Amazon.com: NCAA March Madness 2005: Playstation 2: Video Games

20 Reviews

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

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4.0 out of 5 stars (20 customer reviews)

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid gameplay with a (mostly) realistic feel, May 12, 2005

By	William Hockings (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars

If you're looking for a game that makes you feel like you're actually playing or coaching college basketball, this is a pretty good game to get. The game is, for the most part, accurate:

* The arenas all have the right names (as far as I've checked), and if you're playing in a high- or mid-major team's arena, the court is a good facsimile of the real thing, but teams from low-major conferences are generally given generic courts with the team's logo at center court.

* All 31 Division I-A conferences and their teams are in the game, but if you're looking to play as Savannah State or TAMU-CC or any other independent, you're out of luck.

* Season schedules are set up randomly (of course, nonconference games can be changed, although teams can reject playing against you). The number of times you play against each team in your conference is correct, at least (i.e. if you are in the SEC East, you play each team from the East twice, each team from the West once).

* You can edit each player's physical features, name, jersey #, and so on, but the hair choices are very limited (no afros, Adam Morrison hair, etc.). Also, you can only save about 275 player's names into your roster file (at least that's the point where my PS2 would always freeze when I tried to add anyone else's name).

* The crowd noise really doesn't seem to be too distracting once you get used to it. If you play against, say, Duke at Cameron Indoor, the crowd will be fairly noisy as long as Duke is ahead, and the camera will shake a little, but after a while it's not very noticeable. Also, unlike NCAA Football 2005, there is no way to manually intensify the home crowd. They just get louder when the home team makes a shot and quieter when the road team makes a shot.

* Dynasty mode is good, with the following exceptions. 1) Players commit violations way too frequently, and this makes it fairly likely that if you don't suspend players for several games for each violation, the NCAA will sanction you at the end of the season. 2) The amount of recruiting points you have seems to be too small. You can set how you want to prioritize training vs. recruiting, but when it gets down to you wanting to do everything you can to land top recruits, you often have to use up a lot of points just finding out how good various recruits are and trying to get them interested in your program (especially if you're not a big-name program). Otherwise, recruiting is fun and it's a good way to make you feel more like you're a real coach with a real program that you need to develop and maintain.

* The game does include realistic conference tournaments (i.e. the brackets are set up correctly), and the locations seem to be realistic (i.e. the major conference tournaments are played in a no-name arena, while the 2005 West Coast Conference tournament is played at Santa Clara, which is where it was played if I recall correctly). The NCAA tournament has similar realism, with games in the 1st and 2nd round played in generic arenas, and the regional semis and finals played at Texas-Austin, Syracuse, The Pit in Albuquerque and DePaul near Chicago. The seedings are not always realistic, however (during one season, UNC Wilmington was able to get a 5 seed), but teams mostly get the seeds that you would expect, based on their performance through the season. Once February starts, there is an option called Tournament Watch which shows you who the automatic bids are from each conference as well as the probable at-large teams and bubble teams, and gives the RPI for each of them.

As far as gameplay, I have a few more comments:

* If you are used to the EA Sports style of gameplay, this game should be comfortable. ESPN's College Hoops has a very different feel, and it takes some time to adjust in going from one style to the other.

* It is a lot harder to score on this game than on NBA Live. If you have a very quick team and are going up against a weak opponent, you probably can run fast break after fast break, but in most games you will have to run plays from the Floor General playlist at least occasionally. You can still do basic things like posting up, running a pick-and-roll or an isolation just like on NBA Live, but they often don't work quite as well as on Live.

* If your (computer) opponent has a decent big man, expect to get blocked a lot when going to the rim. This happens particularly when you try to run a fast break. Unless you have someone who can dunk with authority, the computer will get an inordinate number of blocks (same problem exists on Live).

* The Floor General playcalling is a great thing to have, although on easier difficulty levels the plays will be successful too often. On the hardest difficulty level, the computer will sometimes not be fooled and block what should be a wide open shot coming off of a screen. The flip side of the playcalling, of course, is that once you get used to your opponent's plays, you can tell what he's going to do and try to neutralize the play.

All in all, I love this game and have played some 200 games and still going. I suppose that's as good a recommendation as I can give.

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18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars EA screws up again, November 29, 2004

By	Mike "Falcon" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars

ESPN College Hoops 2K5 is overall a much better game this year than March Madness 2005. I suggest that you should buy College Hoops 2K5 instead. These are the reasons why:

1. You can only edit the names of 325 players in the game. That's only 27 teams that you can completely edit! This really takes away from the game if you can't name all the players you want to.
2. The computer's defense recovers too quickly when you force a turnover, making fast breaks nearly impossible to get.
3. The graphics are not up to par in this game and are nothing compared to ESPN College Hoops 2K5. It's time for EA to update their graphics for their college games.
4. The discipline system for dynasty mode has an insane amount of players getting in trouble. This is even more of a problem in this game than it was in NCAA Football 2005.
5. The game is basically NBA Live with college teams. There's no difference between the 2 games, gameplay wise.
6. College Hoops 2k5 is $20 cheaper.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Want to Quench Your Thirst for a Good College B-Ball Game?, April 6, 2005

By	Monty "~Monty!~" (Little Place In Little State) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

6 seconds left...you call a timeout..its the final game of the final four..your team (the team you play religiously with) is down 2 with the ball at halfcourt..2 point jumper to tie or 3 point J to win the game?..You resume action..nerves running through your hands..you press a button on your d-pad..you option to run a play to get your best 3 baller open..you want the victory..you inbound the ball..turn..set yourself up for the shot..and...you brick the shot off the side of the rim and lose by 2...Dissapointment?..Well, yes and no..I simply love this game for the fact that you dont just wildly run a rampage down court with one person, stop a little in front of the half court line, and swish the shot while being guarded by 2 defenders. I have experienced this in the other college basketball games ive played/owned and it ruins the thrill of the game..When i can effortlessly beat my opponent 150-5 at any given time, its pathetic. The controls are tight yet not too hard to learn..i've found this to be true on all three systems also. The graphics are stunning and make the game feel like a real experience (besides the fact they made Patrick Sparks black. LoL.) Everything about this game outshines its competitors. ESPN College Hoops was horrible in my opinion simply because the controls were way, way too sensitive. If you barely tap a button your player goes wildly out of control among many other control problems. At 20.00 you could waste your money on that game or for 30.00 you could purchase a game that will have you more excited than Dick Vitale at the championship baby!