College Hoops 2K8 impressions

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:37 pm

Quite impressed. The gameplay is solid. The controls are a lot tighter than NBA2K8 imo which makes the game much more enjoyable to play. The implementation of the different types of passes (bounce pass notably) works extremely and effectively well. I don't feel as if I'm fighting with the controls like I did with NBA 2K8.

Playing D in this game is handled nicely. You can draw charges , something that was near impossible in 2K8. Other fouls besides shooting fouls need to be tweaked.

Collision detection is better, and if you're positioned for a rebound you're most likely to come down with it. The players get out and really run on the fast break. While I didn't see a crazy amount of fast breaks, they are in the game.

The crowd interaction is also nicely done. They're loud on defense as they should be and seem to be very involved in the entire game. However, the cheers are rather generic but you can add your own through the chant creator. If you're on the road, shooting free throws is just nuts. The whole screens shakes violently. I'm almost afraid the game is going to crash. It's a nice little addition.

So far, the 6th man is handled nicely. It goes up steadily, and will decline just as steadily if the opposing team comes down with a rebound. At this point it doesn't seem like a cheese add-on that favors the home team. The home team should have a slight advantage afterall, especially if they're a higher rated team.

Graphically, I think it looks a lot better than last year. There are much less jaggies. It's probably just a step below 2K8, but not by much. You can tell who the star players are just by the way they look and also by the way they shoot (i.e. Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers, Sherron Collins).

By the way, I am loving the default camera angle. It's just a bit higher and a little further away. It's incredibly easy to navigate the players around the court and pin point your passes.

If anyone has any questions, let me know. I haven't even checked out the legacy or ABL. Heck, I've only played two games. I can't wait to download the rosters and start my season!

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:44 pm

Thanks for the info Dan.

This is going to be a later purchase for me, there are too many quality games to buy this right now and frankly with 2K's track record I expect to be able to find this for a reduced price in a month of two.

I walked into Target this week and saw APF for $17, man that pissed me off.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:04 pm

I'm certain you'll probably be able to find this game used for $40 within a month's time. I agree there are just too many quality games right now on the market, but I love the CH series more than any sports series on the market. It's just one of those games I have to own every year.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:15 pm

Do the graphics look better than they do in the demo? I wasn't too impressed with the demo's graphics.

TheGamer · Post by **TheGamer** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:04 pm

fyi a roster project for 360 is going very well over at OS.

kevinpars · Post by **kevinpars** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 7:08 pm

I was one of the few here who really didn't feel College Hoops last year. But this year seems to have a lot of improvements. It just feels like college basketball to me - it certainly does not feel like NBA 2k lite.

Some things that jump out at me was the fact that the AI team shoots a lot of threes on default - at least the teams I played. You can take a charge and it is fun (and rewarding) to play both offense and defense.

Since I usually suck at this game, I would guess it is easier this year as I played a tournament game as Akron and played Louisville down to the wire and lost by 5. I was playing one level harder than default.

The crowd is greatly improved and I like the atmosphere. A road game feels like a road game, but unlike home field advantage in NCAA football - it is not that big a deal as long as you have a talented team and use timeouts or otherwise stop the home team from going on a run.

I will have to play more to make a decision about end of game AI - one game I was winning (my first game and it was on default settings) and the AI was down by 6 with seconds ticking down and the AI wasted a lot of time trying to find an open three and finally settling for a pointless 2. But it was default settings and I was beating a crappy team, so it may not be something to worry about.

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 10:00 pm

Anyone happen to have the PS3 version? Did they fix the frame rate problems from last year? It was absolutely unplayable on some courts.

Sport73 · Post by **Sport73** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:27 am

Blubub, I've got the PS3 version and I'm working on a review. I haven't noticed any frame-rate issues so far, though I suspect we're a frame or two short of 60.

The graphics in this game are a little disappointing overall, but it's not the result of a frame-rate drop.

Zlax45 · Post by **Zlax45** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 2:10 pm

OS has posted full rosters. Great job by the guys over there.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 3:12 pm

Zlax45 wrote:OS has posted full rosters. Great job by the guys over there.

Wow, that was fast! Gotta head over there to thank everyone.

Bill_Abner · Post by **Bill_Abner** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 2:08 am

A very, very mild thumbs up so far from me. CH2K7 was my fav sports game last year...this one...I just dunno yet.

fanatic · Post by **fanatic** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 11:18 am

Still on the fence about whether to pick this one up or not. The downloadable rosters already make this game a huge step up from last year. I'm going to let the dust settle a bit more to see what everyone around here says.

Bill_Abner · Post by **Bill_Abner** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 11:36 am

I'm no graphics whore but after NBA 2K8 this looks ...old. Even on my swank new 60" Sony it's not all that impressive looking.

I also hate the default help defense as the CPU gets open 3 pointers (and makes them) way too often. I've also had five 3-pt shots blocked by guards because it takes players longer to shoot now for some reason. I think a lot of what I don't like can be tweaked, but CH2K7, for me, played great pretty much right out of the box. This one might end up being better, I dunno, but not on default gameplay. I need to look at the play creation tool. That sounds cool.

The new All Star Training thing is a collossal waste of time, and it looks as if they took an already time intensive recruiting model..and made it more time intensive. I love recruiting in college games but not as a game in and of itself. I like the old NCAA '04 method because I am geting tired of the year round recruiting thing. IMO, fast and easy is the best way to approach that stuff. This isn't fast. Or Easy.

I LOVE the player ratings. While I disagree with some of them (OSU's Koufos is a 7'1 scoring machine but in CH he's pretty average) but I like that NO TEAM has a player rated over a 90 out of the gate. I love that. No "99" rated players like we see in other games. If you have a player rated in the mid 80s he's a very tough player and a 90+ player looks to be rare, which it should be. I think the highest rated player I have seen is Hibbert from GTown and he's an 89.

warnerwlf98 · Post by **warnerwlf98** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 12:54 pm

Bill_Abner wrote:
I need to look at the play creation tool. That sounds cool.

Check out Kruza's playbook online. He put together a few zone offense plays that haven't been in the game for years. I primarily used the 2-3 zone buster play in the 2K4 version, but for some reason, they took it out for the past few years. Luckly Kruza was able to re-create that play plus other effective ones too.

I think I'll add some more plays that were in last year that are now missing. Like High Low PF, Dual Wing Guard, Give Back, and PG Take.

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 2:58 pm

Damn, after Bill's initial thoughts I'd be more than happy to stick with 2K7, were it not for the slowdown on the PS3 version. I'd hate to shell out $60 just to fix slowdown and break the gameplay.

Bill_Abner · Post by **Bill_Abner** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 5:27 pm

Well, that's REALLY initial. Like 3 games. But I did *love* 2K7. I'm of the opinion that a great game needs to be followed up by a really great game to warrant another 60 bones. I need to play it a lot more and maybe tweak a few settings.

The sim engine is better. That was a big issue with 2K7 for me and it's at least believeable this year. But I didn't get the "wow!" factor going after my first 3 default AA lvl games, though. We'll see.

Wilk5280 · Post by **Wilk5280** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 12:44 pm

2K Share or an equivalent should be mandatory for all sports games from this day forth. It's even better than the EA Sports locker because you don't have to add people to your FL to have access to their files.

How nice and easy is it to click on 2K share, top 100 files, rosters and select the Roster file you want? Makes me want to break my Datel Transfer Kit into tiny little pieces.

macsomjrr · Post by **macsomjrr** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 1:21 am

I didn't get a chance to pick this up until today and after a few games offline and a game online I think this is a big improvement over 2K7. Visually the players look more realistic (nobody looks like they swallowed a basketball this year as far as I've seen) and the increased number of animations is instantly recognizable. Things like the way they'll run around a pick to catch up with the player they're marking or some of the unique foul animations are making this much more enjoyable for me. 2K share is awesome, awesome and more awesome as I just booted up, grabbed the latest OS roster which DL'ed in less than 30 seconds and to quote John Madden "BOOM" I was ready to rock and roll errrr.. dribble. And now fans have been given the tools be able to work together to keep things nice and accurate throughout the entire season. Did I mention that is 2K share is awesome?

The shooting in game is a lil' too hit and miss for me. I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out how to get set-up for perfect shots although the addition of the shot meter underneath the player I'm controlling helps a bunch but it doesn't feel super accurate. I'll see the cpu hit with 2 bars without much trouble and yet I'll consistently miss with 3-4 bars. Defense is much better than last year especially the ability to lock onto your guy.

This is a no brainer purchase for anyone who is a fan of men's bball.

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 9:28 am

Picked up the PS3 version and can confirm that the frame rate problems are very nearly gone this year. Fired up some old problematic courts (UC-Santa Barbara for one) and it seems fixed. Definitely needs some slider tweaking, but after that plays a great game.

I'm 4-1 with my South Dakota State legacy and haven't seen any major issues as of yet. Assuming there aren't any typical 2K franchise bugs, I can see getting a lot of mileage out of this one. Right now, though, it's fighting for time on the machine with Rock Band.

Agree completely that the 2K Share thing is great, but I wonder how long it will be before the NCAA lawyers are all over the thing and it shuts down.

Post by **Jared** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 1:51 pm

I got to play it for a little bit last night, and I think I'm liking it. I like the playbook on the floor idea a lot, but the execution seems to be lacking. Does anyone else find it difficult to get onto the correct "spot" to have the play move to the next phase using this mode?

bdunn13 · Post by **bdunn13** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 2:02 pm

Jared wrote:I got to play it for a little bit last night, and I think I'm liking it. I like the playbook on the floor idea a lot, but the execution seems to be lacking. Does anyone else find it difficult to get onto the correct "spot" to have the play move to the next phase using this mode?

Its better in CH than it is in NBA 2K8. In 2K8 you almost run half the shot clock off after standing in the blue square. In college hoops it goes a little faster from part 1 of the diagram to part 2, but its still a little slow. At least in college the shot clock is much longer.

Badger_Fan · Post by **Badger_Fan** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 3:17 pm

PRBoom wrote:2K Share or an equivalent should be mandatory for all sports games from this day forth. It's even better than the EA Sports locker because you don't have to add people to your FL to have access to their files.

How nice and easy is it to click on 2K share, top 100 files, rosters and select the Roster file you want? Makes me want to break my Datel Transfer Kit into tiny little pieces.

Do you know if I can use the EA Sports locker to get and use NCAA football rosters? I just got a 360 and I'm trying to decide if I need to get a transfer kit or not. Thanks.

TheTruth · Post by **TheTruth** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:12 pm

Where the heck do I adjust my starting lineups and how deep I want my bench (players, and minutes) like in NBA 2k8? I haven't started a legacy just playing quick games right now and I can't find this anywhere.

warnerwlf98 · Post by **warnerwlf98** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:45 pm

TheTruth wrote:Where the heck do I adjust my starting lineups and how deep I want my bench (players, and minutes) like in NBA 2k8? I haven't started a legacy just playing quick games right now and I can't find this anywhere.

When you're playing quick games, press Y (on 360) to get to a menu where you can go to lineups or game options. In the lineups area, you can change your starting lineups, but I haven't messed with it much. I'm not sure if you can set rotations for quick games. I know you can do it in a legacy though (coach's office -> management -> Rotations/lineups/etc.).

Bench depth is one of the coach settings selections that you can toggle in game.

TheGamer · Post by **TheGamer** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 8:15 pm

For any Illini fans, I created about 5-6 Illini chants including the ILL INI and also Illini loyalty. its under 2kShare as Illini Chants and Loyalty. my gamertag is BHoward.