The college basketball game certainly has its share of thrills. If a team hits its stride, just about anything can be accomplished on a given night, even having a small school knock off a powerhouse.

2K Sports keeps that in mind with some wonderful additions to College Hoops 2K8, but lest you think this game is a rim-rocker, there are a few missteps on the way to the basket that might prevent it from taking home the national championship.

But before dwelling on the ‘less-than-good’ aspects, the spotlight should shine on the terrific additions the 360 title brings to the fore. In the 2007 iteration, more attention was paid to the influence of the crowd, including the ability to create chants to help give your team a little more charge. That aspect has drawn some new focus this season and as a result, there is the 6^th man meter. The more your team pulls off strong plays, like a dunk or a steal or buries a three-pointer, the louder the ‘6^th man’ will get, and that will affect the other team. You can be down by 12 points and start a run, with the crowd getting louder with each point you score in whittling at the opposition’s lead. Conversely, the louder the crowd, the more likely your opponent is to make mistakes, whether it be in terms of errant passes, or making poor shot choices. This definitely adds a thrill to the game.

And if that were not enough, considering the strength of the 2007 title, 2K8 has tweaked some of the game mechanics, including passing the ball. It is called Maximum Passing and it allows players to select the target of the pass, but also to determine what type of pass to make. Instead of the standard chest pass, you can now lob, bounce pass or lead pass, all actuated by the left bumper on the controller. The right bumper will pop up player icons, so you can select which player you wish to pass to, but be forewarned, the icons can jump quickly between players.

Borrowing a page from the NBA title, College Hoops brings in the Lock-on D element. However, this is handled unevenly. The idea is to match-up and stay in front of a player, prohibiting that player from a quick step move that blows by the defender. However, the feature needs help as even a slow 7-footer can successfully stay step-for-step with a speedy point guard when you lock on (left trigger).

Another new feature seems to be mini-game oriented with little use outside of accomplishing the 14 drills. The All-American Training Challenge is designed to build up player’s game skills, but does not have anything to do with overall player effectiveness inside the game. You can still miss very easy shots. And some of the referee calls – or non-calls, as it were – were simply odd. There was an obvious backcourt violation that was missed. And on a made basket, the team supposed to be in-bounding the ball didn’t; it simply picked up the ball under the basket and passed it up the floor.

There is a coaching mode that will allow you to see and call the game from the coach’s eyes. It is a nice feature and the d-pad allows you to call plays on the fly, even in other game modes. However, this does not always function quite like it should. On several occasions the defensive call was either for a 2-3 or 3-2 zone and a pair of defensive players ended up occupying the same spot on the floor, or trying to. But even as the game starts to pull off some quirks, it quickly rebounds with some game flow elements that are very well done, like coaching adjustments at the half in a game. 

When you reach halftime the home coach is afforded the opportunity to tweak the team philosophy for the second half. You can alter game strategies such as fast-break transitions or crashing the boards. This really gives the sense that the player is in charge of the game, which is a good thing considering that the AI is really pretty solid. Late in the game, with the controlled team trailing, the players will automatically foul without being specifically directed to do so. It is a tactic often employed to slow the clock, but to see the game smart enough to go into that mode without the flick of a button was very nice.

While Legacy mode was featured in 2K7, the ABL has been added to this year’s game, enabling coaches to play with the approximately 1,500 high school players from around the nation to get a handle on whom to recruit. The ABL schedule can be played or simulated.

On the downside, the game seems to have a bit of a problem in the Create mode, especially the create a school function. Creating a player is easy. Not only do you get to play with a wide range of numbers affecting his game, but you can drop him onto the roster of your choice. However, in creating a school, there is no easy way to insert that school into a league. Yes, you can micro-manage the team in creating your own playbook, and selecting players (cloning, actually) from the represented players throughout the NCAA (no actual players, but rather players with made up names that do sort of emulate tendencies of some players on the real college teams), but actually using that team seems to be a feature well hidden in the game, if there are all – at least when it comes to the Legacy mode. Sure, you can pull up the team and have it play one of its rivals in Quick Play, but even there things were a little off. The team logo was there, as was the team name in the pop-up windows. However, the uniform colors were not what was selected and on the in-game arena scoreboard, the team was named Notre Dame (which was not the name given to the school).

When it comes to the game’s graphics, the dev team has done some solid work in terms of player animation. Ripping away rebounds looks authentic, though the jump shot animation has a bit of a hitch in the release point that seems to be in front of the forehead at times. Still, the settings and players look good. The audio is also very well done.

2K8 does have a strong online component as well, with the Pontiac Virtual NCAA Final 4 allowing Xbox Live players to mirror the NCAA tourney matchups for a chance to win a trip to the Final Four. There are also a bevy of tournaments online to challenge players.

College Hoops 2K8 is a game where the pluses vastly outweigh the negatives. The 6^th man feature, coaching adjustments, play designer all are welcomed additions to a very good title. Is this the best college basketball game of the year? That question won’t be answered until EA Sports March Madness 08 releases in two weeks, but 2K’s title is a very strong contender and it will take a major effort to unseat it from a run at the national title.

Gameplay: 8.3
There are some oddities, like a team that just hits a dry-spell for no apparent reason and can’t even make a simple lay-up, and there is a bit of a learning curve to fully appreciate the nuances of the game. The user interface can appear to be more painful than it actually is, but the game AI is very good.

Graphics: 8.4
From the courtside cameras, the game looks terrific. The players tend to lose something when seen up close, but the animations are solid.

Sound: 8.5
The ambience, from the crowd to the arena announcer, is there and the play-by-play is handled well by the trio of Verne Lundquist, Bill Rafferty and Tracy Wolfson.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 8.4
Some more attention could have been given to the ‘create’ modes, but the additions made to this year’s release are very solid.

Multiplayer: 8.2
Online tourneys will challenge those who have the thirst of strong competition.  

Overall: 8.4
A very good game that should have fans of the college game excited. The 2K team has upped the ante when it comes to game mechanics and that makes College Hoops 2K8 an enjoyable and challenging experience.