be wary of the simulation feature, at times you may just want to take the control in Legacy mode if your team is in the tourney, you just can’t risk an upset to Buffalo in the first round, which the CPU will sometimes award.

Control wise, there is a bevy of moves at your disposal this time around, adding the all-new shot stick, just like it’s NBA 2K6 cousin. You instinctively use this to change your shot to your liking, enabling near total control for shots. If you want to lightly toss a lay-up, just pull lighting on the right stick, and get close to the basket, and in it goes, smooth as silk. You can really tell how much to power to put on it, or just the right amount of English to make it twirl through the basket.

The stick is even used on defense, allowing you to knock balls away, and get some steals in crucial moments. Along with this, you get to shoot free throws using the same analog system, instead of the tried-and-true (yet utterly lame) timing system. What a nice surprise indeed- who knew free throws could be made both challenging, and enjoyable?

Control responsive is also pretty sharp and responsive, enabling you to pull off some wild moves on both offense and defense, but remember, this is college, not the high flying NBA- fundamentals, baby.

I did notice some odd themes throughout the games, though. Most notably turnovers run rampant here, in part due to the pressing nature of college basketball, and also with the aforementioned strip ‘n rip move with the right analog stick. This becomes a little too easy at times to get a big turnover and breakaway slam. The opposing A.I. will make you work for it, though. They will fight on the boards, clog the lane and go on scoring runs, well worth the timeouts. But as long as you remember the fundamentals of basketball-box out, rebound, use your big men down low, ball movement and take open threes-you should come out all right in the end.

The character models are solid enough too, but there are a few clipping issues, usually resulting in faulty collision detection, among other things. Animations, from the dunking to taking a charge, are nicely done, if a bit jerky at times, especially going for a block. Even the new strip ‘n rip move looks a bit wonky at times. The frames do stutter on occasion as well, but it didn’t seem to affect the flow of the games much.

Another neat feature is the coaches are brought to life as well, especially the major ones like Lute Olsen of Arizona, Roy Williams of Kansas and more. We had seen this in most NFL games up to this point, but this is the first time in a college game to my knowledge. Maybe this spells the coming of highly accurate player models, and names eh? One can only hope.

Remember too, since this is a college game, not one single player name will be in the game from the start, and even with entering them yourself, which could take months for all 300 teams, the announcers may not pronounce the name correctly. You can just randomly generate names, but converting Duke star J.J. Reddick into “Moses Winslow”…. well, yeah… that’s just lame. The general atmosphere of the arenas and presentation is handled quite nicely as well, with resounding fight songs pumping up the already raucous crowd, and lots of spirit from the cheerleaders and fans.

Also, because it is a sports game, you inherently have TONS of replay value, from taking different teams through season, Legacy, and tournament modes, from being a perennial power, to working up the ladder. Overall, a plethora of options are available.