Pretty good, but a letdown compared to NBA Live 99, which came out before NCAA March Madness 99. I guess for some reason, Electronic Arts wants to keep the better basketball engine for its flagship hoops game. I don’t mean to imply that the game looks or sounds bad; it looks and sounds great -- but put March Madness 99 and NBA Live 99 side by side and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. The sound rocks, from cheers to chants to authentic school “fight” songs, the sound is dead-on.

NCAA March Madness 99 is similar to EA’s other hoops game, NBA Live 99. Choose Simulation or Arcade modes of play. In the full-on Sim Mode, you can even play for several “years” and draft and recruit new talent into your team. I also really liked that you could play women’s college basketball (which I didn’t play much). But I really like the fact that it’s in there, and I hope EA keeps it in the coming years. While the game follows the features and game playing modes of its big brother, NBA Live, the gameplay doesn’t feel as tight or polished. (Like I commented before, you’ll probably only notice a difference after “raining threes” with NBA Live.) Why isn’t my college in this game? Oh well.

March Madness varies, just like NBA Live. You can choose between Arcade and Simulation games, plus some teams you play will be good, some will be bad (unless your team is the worst).

EA has added new dunks this year, as well as new moves such as fakes and crossovers. Toss in some extra controllers and a couple of multitaps and up to eight players can “Duke” it out. (hee-hee, I made a funny!) Basically, NCAA March Madness 99 is a very good game, but I don’t see why anyone would want to play this over the superior NBA Live 99 (unless, of course, you went to a big hoops school, which I didn’t). While it’s a great game, NBA Live is a little better. Hoops fans might want to get both, but if you want just one hoops game in your PSX library, reach for Live.