Sports games on new systems are often a little late to the party, but College
Hoops 2K7 arrives on the PS3 just in time for the Big Dance. At this time of
year it may be hard for college hoops fans whipped into a frenzy by the NCAA
Tournament to resist snatching up the game and recreating some of the tourney’s
match ups on their PS3. Will they be disappointed? Does the game have the
staying power to keep you coming back after the nets have been cut down in
Atlanta? Tune in and see…
To start off, College Hoops 2K7 does a great job of capturing the atmosphere
and enthusiasm of college basketball. The opening menu is even set in a locker
room that is literally shaking with the noise from an arena filled with crazed
fans. When you take the floor you’ll see the crowd decked out in the home
school’s colors, the raucous student section, the cheerleaders and mascot, and
the pep band belting out the fight song. The crowd feeds off of the on-court
action and you’ll find yourself getting pumped up when the crowd goes wild after
you nail a key 3-pointer or reel off a 10-0 run. The game features over 200
school fight songs, so odds are in your favor that your favorite school’s is
included in the game. There are also school-specific chants, and if your
favorite is missing or you’ve always wanted to create your own, the game’s chant
creator is there to help. You can have the crowd spell out words or chant words
or phrases, even adding a drumbeat to drive the chants along. It’s a very cool
addition to the game that can help you to help the crowd to pump you up.
As for the on-court action it’s pretty good for the most part, but there are
some annoying factors that can prove frustrating at times. Fast breaks are hard
to pull off because the passes up court are thrown directly to the players
instead of leading them. Players will often stop and pivot to catch the ball,
allowing the defense to catch up and cut off your lanes to the basket. Even when
you do beat the defense you’ll find your players blowing more lay-ups than you
care to see. For some reason, players miss lay-ups on a consistent basis and
you’ll often see them decide to make some sort of fall away, off balance shot
instead of simply laying it up and in. On the flipside of the coin the AI can
make 3-pointers with alarming regularity, consistently shooting above 80% from
the arc. It goes without saying that it’s frustrating to be taking on Utah
Valley State with a ranked team and finding yourself on the short end of a
double digit lead because you miss most of your lay-ups while the AI is draining
shots from beyond NBA range. I also ran into an issue with steals, namely that
they’re pretty hard for you to pull off while the AI seems to have a magic
touch. If you have a defender or two tight on your man he’ll invariably drop the
ball or flop and fumble it away.
Other than the aforementioned issues everything plays pretty well in the
game. You can use the face buttons to pass, shoot, and perform crossover
dribbles, or if you want a little more control over things you can shoot with
the right stick, enable icon passing, and hold down R2 and use the left stick to
perform some special moves while on the dribble. Free throws make use of the
Sixaxis controller’s tilt feature – you pull it back to start the motion and
then tilt it forward to release the ball. The game is kind enough to let you
know if you are tilting the controller forward too early or too late which is
pretty nice of it. Sure, it’s kind of a gimmicky free throw system but it works
just fine and isn’t that different from shooting with the stick.
Page 2 of 2 »
