“NCAA March Madness 07”

System: Playstation 2

Release date: Jan. 17, 2007

Rating 2.5/5

In the world of college basketball, “NCAA March Madness ’07” wouldn’t even be a ranked team – it’d be in the NIT.

The new college hoops game “NCAA March Madness ’07” falls short of the high expectations of the EA Sports series. The game is like a modified “NBA Live ’06” with college teams. The crossovers and dunks are all taken from the previous version of “Live.” There is still a momentum meter that allows players to get hot and play to perfection or to force stars to crack under pressure. With more than 300 teams to choose from, everybody’s favorites are available to play, including our Salukis.

The strategy of this game is to give the ball to the biggest player and slam dunk it every time. Dunks increase momentum quickly and lots of momentum is needed to make shots from long range.

When on defense, players can pump up the crowd to distract opponents because this makes the fans cheer louder and the controller vibrate. Unlike “NBA Live,” this game is very fast-paced, so not much strategy is needed to play well.

The graphics in this game are absolutely terrible. The top halves of the arenas are unique to the school, but the bottom half is the same for every school. The fans look like cardboard cutouts sliding up and down. The colors the audience wears are the only ways to distinguish whose fans they are. Everything else about them looks the same no matter where you play.

The players, while accurately sized, lack a unique appearance, especially since they all have the same haircut. SIU appears to have gotten the shaft compared to schools ranked high early on in the game. Starters Randal Falker and Jamaal Tatum are hard to recognize without their signature dreads. Our mascot, Brown Dawg, looks like a Wookie.

It can’t be expected that all 300 schools would be represented perfectly, but some degree of similarity would make this title a must for any college basketball fan.

This title is only for fans who want to take their team on an NCAA Championship run. For those who care about quality game-play and state of the art graphics, stay away from this one and hope EA Sports does better next year.