Xbox

NCAA Football 06

The laces on the running game have been tightened up considerably, a much-needed emphasis has been placed onto impact players, and the CPU will do everything in its power to rattle your nerves. Both hard-hitting and deeper than you could possibly imagine, EA's collegiate gridiron is well worth revisiting.

NCAA 2006 is easily the best title in the franchise's history and deserves to be played. Race for the Heisman is the biggest addition but shouldn't be the biggest draw. Improved gameplay speed, impact players and a beefed up Dynasty Mode all make NCAA 06 a serious contender for Sports Game of the Year. If you're a fan of college football go buy this game.

NCAA is still a lot of fun to play, but it's more of a 12-yard run on first down instead of the 40-yard TD bomb down the field.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with this year's installment of NCAA Football 06. EA most likely didn't do as much to win over its harshest critics as the game still feels very much like last year's with some minor glitches fixed and many other issues still left unaddressed. However, its commitment to create useful new features and import successful features from the 2K Sports games at least shows that they are willing to sacrifice the pride of using their former rival's successful innovations to improve their product. It certainly is much better than the blatantly lazy Create A Sign and Create A Fan features from last year's football titles. Still, much like MVP Baseball 2005 I felt that much of the development this year was to correct the blunders from NCAA Football 2005. If this is the way EA is going to approach the development of their sports games, then perhaps the next college football game they release should be NCAA Football 08. At least it would save me $50.