NCAA Final Four 2001 Hands-On

The college hoops series from Sony's 989 Sports division moves into the next-generation with NCAA Final Four 2001 for the PlayStation 2. The game features over 300 Division I-A teams from top conferences such as the ACC, Pac Ten, Big 12, Atlantic 10, Big East, Big Ten, SEC and Conference USA, among others. It also includes team-specific playbooks and on-court play styles - Temple runs its match-up zone and UNLV plays an up-tempo game. We played the latest build of the game and found that, although it is solid graphically, the gameplay and feature sets are somewhat disappointing at this stage of development.

As in other college basketball games, jersey numbers, rather than names, identify the players. For example, Seton Hall's Eddie Griffin is number 33 and Arizona's Jason Gardner is 22. And although the players have detailed facial textures, they don't look enough like their real-life counterparts to be visually identifiable, which is disappointing, given the power of the PlayStation 2 console. However, for the most part, the player models look realistic and animate smoothly on drives and dunks. The arenas are also very detailed, with crowds made up of individually animated 2D sprites and real-time 3D cheerleaders on the sidelines. But other than the team-specific colors and logos, the courts share very little in terms of ambient detail with their real-life counterparts.

The game shares its features set with its PlayStation cousin, which means that players can compete in an exhibition game, a season, and a tournament. In the season mode, the game keeps track of the team and player stats; shows the latest polls, standings, and all-conference teams; and lists the teams that are on the fringe of making the NCAA tournament in its bubble watch. In the game's options menu, you can set variables such as half length, game speed, difficulty, and sound settings. Here players can also turn the game's touch shooting meter on or off. Additionally, there are nine useable camera angles during gameplay, and the replay features a manual camera that can be moved freely.

One of the things Final Four 2001 on the original PlayStation had going for it was that it was one of the fastest hoops games on the market, college or otherwise. Even though the gameplay didn't feel realistic, the games were usually high scoring offensive affairs. In its transition to the PlayStation 2, the game has lost some of that speed. The slower pace helps develop more realistic scores, but it also accentuates the game's defects. With the half-court game coming into play, its flaws on both the offensive and defensive end of the floor are magnified. For example, the computer-controlled players don't act realistically, as they hardly set picks or box out for rebounds. Additionally, there are entirely too many fouls in the game, and most of them occur during jumpers. Compounding the problem, there are no options to turn the fouling frequency down. So, occasionally games degenerate into foul-fests, with frequent trips to the free-throw line.

Quinn Buckner moves into the next-generation of sports commentary, returning as the game's announcer. His banter is kept pretty light, but it's generally in tune with the on-court action. The crowd and player trash-talking have been juiced up for the PlayStation 2 version, and school bands have been added to the audio mix. The game's presentation is also brought into the next-generation with a TV-style presentation, with new camera angles, pop-up statistics, and nice touches such as showing the teams running a lay-up line before tip-off.

At this point, it seems as though the Final Four series has taken a step in the wrong direction with the PS2 version of the game. Unlike the original PlayStation version, Final Four 2001 for the PlayStation 2 has sluggish and disjointed gameplay. It will be interesting to see if the game's developers can improve its pace and AI before the final release.