EA Sports wanted to get the "jump" on the competition by bringing out their famed NCAA March Madness basketball game early this year. So while the schools are getting their teams together and preparing for the upcoming season, EA already has you out on the court, getting your team to the Final Four with NCAA March Madness 06. There are a couple of new gameplay features to talk about, but for the most part the game remains fairly unchanged from last year. And that's actually not a bad thing, as this game is better than NBA Live 06.
Most all the game modes from March Madness 05 have returned. You once again have Rival games, where you pick your favorite school and play against its arch-nemesis teams, like Duke and Maryland for example. And every school (and corresponding home court) you can possibly think of is in this game. I'm talking about schools like Nicholls State (Indiana), Prairie View A&M (Texas), and UMBC (Maryland). Also back is the Mascot game, where all the players on your team are the mascot. And you have returning tournaments like the Maui Challenge (which is also played in the Dynasty Mode), and a new "Frat Party" Tournament.
Also returning is the college Classics mode (but not by Pontiac this year), which comprises of some of the most classic moments in college hoops history. Some of these can be full games between two classic teams, and some can be moments from within the game, like having to make a bucket to win a game with four seconds left. There are games that go all the way back to 1966, like Kentucky Vs. Texas Western. There are a ton of classic teams that you can unlock and use later on if you can beat their challenges. Still no names due to NCAA rules, but some players you'll recognize by their school and number. To round the games modes, you have a straight up Season, Practice mode, and the Dynasty mode.
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The Dynasty Mode looks unchanged for the most part from 2005. There are still a ton of teams and schools to take charge of this year. More than 350 official licenses, including 20 leagues, 40 national teams, and 12,000 players are available for you to take to the crown. As with all the EA Sports games, you have your PDA Messenger, which is your email/message hub. Your coaches and staff will keep you briefed along the year, and your recruits will send you messages letting you know if they're going to join your program or not. So once you get started in your career with a school, you need to build them up to greatness.
You can do all the standard things you could last year in the Dynasty mode, but now you can feel even more like a head coach and take more of a personal role with your team. Lure in some new recruits with the good play and prestige your team is garnering throughout the year, and get them thinking of coming to your school as early as you can, before someone else gets to them. Violations and player/team suspensions come into play more this year, and you can see your Program Standards to make sure you're still in good standing with the NCAA. You need to make sure you're on top of your players because the NCAA will come down on you. You don't want to miss out on the tournament because of your team. You'll see if a player is getting bad grades, or violates some NCAA rules that require a suspension. It's up to you to levy the discipline, but you need to make sure you make the NCAA happy while keeping the player happy as well.
Online gaming returns once again. The interface for March Madness 06 is the new standard interface you're seeing in all the other EA Sports online games, with the sports score ticker (now even with NHL scores) scrolling at the bottom and the "My NCAA" area where you can keep track of your online profile. There are stats, lobbies, online tournaments to play, and the usual extras like the EA Messenger. It's a great experience, and playing basketball online is pretty fun. Especially college hoops.
One of the reasons I never even had to open the manual on NCAA March Madness 06 is because the controls and gameplay are almost exactly like NBA Live 06, with the addition of a couple small but significant things, and minus Live's Freestyle Superstars. In place of Freestyle Superstars, NCAA March Madness has the "Senior Leaders." These guys are the ones whom the rest of the team feeds off of. They generally have a little more skill than the other players, and they can help get a team back on track. Their leadership on the court can sometimes make the rest of the team better! That's just one of the new features to the game.
If you've played NBA Live 06, you'll have about 90% of the controls down already for March Madness. The right stick Freestyle Controls on offense, which have been a standard for EA basketball games for some time, are still effective. There are two separate shooting buttons. In addition to the regular jump shot, you have a button for dunking or laying up the ball. Also returning is the shot adjustment. If you have a defender in your face, hit the button again and your player will change the way he takes the shot. The "pro hop" returns as well. The pro hop is short jump hop used down low to split defenders to get a better shot at the basket. This year, however, the pro hop has its consequences. If you jump right into someone and they defend you well, you could lose the ball or draw a charge. Icon Passing is back to complement the standard passing and "Give and Go" passing. People don't understand the importance of Icon Passing. You can really sharpen your abilities on the court with Icon Passing because you have complete and precise control over whom you're giving the ball to. And finally, you've got the alley-oop moves. Simply hitting the alley-oop button will get you to lob the ball towards the basket. If you've got a man under the hoop, it's slam-time!
Now for defense. A major new gameplay feature was added to March Madness 06. It's one of my new favorite controls, and it's called the "Lockdown Stick." Simply put, the Lockdown Stick puts a clamp down on an offensive player and forces him to outplay you. You go up to the guy with the ball, and you pull the right stick down. This engages the ball-handler very close up. From there, you move the left stick back and forth in the same direction he's trying to go. You can force the player out of bounds with the ball, or trap him into a second defender who will knock the ball loose. If you play it right, you can really create some key turnovers in a close game. But it also has its risks. If you move the wrong way, you'll get eaten up and left behind. And the refs won't always call a charge on you if they see you being that aggressive. Another new thing for college is the Hard Foul button. It can cost you a foul, but it can also stop a scoring run dead in its tracks! Rewards come with risks, though; remember that.
Returning to March Madness 06 is the Floor General Playcalling System. In addition to already being able to call some basic plays using the d-pad, like pick 'n' rolls, isolations, and posting, hitting up on the pad will call up a set of three formations. Each team has three sets to choose from. Once you call a set, the players get into their positions, and then plays unfold based on what you do, and whom you pass to. These aren't specific plays that have a form to them. These are setups that can free-flow whether you decide to cross behind a guard, or pass outside to inside, or post up. It works on defense, too, as you can choose to intentionally foul someone, double team them, or set up zones and man-to-man coverage. Don't discount how effective the playcalling system can be. If you want to set up an offensive zone, you don't need to hit start and go into a menu to do it. You can do it on the fly in the middle of the action. Also back is the Arena Pulse, where you can get the crowd really into the game when you play in one of the top 25 toughest arenas in the country. When the crowd starts to make some serious noise, the camera shakes and makes it harder for you to see what you're doing, especially on foul shooting.
Finally, even though there's nothing like playing against other people, the computer will also give you a pretty good game in the upper difficulty levels. Smart play and toughness can win you games, but the computer also plays tough, which is something new. You can't drive the lane any more on every play. Yes, you can do it, but not on every play. The computer plays some great and very aggressive defense. When you are ahead, the computer will foul you to make you shoot at the line. The computer AI will also play some great offense, so if you have a team that is not as good as the computer controlled team, you'll have to work extra hard to beat them. The computer will pull up for shots, and use some Freestyle moves to fake you into jumping so they can go around you to the bucket. They did fix some of the AI cheesiness in the offense, but the computer is still a fairly "drive the lane" minded player (unless there's an open three pointer shot to be attempted). In the quick settings before a game, you can set the overall difficulty of the computer, but the game is almost totally run by difficulty sliders. You can change almost everything on both the CPU end and on the player's end (CPU assistance wise). That will make the experience as easy or as challenging as you want it to be.
Not only is the gameplay brought over from NBA Live, but the graphics on the two games are nearly identical. However, March Madness feels smoother and crisper than Live. Players are drawn a little better and have details that you're going to see in force in the next generation of consoles, like muscle tone. The players look great and animate even better, from stealing the ball to hitting bounce passes to two players jostling for position in the post. Of course, cheerleaders and mascots have returned, as well as head coaches, refs, and more. This year, you'll see cinematic shots like two opposing players getting in each other's faces after a hard foul, and little on-court animations like a center hauling down a rebound or a point guard putting up his hands to signal a new play. I just really like the way the game looks and feels.
On the audio side, EA Sports got the GSU Tigers Marching Band to cut a bunch of tracks for them, and they are awesome. Listening to marching band versions of "Walking on the Sun," "Jungle Boogie," "Hip to Be Square," "China Grove," "Long Train Runnin,'" "Funkytown," and "Come on and Ride" is just awesome! Plus, most of the major schools' fight songs are in the game. The crowd is also very dynamic and much more responsive than I've ever heard. For example, in home games, if I go up with a shooter, the crowd will get loud in case I block the shot. And they'll stay loud until the ball hits the bucket, and then the crowd will go silent. They know when to cheer, and when to really crank things up with the Arena Pulse. And of course, you can't have college basketball without the man, the legend, "Yeah Baby!" Dickie Vitale. He provides his usual hilarious color commentary along side Brad Nessler.
You can't go wrong with NCAA March Madness 06. The graphics and gameplay are improved a good deal from last year, giving you more of a realistic feel while maintaining a fast-paced arcade-y kind of feel. Another great NCAA Hoops game from EA.
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NCAA March Madness 06 is in development at EA Canada in Vancouver, B.C., ... Today, EA released new screenshots and a trailer featuring the game's intro ...news.teamxbox./xbox/9094/NCAA-March-Madness-06-Media/ -