College Hoops 360 – Preliminary Impressions
Predictably, Gamefly delivered College Hoops about twenty minutes before we had to blow town for the weekend. I was non-plussed with the timing to say the least and partially regretted not choosing to stay home (the sacrifices I make for family). And unfortunately, I only managed to get one game in (and to dink around in the Legacy options a little) before calling it a night after we got home on Sunday.
I’ll refrain from getting much into gameplay. I mean it was one game, but here’s some stuff I noticed.
- It sure is ‘perty.
- The sounds effects are tres cool (love the sound of the ball going through the net), but seem oddly balanced. The PA announcer voice is absolutely booming, for example. But it’s the loudness balance of sound effects that’s a little troubling. The sound of a dunk is really quite loud, yet the ball dribbling on the floor is very, very quiet and the sound a ball swooshing through the net is somewhere in between. I hope this can be tweaked from the menu settings, but the fact that certain sound effects seem quiet, while others very loud may make finding a happy medium difficult.
- Fight songs for the Big Ten are indeed in the game. Yeah!
- It’s only one game, but my guard didn’t start the game shooting 0 for 20 or whatever that odd bug was in the Xbox version. Again: yeah!
- I’ve read some complaints about commentary, and while justified, I don’t think it’s really any worse than the initial version and I don’t think it gets in the way of gameplay. Could it be better? Probably, but I’m fine with it.
- I’m a little worried that, like NBA, foul calls are balanced against the AI. I drew *FAR* more whistles in the lane than the AI did. In fact most shots from inside or near the paint drew a whistle. Again, however, it was just one game.
- Free throws are considerably harder. The stick is really touchy about left-to-right movement when you draw it back and let it go forward, which I think is new. Honest to god, I was something like 5-28 from the line and that’s after making three of my last four to end the game. I think this is more a getting used to things problem and is probably a plus for the game since I think FT shooting has been too easy in NBA 2k6 (Xbox and 360) and the Xbox version of College Hoops.
- I still think the coach’s clipboard is the best new usability feature in any basketball game in years.
The one game I played was U of M at home against Michigan State on the Superstar level with 10-minute halves. I do reasonably well at this difficulty in NBA, but I got absolutely crushed last night. Something like 60-30. My shot timing is either off or I’ll need to do some slider tweaking because I couldn’t make a jump shot to save my life (and I had more than a couple open looks). It’s probably a little bit of both, but generally it was a good first impression and its nice to have the game in time for March Madness.
I probably won’t get any more time in tonight (we have guests coming to watch last week’s 24 on TiVo and then watch tonight’s right after that), but I plan to start a Legacy this week. I’ll probably sim out most of the first few seasons and just do the recruiting part until I start to build up my coach a little. I’ll post more impressions as I play more.