'March Madness' doesn't live up to source material

The game often crashes.

By Chase Koeneke

Published April 6, 2009

March Madness, that incredible time when office pools, Cinderellas and the soothing sounds of Dick Vitale abound, has just come to an end. Capitalizing on the craziness is EA's "NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition." But is it a dipsy-doo, dunk-a-roo or does it take a big No. 2 seed in your diaper dandies? Get your glass slippers on and let's start dancing.

First, the logistics: "March Madness Edition" is a downloadable game available only on the Xbox 360 Marketplace. It's exactly the same as "NCAA Basketball 09," except that it's been stripped of all its modes except for the tournament mode. Only the 65 teams in the tourney are playable, but at $15, it's definitely at the right price point. If you just have to play as Penn State or Saint Mary's though, get ready to shell out another $45 because in case you weren't watching Selection Sunday, they didn't make it.

If you're a Missouri or (God forbid) a Kansas fan, gear up because it's time to get your game on -- just don't expect the same gratification of watching a real game. Not to say that "March Madness" is bad. Quite the contrary. The realistic stadiums, the fight songs, the wonderful crowds all make you feel like you're a real college basketball player.

But you won't feel like the college basketball players because the NCAA is still ruling that player names cannot be used. "C #50" just isn't the same as Tyler Hansbrough. Even though there is an option to have the computer generate fake names, it's hardly a suitable substitution. If you have a lot of free time, you can go in and manually add the names, but that is a thankless chore if there ever were one.

Once you actually get into a game, many of the "March Madness" (and the NCAA Basketball franchise's in general) weaknesses become apparent. Shooting is greatly affected by how open your player is, which is fine, but when North Carolina shoots 30 percent from the field, there's a definite problem. The opposing AI doesn't seem to have much trouble, though. In fact, it's scary how well a No. 16 seed can shoot even on the varsity (normal) difficulty.

When you do miss your shot (and you will), don't hold out much hope for an offensive rebound. There's a better chance of Long Beach State winning it all. Thankfully, all these things can be changed using the sliders in the menus, but the defaults are so glaringly terrible that it's worth mentioning.

Unfortunately, sliders do nothing to help you call plays or set up defenses, and you'll be left trying to change to a pressure-D while the opposing point guard has already passed you up. The same goes for substitutions, which were so frustratingly unintuitive, that I just gave up and used the automatic subs option.

The most frustrating part of "March Madness" has to be the crashing and glitches. Although the game usually runs quite well, I had two crashes in three games, absolutely abhorrent in such a title. Hopefully a patch will come soon, but don't go around expecting one.

Nothing is quite like college basketball, not even "NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition." Even though there are some really fun and interesting pieces, the game as a whole just does not do its source material justice. Then again, I'd pay $15 to watch that "One Shining Moment" of MU kicking Kansas' ass again and again, so in some ways, "March Madness" is definitely worth it.