College Hoops 2K6 on the Xbox continues the recent trend of potentially great 2K Sports games that never quite reach their full potential due to frustrating bugs and strange off the field (or court in this case) AI logic. There's no doubt that on the floor, College Hoops 2K6 is a great, great game that represents college basketball as well or better than any other game to date—when it works as it should.

New Stuff

There are a lot of new goodies in this year's game. First off, College Hoops uses the NBA 2K6 control scheme (minus the triple threat head fake option), complete with the right analog "shot stick." The gameplay isn't as refined as NBA 2K6, but it fits the college game perfectly. No longer do players perform crossovers in painful slow motion; the players now move with fluidity and grace never before seen in the College Hoops series. The low post game remains a bit murky because of the vast number of button combos you need to do to perform basic up and under moves, but for the most part the new control scheme is a welcome addition, it just takes some practice to become accustomed to the advanced button layout.

Other new features include on the fly coaching strategies and substitutions. This is a wonderful interface tweak that allows you to quickly sub players in and out during a dead ball situation; during a time out you can tell your team to focus on one particular aspect of the game (defense, rebounding, etc.). This should forever be a standard feature in every basketball game.

The gameplay is fairly close to that of College Hoops 2K5, which is a compliment as that game was the best hoop game of 2004, but there are some significant differences such as much better baseline defense so now players can't simply race along the low post for a quick lay-up. CPU controlled teams shoot more three-pointers this year, which is a major part of the college game. Teams still are a bit too shy from behind the arc (unless you tweak sliders but then they shoot too many and shoot them too quickly). Still, where as last year a team might shoot three or four threes a game, now teams usually shoot over ten, which still is a bit low but it's at least a part of a team's gameplan.

Visually, College Hoops 2K6 looks pretty sharp on the Xbox. While gamers may already be spoiled by the Xbox 360 visuals, College Hoops holds its own, even though after playing NBA 2K6 on the 360...it's admittedly hard to go back. By far the best part of the visuals is that the silly looking reverse lay-up animation from last year is nowhere to be found. No longer will a center shoot a five foot behind the back flip shot. Not only are there more animations this year – they're also a lot better, and this alone makes the game much easier to look at, particularly when the ball is in the post.

The overall presentation remains good despite losing the ESPN license. The play by play, done by veterans Verne Lundquist and Bill Rafferty, is repetitive but consistent enough to avoid being annoying. Sure, it's all rather stale but I'll take stale over Madden-like annoying any day of the week.

There are a few setbacks, however. There is a shocking lack of team fight songs; in the Big 10, for example, hardly any team plays its tune during a game. This definitely affects the atmosphere because part of the college game experience is hearing the band erupt into song during the game. There's also a stat bug that seems to pop up every other game that inflates the shot totals of one player on a CPU team. That player will get 15 to 20 shots added to his stat line, which obviously screws up the stats for that game. It's cosmetic, and doesn't hurt the gameplay, but stat junkies will immediately notice this flaw.

Legacy

The game on the floor is only one aspect of College Hoops 2K6. It also contains a very deep Legacy mode, allowing you to guide your team through multiple seasons, recruiting incoming players, as you try to establish your program. It's also very similar to last year's Legacy mode with a few exceptions.

The interface has been cleaned up a bit. You now see a percentage to show how much interest a recruit has in your school and not just a red progress bar. This helps to see if a recruit has dropped or gained a few percentage points when it would be much harder to notice this when just using the red bar as a gauge. Legacy mode also includes players leaving early for the draft, player transfers, player attitude that changes depending on their playing time, and the new ability to change a player's already established position. This is very useful because some players may have intangibles better suited for a different position on the floor; changing a player's position may also change his ratings for better or worse.

College Hoops' Legacy mode is fun, deep and very involved. It's also not as fleshed out as it needs to be. There are way too many big upsets in the simulated games between CPU teams. Upsets are a big part of college basketball and what help make the NCAA tourney so compelling. Bucknell did beat Kansas last year. The problem is there are a lot more Bucknell/Kansas type games than there should be. Manhattan over Duke, Belmont over Oklahoma, Boston University over Michigan; Nicholls State over Indiana – all of these happened in one month of a simulated Legacy in Hoops 2K6, and it wasn't a fluke thing. Upsets are just a bit too commonplace.