I''ll only play if the game includes NCAA investigations and sanctions for Fresno State.

I do my absolute best.

The thing about this game is you can (wa) fake left (wa) fake left (ooo!) spin to the hoop. All with the flick of the right thumbstick.

Sound effects not included.

Before I launch into a how-much-I-love-this-game style rant, I wanna get all of the bad stuff out of the way.

#1: Both last year''s ESPN College Hoops and this year''s 2k5 iteration are guilty of one positively annoying design flaw. When the first half of a game ends, you are treated to the usual stat breakdowns and canned commentary. All well and good. Once all that is over with, you are shunted immediately into the second half. What ever bench-warming scrubs you may have had on the floor for the waning seconds of the first half are your second half starters. The game doesn''t go into a pause menu at half time, and the only way to make sure you have your starters on the floor for the start of the next half is to sub them in with a second or so to go in the first half, as the game treats the end of the half as a dead ball and subs them in when the second half starts up.

Deal killer? No, it''s easy enough to work around, but it''s a pain in the ass. I''d like to be able to pore over the first half stats sometimes, and make lineup adjustments and the like at halftime.

#2: Your settings never stick. Every time I start a game in Legacy, I have to go set subs and intentional fouls to manual, I have to change up the camera settings, etc. Perhaps there''s a way to make these settings stick, but I haven''t figured it out. I''m the kind of guy who loads up a game for the first time and beelines for the options menu, to see what I can tinker with. If I can''t figure out how to make these settings stick, then it either can''t be done or it''s not intuitive enough. As an aside, I''ve found this settings problem to be endemic with all of ESPN''s games.

Now the good stuff.

[]Still the best ball-handling of any basketball game out there. Like Tel said, the head fakes and crossovers on the right analog stick just feel perfect.

The CPU''s awful clock management from last year has been improved 200%, and is now quite realistic. The CPU also doesn''t bother intentionally fouling to put you on the free throw line in the waning seconds of the game when it''s down by a ton and knows it can''t win.

Players are not exactly perfectly proportioned, by are animated in an extremely lifelike way that really carries across a sense of humanity (alaThe Incredibles).

Recruiting is even deeper than it was in last year''s game, and may in fact have reached its equilibrium point; any more detail and it will stop being fun and start being work. Right now, it''s perfect.

Satisfyingly tough AI. I''m in my first legacy season coaching Dartmouth, and I''m getting my ass handed to me regularly by superior teams on the default difficulty, as I should be.

Players ''bio-rhythms'' are now shown, listing them as ''Normal'' (the most common), ''Struggling'', ''Ice Cold'', ''Heating Up'' or ''On Fire''. These also appear to be dynamic throughout a game. I put a player who was heating up in, made him take a lot of bad looks (which he all bricked) and when I checked him again he was listed as ''Normal.''
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Still the best basketball game on any system for my money.

edit:my bbcode is l33t.

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