I was excited about this game initially. I found there is a core group of players who love it. It has detailed player stats with good game quality artwork for the players. The drafting is a little tough to master but I found people willing to help me, although I won’t mention the website. I don’t want to give them any credit but for the sake of the person reading this review it’s a common site that people go to for specific interests. Being that there is a group for this game specifically.
The ratings for the players are in depth and they use a letter system with pluses and minuses. Going from A to F. You are able to put in how you desire for each player to work offensively in the game. Do you want him to shoot a lot of threes or do you want him to drive to the basket more often? It covers every type of offensive shot. You also are able to choose your defense and your offensive scheme for the game, for the team as a whole. But only before the game and not inside of the game.
There is a simulation readout for the game which tells you every possession. But it’s not very in-depth and it has some unrealistic results which is the actual simulation. For example there are way too many 3-point fouls. With the offensive schemes you could pick but I have a feeling that there isn’t much built into the game as far as what players are good for what type of offense and whether it succeeds or not. Which would seem like something that game should do.
If that came off as confusing I’m talking about whether you have the right players for the type of offense or defense that you are running. I would like to think that they are realistic and that you have to do some homework in order to run up an efficient dribble drive or inside out offense or a zone defense or a man to man paint focused (dont recall the exact name) but I find myself doubting this is the case.
With the game one of my main gripes is that it doesn’t really tell you whether you’re the home team or the visiting team. This seems essential for a college basketball game but it doesn’t differentiate.
It also doesn’t tell you what seed you are in the NCAA tournament nor does it give you the tournament layout for the entire big dance or for the conference tournaments. I also found the drafting system to be a little too hard to figure out. Even when playing with a powerhouse like Kentucky I had a hard time getting players to want to play for my team. I know there’s a way to get them to want to come to your school I just didn’t know how to do it. People will tell you how to do it and you can learn.
On another positive though, you are able to decide how you want to use subs in the game. You program this in before the game and how much you want each player to play. It won’t go by this specifically, it will not create a strategy which is doomed for failure. So it’s good that it doesn’t go by exactly what you tell it to do. But it does form a pattern around your suggestion.
I’m not good at writing these reviews because I haven’t written many of them. I think that about covers it, I know I kind of went back and forth with the pros and cons. I wish that the designers would spend a little more time on it and listen to what people are asking for. It has potential to be a really great game.
If the designer or anyone with any knowledge of this game that would be willing to converse with me or wants to correct me on something I’ve gotten wrong here I sure would like to speak to them, my email address is [email protected].