PlayStation 2
Released in 2005 by EA Sports
Grade: B-
Do you love basketball? Can you lower your standards? Okay, then maybe you’ll like this game. It’s rough around the edges and rough in the middle too, but it’s good for some carefree arcade-style fun.
Where it falls in the series
It’s the fifth of eight EA college basketball games on PS2.
Praises and gripes
I’ve always wanted a good arcade-sim hybrid hoops game — something with a genuine feel that doesn’t require a lot of discipline and patience. Unfortunately, no game really does the job, and most of them leave me thinking “not exciting enough for arcade fun, not realistic enough for sim satisfaction.”
March Madness 06 might be the closest I’ll come, despite all its flaws. It’s fast and there’s lots of scoring. It’s also ugly, with unusually dark graphics and herky-jerky animations clashing with slow, smooth animations.
Shots seem to go in against all odds, and even when they don’t, there are plenty of offensive rebounds and tip-ins. I like that I can attack the basket in traffic or shoot with a hand in my face, which other basketball games punish you for trying. I like that ballhandlers absorb contact and keep moving instead of getting stuck in place. The action moves back and forth fast, and the CPU usually uses a full-court press.
On a low difficulty setting, you don’t have to think too hard and can play free and loose, which can be pretty fun. The whole game feels like a fast break.
Once you dial up the difficulty, the game becomes utterly frustrating. You’ll need the hyper-focused trickery of more serious basketball games without the satisfaction of it seeming like real basketball.
The folks at EA didn’t seem to realize this. They took the game more seriously than its core gameplay deserves, loading it up with fancy advanced controls and concepts.
The new feature this year is the “lockdown stick,” where you pressure the ball with the right analog stick. You’re encouraged to double team, and you can even bring up displays on the court where you should funnel the ballhandler. The stick doesn’t feel natural to use, and you’d need THREE THUMBS to go for a steal while using the stick, a tactic that’s even shown in the tutorial video! The CPU opponent has no trouble with it, of course, constantly scrapping for the ball.
The half-court plays are clear and work like real plays in fast-forward, which I like. But the interface for selecting them moves way too slow in the midst of breakneck action. It’s hard to call a play when you’re desperately avoiding a turnover.
You’ll also find other little screw-ups. Players wait for the ball out of bounds. Defenders don’t box out for rebounds. It’s too easy to pass to the wrong guy or pass too slow, and the icons for icon passing aren’t mapped to the same guy each time, which is so stupid you’ll never see it in a new basketball game ever again. It’s all stuff I’ll forgive if I’m just cruising through a game haphazardly, but would drive me nuts if I was feeling more gung-ho.
For me, this game is definitely worth the dirt-cheap price. I’ll probably pull it out once or twice a year for a few rounds. But keep in mind, I totally love basketball and I own way too many sports video games. I wouldn’t recommend it strongly for most people who are, you know, not me.