2K’s College Hoops franchise has held its own in an arena filled with titles emulating basketball in its many forms including professional, college and street ball. 2K7 has to compete with multiple NBA based games, plus a rival NCAA game and NBA Street Homecourt on the horizon. In the face of stiff competition, does College Hoops 2K7 make it to the show or are they watching March Madness from the comfort of an easy chair?
Just as in the real world, the atmosphere of college sports is more exciting and intense than the professional level. No Super Bowl, World Series or NBA playoff compares to Ohio State/Michigan, Oklahoma/Texas or any one of a dozen rivalries you can name. I’ll take March Madness over a long, drawn out NBA playoff every time, in which more teams qualify than are excluded. College Hoops 2K7 does a fantastic job in recreating the collegiate sports experience. The arenas and crowds are well rendered, and the team mascot can be seen pumping up the fans from the baselines. There are hundreds of school fight songs, and the pep squad leads the crowd in team-specific cheers. If you’re not satisfied with these cheers, you can easily create your own. 2K7 has a multitude of pre-defined sounds such as letters, words and phrases that you can string together to create your own chant. You can customize the pitch and length to get the sounds and cadence you want. You can even incorporate sounds like drums and stomps to jazz up your school cheer. I found this feature to be easy to use and worth the 10 minutes or so you’ll spend creating a chant.
Fans of 2K6 will not see many improvements in 2K7. The biggest difference is the addition of the “team unity” feature. Think of this almost as team momentum. As your team moves the ball, finds good shots and gets some defensive stops, the team unity meter moves up. Coaching decisions seem to impact team unity as much as how the players perform on the hardwood. If you substitute in an untested freshman during a crucial point of the game, you’ll see the team unity meter plummet. This feature seems to lend itself well to the spirit of the college game, though you might be hard pressed at times to notice any difference in gameplay. Regardless, I try to keep the meter up though it’s difficult to know just how your substitutions will impact your team unity.
College Hoops 2K7 offers a variety of game modes to choose from including tournament and rivalry mode. The drills are good for you to hone your skills. For the most part, 2K7’s drills differ from other sports games in that they actually resemble team drills you might see in an actual practice. There are even air hockey and darts minigames. You will be limited in Xbox Live matchups though and I’ve found that there are simply not enough people playing this game at any given time. Sorry, but this is not a high profile title like GOW. You’re better off working your friends list to find a matchup than trying to find a player at your skill level online.
For the true experience, most players will elect “Legacy” mode. When you begin your legacy, you have the choice of “Open” or “Career”. Open will allow you to choose any team you like. From day one you can lead the Bruins, Tarheels or Wildcats to the Final Four. Career mode is where the real work begins. You’ll start at the bottom of the heap with weak coaching skills and job offers only from the lower tier schools (I took Virginia Military Institute for instance). You’ll have to get the most from your kids and subordinates to get your career off to a good start. You will choose two assistants to help you coach your team and recruit next year’s crop of talent. As you develop your list of potential recruits, you’ll assign various duties to yourself and assistants. You can even target high school kids down to the freshman level, and continue to recruit them as they progress through the high school ranks. From emailing a recruit, to requesting a game tape, to a home visit, you’ll have to manage your staff well. Each task requires a certain amount of time, varying with the activity. The time spent on recruiting is taken away from the amount of time you and your assistants have in coaching the team week in and week out. If you spend too much time visiting high school players, your current players may not improve or even live up to their current potential. If you spend too little time recruiting, your program may be lacking talent for the next several seasons. This dimension adds to the game and makes you seriously consider how you allocate your resources. You may want to hire one assistant that is good with recruiting, while using the second one to teach offense, defense and discipline to your current team. At the end of the season you’ll be able to modestly increase your coaching skills and hire new assistants. Also present are the off-season activities you would normally expect such as signing students to scholarships, player graduations and transfers and redshirting players. You can also export the graduating class to NBA 2K7’s player draft.
