From: denton@ssd.comm.mot.com (Perry Denton)
Subject: SNES: NCAA Basketball
Organization: Motorola
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 13:30:08 GMT

Picked up NCAA Basketball a few days ago, but didn't want to post any
opinions until I played a few games.  The game uses a unique 3-D perspective
following the location of the ball (the graphics look a lot like the 
Rocketpack sequence on Pilotwings, I suppose all mode 7 effects done well do).
The game include teams from 5 conferences (ACC, Big East, SEC, Big Eight, SWC).

The controls are standard in a basketball game, except that on both offense
and defense you can change "formations" (eg man-to-man, 2-3) on the fly.
On defense, you can also steal, jump, and change defenders.  Offense is the
standard pass or shoot.  When close to the basket, you have a choice of
five different dunks.  Passing is done by display an icon over the head
of the player you will pass to, with the color being how safe the pass is.
(Green = Very safe, Red = Very Dangerous).  Plus the icon contain a letter
letting you know the position of the player you are passing the ball to.
Free throws are done with arrow pointing down over the basket moving
left to right.

The game comes with battery backup, allowing storage of FOUR different 
conference seasons of play.  Stored are conference records and standard
B-B statistics (Points, rebounds, steals, blocks, free throws, 3 ptrs).

During game play, the current score, shot clock, total fouls, your player and
his position are clearly readable at any time.  By pressing Button "R", you
can look at your current defense or offense play.

On any out-of-bounds possession, you can substitute players or check
current statistics.  Players are labeled as "FRESH" "HOT" "TIRED" or "WEAK",
to help in substituting decisions.  In addition, during this time, you
can change the "style" of your play, "Fastbreak" or not, "Crash the Boards"
or not.

The games includes most of the standard fouls in college BB, and uses
digitized graphics displaying the refs hand motion.

Okay, so what do I think about it.  With all the arguments going on about
graphics, gameplay, and sounds going on, I think I will break up my review
into those parts.

The graphics are amazing.  Fluid animation of all players (much more so than
Electronic Arts series), plus smooth scrolling following the action of the ball.
This is no spectator feel to this game, YOU are playing.  Only on steals and
corner-to-corner passes does the rotating hurt (slightly) the game play (because
of the 180 spin of the court).  The only drawback is that there is no
background, too bad they couldn't figure out and take the time to have fans
in bleachers that scale and rotate during play also (maybe the game designers
did but it probably would be harder to follow the action of the ball) 

The sound is the only poor aspect of the game.  Standard white noise for
the fans (ala NHL Hockey).  The do use a cool digitized sounding 
"We Will Rock You" Stomp-Stomp-Clap occasionally during the game. Plus
all play and ref calls are spoken ("Steal", "Foul by Center", etc)

Again, the game plays so differently than any other computer basketball game.
You feel in total control of the game.  You can control bad passes, you can
defend as aggressively as you like, you control the shots, the dunks, the
style of offense and defense.  Outstanding.

My only gripe so far would be with the difficulty level on conference play.
I'm new to this game (5 games played so far), but I slaughtered NC State 
using North Carolina 100-40.  Maybe NC State had a poor team last year.
I'm waiting to play this with a friend to see what 2 player competition
will be like.  I don't see any way to choose difficult levels or time
of periods during conference season play, but for an individual game there
are 3 levels of difficulty, so I assume for seasonal play your playing the
most difficult level.

Oh yea, another MAJOR gripe is no BIG TEN (arguably the best conference is
college basketball (and football for that matter)).  I would love to play
as my alma-mater Illinois against such foes as Michigan, Indiana, Ohio State.
I guess I can always wait for NCAA Basketball II.

Overall this game rates at least a 9 on innovation alone.  Hopefully this will
be the standard in which all sports games will be compared.

Perry
-- 
Perry Denton
Motorola, Inc.
Schaumburg, Illinois
Internet: denton@ssd.comm.mot.com       Phone: (708) 576-4479
Newsgroups: rec.games.video,rec.games.video.arcade