NCAA Basketball 09 is Electronic Art's latest addition to its well-known college basketball franchise. Formerly known as NCAA March Madness, the newest installment fails to show much in the way of graphical improvement over last year's model. The player models, while rendered nicely, appear too thin and a bit out of proper perspective. Other than a tempo meter, there have not been any real improvements to the user-interface either. Shot animations are nice and there seems to be a wide variety in selection, especially when performing dunks and lay-ups. The crowds are large and well rendered and tend to be attentive and interactive in regards to what is happening on the court. However, when you hear the "Warm up the bus!" chant for the hundredth time during the final two minutes of a game, you'll wish that they had all found something better to do as opposed to attending your contest.

Where the graphics are a bit underwhelming, the sound is very impressive. Many sound effects, such as sneaker squeaks, ball bounces and the swoosh of the net on a nice shot, seem to have been recycled, but the crowd (despite the over-use of some chants) adds a nice element, with crescendoing calls for defense as well as other cheers and noises. The bands' soundtracks are well done, if not overly rich in content. The highlight of the audio has to be the commentary track, provided by Dick Vitale, Brad Nessler and Erin Andrews (can we SEE her on the sidelines, please?). Since this is a college game, there are no player names at the start, so dialogue is limited, but still thorough considering the restrictions, and Dick Vitale comes up with some clever quips and laughable Dick-isms. "It's awesome, baby!"

As with most other games in the EA Sports library, there are several modes of play featured in NCAA Basketball 09. The first of these is the Play Now mode, designed for those who just want to jump in quickly and play, either alone or against a friend. In addition to this, there is the Dynasty Mode, Tournaments Mode, Tournament of Legends and Rival Challenge.

Tournaments mode allows the player to compete in pre-season and post-season tournaments without having to play through a season. Tournament of Legends consists of 64 of the best and most well-known teams from history competing in a March Madness style tournament. Rival Challenge is dependent upon which team is chosen as a "favorite" when setting up the game. When a potential opponent using a rival team logs on to Xbox Live, a notification flashes on the screen. At that point, should the player so desire, he can quickly challenge the rival to a game.

Still, the likely front-runner for player time is Dynasty Mode. As with previous installments, the player chooses a school that they would like to control. The option of naming and modifying the coach's appearance is then offered. Beyond this, gameplay is almost identical to March Madness 08. Players still use a calendar to progress through the season, taking care of recruiting duties, alumni relations and kowtowing to the Athletic Director between games. Facilities can be upgraded to improve players' performance and egos can be stroked by recruiting a player that the alumni are particularly fond of. As the years progress, it becomes a steady diet of more of the same. While the system is good, I was hoping for some kind of improvement or addition to spice up the recipe a bit. Alas, maybe next year.

Difficulty settings in NCAA Basketball 09 are largely in control of the player. While there are easily selectable default skill levels, almost all of the variables, everything from frequency of fouls to shot difficulty, can be altered via sliders in the settings. This makes tailoring the game experience to the individual easy and helps to limit the frustrating moments. Unfortunately, it does not eliminate these moments entirely.

I found a few in-game difficulties when playing through several seasons of NCAA Basketball 09. The first, and by far the most frustrating, of these comes in the passing controls, or lack thereof. Actually, a player can control exactly who the ball controller passes to by holding down a shoulder button to call up icons and then selecting the appropriate icon. However, with modern technology, there is no excuse for some of the outright idiotic passes that are made when the player simply hits the pass button without calling up the icons. If there is a guy on a fast-break down the court and I push the control-stick in his direction and hit the pass button, why on earth would the ball-controller pass to a person behind him, thereby incurring a backcourt violation? This is just one of many examples of non-intelligent A.I. exhibited during what should be seemingly basic plays. To add to this frustration, I also ran across occasional glitches in which the camera ceased to follow the action. One such occurrence happened after I had made a shot to take the lead with about 3 seconds left on the game clock. The opposition called a time-out. After the time-out ended, gameplay resumed with the ball being thrown in to play and eventually the opposing team missing the last second prayer. However, I don't know how they missed or what happened, as the camera view was stuck on the sideline table throughout the final play. I couldn't even go back and view it in the instant replay. Had they made that shot, well, I likely would be buying a new controller.

Not all of the difficulties are in-game. The manual that ships with the game is woefully light on information. Outside of very basic descriptions, there is very little in the way of directions in regards to the game's features. If you've played previous iterations of the game, this will likely be of little consequence. But for those that have not played earlier versions, or have not played in a while, trying to learn the in's and out's of recruiting, facility maintenance and roster management can be extremely time-consuming and frustrating.

When it comes to the game mechanics in NCAA Basketball 09, there are both high and low points. First the "highs." March Madness 08, as well as earlier versions, all seemed to suffer from a slow, plodding pacing mechanism. When compared to its big brother series, NBA Live, gameplay seemed mired in molasses at times. This year, NCAA Basketball 09 followed in big brother's footsteps, speeding up gameplay tempo significantly. The controls feel tighter on both offense and defense and there are fewer "What in the heck are you doing?" moments caused by players inexplicably stopping on a fast break, running the wrong direction or some similar head-scratching activity. Not only is the game tempo sped up over-all, it is now actually a mechanic in the game. Coaches choose a pacing scheme that the team should try and follow during the game. If the tempo-meter is kept within the range of the chosen pace, players get bonuses in shooting, rebounding and other intangibles. This mechanic works fairly well, although up-tempo teams will without a doubt become frustrated as the game generally slows down towards the end.

Now, on to the "lows." First and foremost, the shooting mechanism is horrible. There did not seem to be any skill necessary in regards to pressing and releasing the shot button. Rather, it seemed completely random as to whether or not the shot fell. The other major issue I had in regards to the mechanics of the game deals with boundaries. I know in a game like this, some margin of error is acceptable, but numerous times during my play sessions (verified using the instant replay feature), I witnessed players step out of bounds, receive passes while out of bounds or commit backcourt violations without being penalized. Also, the three-point line is very, VERY subjective. I gave up trying to guess if a shot was actually a three-pointer somewhere midway through the first season. These are the kinds of issues that significantly impact the enjoyment of playing a basketball game.

Finally, the "Huh?" moments. Throughout game periods, small pop-up windows will appear with the coach offering advice on how to proceed with gameplay (i.e. speed it up, get back on defense, take time off the clock). However, especially towards the end of games, this advice seems to contradict what normal convention would dictate. I bit more A.I. programming might be in order here, but this wasn't the biggest guffaw I witnessed. During games "broadcast" on ESPN, occasional plays are shown again in slow-motion and become Pontiac "Game Changing Moment" nominees. Now, sometimes they are spot-on, but often these plays do not seem to have any real impact. However, the real head-scratcher occurs when, at the end of a game, the winning play is announced and it features the losing team scoring a bucket. Huh? How exactly did THAT change the game?

In the end, it was nice to see some of the polish of the NBA Live franchise being transferred to NCAA Basketball 09. But there is still work to be done before it is truly a great game. Without much in the way of competition, it remains to be seen if EA will put forth the effort needed to take the franchise to the next step.