College Hoops 2K6 (Xbox 360)

It's time for March Madness, but that usually means filling out brackets and sneaking out of the office to run to the nearest sports bar and catch a few tournament games during lunchtime. You usually don't associate this time of year with the release of college basketball video games, but 2K Sports went ahead and did it anyway, with the Xbox 360 version of College Hoops 2K6. With the game's late arrival, you would hope that a lot more than just some subtle tweaks would have been made to justify paying double the price of current-generation versions. While the same great artificial intelligence and gameplay from those versions remain in this one, there just isn't much new here to get excited about.

College Hoops 2K6 on the 360 plays a lot like the previous versions of the game on the Xbox and the PS2...

The same control systems used in NBA 2K6 and previous versions of College Hoops 2K6 are used in this version too. First of all, there's the new isomotion juke system. Instead of using the right analog stick to execute fancy dribble maneuvers, you toggle the right and/or left trigger buttons to put your ball handler into an aggressive stance. Once you do that, jiggling the left analog stick will not only move your player, but it will also execute juke moves. If the ball's in your player's right hand, toggling the stick from right to left will execute a crossover. Do a half circle and he'll wrap the ball around his back instead. As you experiment with the isomotion, you'll find that you can easily chain together moves ranging from jab steps to crossovers to backspins and more. It's not an easy system to learn for sure, but once you get it down, you'll find that you have a lot of control over how your ball handler moves.

The new shot stick is also included in College Hoops 2K6. The right analog stick is now used as another way to shoot the basketball, since it no longer controls the juke moves. The interesting thing about the shot stick is that it lets you emote different types of shots. Tap away from the basket from midrange and you can execute a fallaway jumper. Drive the hoop and tap to either side, and your shooter will try a one-handed scoop with either hand. Different types of dunks can also be executed depending on how you move the stick as you drive an open lane--the more-agile dunkers can do some spectacular throw-downs. The post game is also made more interesting by the shot stick, as you can execute different types of post moves, like spins, drop steps, fallaways, and up-and-unders with a combination of the shot stick and the aggressive modifier. For the faint of heart, the standard shot button still remains, which will allow the computer to select a shot for you as with any other basketball game. But for those of us who want the added control, the shot stick works pretty well once you get the hang of it.

Other new tweaks to the gameplay have also been made, such as the intuitive pull-and-release free-throw mechanism. In this version of College Hoops 2K6, the camera does not zoom in close to the player. Instead, you get the same camera you picked for gameplay, which gives you a better view to rebound any misses. Perhaps more important is the inclusion of a flexible quick-menu system called the "coach's clipboard" that pops up at every play stoppage. This great feature lets you quickly make player substitutions, as well as other adjustments to your defense. There are quite a few options made easily available to you, so you can fine-tune when you want to execute presses and traps (your options include always executing your press, never, occasionally, or only after made baskets). There is also quite an array of different presses you can do, ranging from simple half-court traps to a two-two-one zone press. You can also adjust double-team frequencies on certain players, change matchups for man-to-man defenses, and even call out points of emphasis for your players to focus on, like rebounding and ball control.

On the court, you have access to up to eight different quickplay calls from the D pad. You can press any direction to execute a play that you've designated from the game's extensive playbook, and you can toggle another button to call up a second set of four plays from the D pad. There are dozens of plays available, and there are a few different playbooks available depending on the type of offense your school runs, including flex and motion offenses. Only four different quick defenses are available from the D pad, but you can assign these from the usual array of different zone defense types like three-two, two-three matchup, and box-and-one. Traps in this game can be particularly effective, as you can often tie up a ball handler by bringing a quick double-team on him. You'll need to be careful about pressing teams with good ball handlers though, as you can easily get burned if they break out. You'll also find that in the Xbox 360 version of the game, it's more challenging to pass effectively out of the double-team. You can't just jam on the pass button to bail yourself out, or you're likely to turn it over.

...which is good and bad news.

The gameplay in College Hoops 2K6 is as sharp as it was on the regular Xbox version of the game. Schools seem to run the type of game that they do in real life. You'll see squads like Wisconsin play hard-nosed defense and grind out the shot clock on offense. Other teams like Washington will attempt to run and gun up and down the court and shoot earlier in the shot clock to generate tempo. Opponents will also mix up defenses on you and press at different times to show you different looks. Perhaps most impressive is that teams actually appear to run offenses in the half-court, so you'll see players moving off the ball and usually in an intelligent manner. It's important to be able to read the type of defense being run on you so that you can attack the open spots. The computer also reacts intelligently depending on how you're playing. If you're using Cal and lighting it up with Leon Powe, for example, they'll eventually run double-teams at him to try to force him to give up the ball. Conversely, the computer-controlled teams are smart enough to rely on their star players, so if you play against Duke, expect to see JJ Redick and Shelden Williams shouldering most of the scoring load.

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