- Title: NCAA March Madness 07
- Platform: Xbox 360
- Publisher: EA Canada
- Developer: EA Sports
- ESRB: “E” for Everyone
- Genre: College basketball
- Pros: Great crowd interaction; solid gameplay; looks and sounds just like NCAA basketball should
- Cons: Camera angle isn’t optimal; on the court, all of the players sort of look the same; no season mode, only dynasty; too many fouls
Features and Modes
March Madness 07 offers up a decent features list, but just like most of EA’s other 360 sports offerings, it is missing a few things. It isn’t bare boned, not by a long shot, but when the most obvious mode of all, a standard season mode, isn’t included, something is wrong. Instead, you can play the dynasty mode, but dynasty mode tasks you with playing the games as well as other stuff like recruiting, building school spirit, and trying to build a successful program in the long-term. That is all well and good, but sometimes you want to experience the thrill of a sports season without all of the extra junk, you just want to play the games. You can’t do that here. In addition to dynasty mode, you can also play exhibition games, set up tournaments, and also play on Xbox Live. Unfortunately, you can’t set up Xbox Live tournaments, which is a fairly major oversight.
Gameplay
The best aspect of the gameplay is how intense and exciting and fun it all is, thanks in large part to the new composure system and the great crowds. Each player starts with a level of composure determined by their skill and experience and so forth. As they play the game, it will go up or down depending on how they are performing. This affects their shooting and ball handling and everything else, which makes the game very unpredictable and exciting. When you take an inexperienced team on the road to play in a madhouse like Duke or North Carolina, they react the way you expect them to: They get overwhelmed. The crowd plays a large role in this because it reacts to the action perfectly. When the home team goes on a big run, or there is a good defensive stop or a spectacular dunk, the crowd goes wild and pumps up their team while also demoralizing the visitor. It makes the gameplay very, very exciting and dramatic and it is an amazingly fun experience.
Graphics and Sound
Graphically, NCAA March Madness 07 is a nice looking game, but there are some issues. Up close, the players are nicely detailed and look great, and the arenas and crowds are very nice looking. Unfortunately, the default camera angle is pulled too far back and it is hard to find a good alternative among the other available cameras. This creates a problem where it can be hard to locate individual players that you want to use on the court because they all sort of look the same from the pulled out camera angle. Trying to get some of the achievements, such as scoring 100 points or getting insane numbers of assists and rebounds with one player are made more difficult because you can’t usually tell who is who.The sound is the highlight of the presentation because of the fantastic crowd interaction. You really feel like you are there in the area because the crowd noise is insanely well implemented. Some schools also have their fight songs in the game, and hearing all of this with Dick Vitale spewing color commentary is about as authentic of an experience as you are going to get.
Bottom Line
