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College basketball is pretty exciting even in interactive form. March Madness 06 has struggled with differentiating itself from the NBA Live series, which is pretty difficult to do and took EA’s college football series quite a while to differentiate itself from Madden. That said, the game has locked the college atmosphere pretty well, and with some more improvements, could reach superstar material.
The game’s dynasty mode is its main single player mode. The game does a good job of recreating the recruiting found in NCAA Football. You’re able to preliminarily recruit players while in season, enabling you to grab a good number of players when the actual recruiting season starts. The game lets you play a high school game with prospective recruits to fill you in on how they actually play which is a great addition. Unfortunately, not all is as good in the dynasty mode. The game only has 12 players per team, which is okay since most teams only have about 12 good players but they also feature some walk-ons. You’ll also notice that sometimes players drop ratings without much explanation. The game also features too many violations that require discipline points if one of the team members breaks a NCAA rule.
The gameplay has remained solid as usual. The most notable change is the addition of the lockdown stick, which enables you to play a much closer defense game. You can simply walk up to the guy with the ball and use the right thumbstick to see your player get pretty close to the opposing player. If you use it right, you’ll be able to force the guy to give up the ball. If you don’t use it right, though, you’ll give the offense an advantage. You can also use it on players that don’t have the ball to block passes and get steals and such. This is a great addition and beefs up the defense in the game. The offense is still pretty solid though. The freestyle stick isn’t as effective as it is in NBA Live, but it’s still pretty fun to use. The computer isn’t that smart and will try to frequently use the same plays, though.
NCAA March Madness 06 features an online multiplayer mode via Xbox Live. The game is pretty fluid which is great since last year the online was a bit laggy. You’ll still have to go through the EA stuff before the real Xbox Live, but it’s still good to have a functional online mode. The game also includes offline multiplayer for up to 4 players.
The game’s visuals are a bit underwhelming. The game has always struggled to catch up with the NBA Live series, and it is much more apparent this year since NBA Live just went through a graphics update. The player models look alright but lack the detail that other contemporary basketball games have. Thankfully, the player animations are great and all of the players are done with much fluidity. The crowds are pretty basic, though they get pretty excited when a good play is done.
The game’s sound does a bit better. As mentioned above, the crowds get very excited when a good play is done, and this effect is undoubtedly helped by the sound since the crowds don’t look all that great. The sound effects are as good as expected since EA perfected the sounds of basketball quite some time ago. The soundtrack is made up of college bands which is pretty nice and fits the game well. The commentary by Brad Nesseler and Dick Vitale is only somewhat informative, but good nonetheless.
March Madness 06 is a good game though some things can be changed to make the game an even better candidate. The game very accurately recreates the college atmosphere, though the spotty visuals and lacking dynasty mode don’t let it become as good as it can be. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Oct 23, 2005
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