I cannot believe that
Football season is already half over but that means that Basketball season is
starting to get in full swing once again. Each year developers try to create the
best pro and college sports games to coincide with the start of a new season. To
be blunt, 989 Sports has lost its edge that it had when the original Playstation
was released. They created some of the best sports games back then, and ever
since the release of the Playstation 2 they have been trying to catch up with
the rest of the pack. Does NCAA Final Four 2004 recapture the glory they once
had, or is it another sub par game? Read on to find out.
NCAA Final Four 2004 has plenty of different modes to offer gamers to get their
college basketball fix. First there is the practice mode where gamers can
develop the necessary skills to play the game more effectively. Quick Start is
where players can instantly jump into the action. The CPU will pick two random
teams and the only thing players need to do is choose sides. Exhibition mode
allows two teams, which the players get to choose to play. An arcade game is the
same as an Exhibition game, but it plays at a faster pace, and the characters
makes more exaggerated moves. Season mode lets gamers play through an entire
season with any team. This allows games to get a feel for how the game plays out
and helps them decide if they want to start a Dynasty. Players can also play in
a Tournament that consists of the top 64 teams, and your goal is to see if you
have what it takes to beat them all on your bracket.
The real meat of this game is the Dynasty Mode and Career mode. In Dynasty
players can take any Division I-A Team and see if they have what it takes and
win it all. Gamers will have control over everything in order to get this done.
During the season, gamers have to manage the scheduling, dealing with the
roster, injuries, and everything else. The Career mode is a multi-season format
where the goal is to build a successful coaching career. Players start off in a
small school, as an Assistant Coach, but the real goal is to become the Head
Coach at a Choice
College.
As player’s finish off a season, if your stats have improved players will get
offers to coach other schools or continue at the current one. This is a neat
feature because now players can see what it is like to coach more than one team
during the course of a game.
Players can now use the right analog stick to perform spin modes and other moves
to confuse defenders. Also it is now easy to identify who is the faster, best
shooter, and star of the team due to icons that are under each of the players.
Now players can have a little more strategy to get the ball to the best person
suited for the job.
One of the biggest flaws in NCAA Final Four 2004 is the controls. At times the
game is smooth as silk and other times it is unresponsive. Players can do the
exact same play three times and get different results. For example if you go up
to make a shot, sometimes you will shoot it and other times you will just go “up
and down” even though you are putting the exact same amount of pressure on the
shot button. This is not acceptable in a game that requires so much shooting
because one missed shot could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
The graphics for this game are modest, but they will not blow you away. The
problem is the level of detail, or the lack of it, in all of the characters.
While it can be argued that the characters do have little details such as arm
and headbands, the overall character is very bland looking. The characters seem
to have a high polygonal count, but it does no good if all of the characters
look virtually identical. The animation is very disappointing, because the
characters seem to move like robots, lacking the flare that other games on the
market have.
The audio is a double edge sword, the fight songs and things you normally hear
at a college game are there in full force, but the commentary gets old really
fast. All of the running, grunting, slam-dunk sounds are present and accounted
for. There is nothing really new or stunning that will blow your socks off
though.
One of the best things about NCAA Final Four 2004 is the extremely deep online
mode; this portion of the game is almost as deep as the Dynasty Mode! Once
players create an account, they can choose to do many things, such as selecting
a game, chatting, check out tournaments, message boards, fill out surveys, use
an email system, and do myriads of other things. It is amazing to see what all
players can do online. If that wasn’t enough the game keeps track of the leaders
to see who is the highest ranked in this game. There are enough bragging rights
in this game to last a lifetime. Even if you are away from your Playstation 2,
players can visit
http://www.989sportsonline.com to check and see if they have any mail, the
tournament brackets, and the leader boards.
NCAA Final Four 2004 is rated E for Everyone. It requires up to 749 KB on your
memory card and can play up to 1-8 players (via multitap). To play online you
must have the Network Card and broadband or dialup. It also supports the
Logitech/PS2 USB Headset.
Gameplay: 6.5
The controls are
not reliable in any sense. It is not fun playing a game, when you are constantly
worrying if the players will do the commands that you tell them to.
Graphics: 6.4
The character models are bland, and the players move like unrealistic, but this
game has no slowdown!
Sound: 6.4
Boring repetitive commentary, but the crowd noise is nice.
Difficulty: Medium
Wrestling with the controls will become more difficult than this game could ever
hope to be.
Concept: 7.5
The only thing that this game really has going for it is the deep online mode.
Multiplayer: 9.4
You can play up to eight players in one room or play against people from all
around the United
States! The online
mode is extremely deep and is highly impressive. I never encountered any lag
while playing either, which is a good thing.
Overall: 6.8
If 989 Studios put as much effort into next year’s game, as they did in the
online mode, they might…no they will be in the running with EA and Sega. With
less than reliable controls, and modest graphics, NCAA Final Four 2004 can’t
complete with the other basketball games out in the market. Hopefully 989 will
get their act together and prove that a first party sports developer can take
advantage of the console hardware, and be king of the hill again!
