The fall season means different things to different people; to some it is time to start back school, to others it means the end of a summer job, to me specifically it represents time for college football. Lucky Xbox 360 owners get to control the games of the fall season well before the first college football game is shown on television. The release of EA’s first step into college football on the 360, NCAA Football 2007, will be celebrated by young men (and some women) around the country. Fortunately EA did not make the same mistake they did with Madden 2006 by rushing out NCAA before it was ready, this time around they got a lot more right, but still managed to get a few things wrong.
First let’s go over the modes that are playable in NCAA 2007. The ever-popular dynasty mode has returned with full force, easily the best part of the game this year. There is also the normal play now mode, mini-games, and online play that have become commonplace in sports games. Where EA messed up here was making the executive decision to leave out the “Campus Legend” mode that not only graced the Xbox version of NCAA 2007 but is what set the NCAA series apart from other titles. That gripe being said there are still plenty of ways for you to put countless hours of gameplay into (Dynasty mode is just great) and the multiplayer aspect never hurt the replayability score. Xbox Live makes for easy to join games and I experienced a mostly lag-free environment throughout the multiple games I tested with people from different parts of the country. The Dynasty mode is complete with all rosters (you must insert your own names but the numbers are right), schedules, mascots, and stadiums. After playing through a few seasons the Dynasty mode did start to get repetitive but that is to be expected from a football game. Playing this game with your friends is by far the most fun you can have with two college football teams, a lot of snow, and two controllers.
Now that the modes of play are out of the way let’s go into how this game actually plays. NCAA 2007 is a bag of mixed fruit when it comes to this subject, there are good things and there are bad things. The controls are the same ones that gamers have been accustomed to with all EA football titles, if you have played them before you will feel right at home with this one. The Xbox 360 controller handles NCAA just fine and the layout of the buttons works just fine, you can of course tweak the control scheme if you wish. There are nice shiny new playbooks to look at, as well as some cool new menu features that will give this game that new game feel to veterans of the series. You can divide your play choices by formation, type, or Corso; I advise against the last option. Where NCAA starts to struggle is with the AI. You can choose your difficulty setting anywhere from freshman to Heisman, the default setting is way to easy.
