SHUHEI MATSUO
Assistant Online Editor
The college basketball video game is back again for the 2008 season. While college basketball is heating up for the month of March, EA Sports recently released its newest installment in its college basketball franchise, NCAA March Madness 08. By adding fresh, attractive features, this video game proves to be a step above its previous versions, especially in the graphic category.
The best part of this video game, without a doubt, is the truly realistic graphics. It has 326 NCAA Division I teams, including Pepperdine. Every arena looks so real that you feel like you are actually watching a real basketball game on TV.
Take our athletic gym.
EA Sports has done a superb job capturing every detail of Pepperdine’s Firestone Fieldhouse, even the ceiling. The spectators in the stands are as real as the actual fans because each one of them, besides the Riptide fans, is wearing different types of clothes and has his or her own cheering style. It even has our championship banners right. All of them have the accurate year and sports and are in the correct spot, which is very impressive. The only change you see in this virtual Fieldhouse is the cheerleaders’ uniforms, which are in greenish blue for some reason. But everything else looks virtually the same.
Although the realistic pictures are head and shoulders above the previous versions and other college basketball video games, there are a couple of downsides to this video game. For example, the all-new Dynamic Post Control feature is a bit too redundant. Each year NCAA March Madness focuses on one new feature that will help to deliver a more complete basketball package to fans. This year’s focus is Dynamic Post Control, a feature that’s only available in this game.
However, with every play being post played, it almost feels like you are watching a slow-motion basketball movie, instead of playing an active sports video game. While these post play images are almost as clear as high definition pictures, NCAA March Madness 08 relies a bit too much on post plays.
Another shortcoming of this game is a lack of smoothness in players’ movements. While those players in the video game show off their tone physique and stylish hair just like they do in real life, EA Sports failed to give its players the smoothness in their action. Their motions are somewhat awkward especially when they dribble. Their dribble almost looks like they are doing yo-yo instead.
One last thing to be mentioned is that the scores are so tiny that you can’t figure out how many points your team has scored unless you press the pause button and get close to the TV screen. EA Sports should have kept the 07’s big scoreboard that goes all the way across the screen. Even though there are a few minor downsides, March Madness 08 provides much action and excitement that fans wanted. With much-improved quality graphics it has to offer, this turned out to be a solid video game.
02-07-2008
