by Craig Majaski

If you're a fan of college basketball, GTE Entertainment has the game you've been looking for. NCAA Championship Basketball is the latest sports game trying to capture your dollars. Judging from the entire package, it may very well be a must-have game for all basketball fanatics.

When you begin the game, you have the option to play exhibition, season, or tournament modes. The exhibition mode features a 2 player option and is only one game. When you select the season mode, you play an entire season of NCAA Basketball. If you want to go directly to the tournament, then you can select tournament play. These options give you a variety of choices while playing the game. When you begin a season, you have the option to recruit new athletes to your team. You can check out the best high school athletes around, and try to get them to join your team. If your choices pay off you'll have an unbeatable team for the entire season.

The graphics in NCAA Championship Basketball are pretty impressive. The animation is very smooth, and the colors of each team are accurate. The wooden floor the team plays on is shiny, and you can see each player's reflection on it. The view of the court is a bit disappointing however. Most of the time you are only able to see half of the court. This causes a bit of a problem when the action picks up. As the ball goes from one side of the court to the other, the screen has to rotate to show the other side. This camera movement can be disorienting, and at times makes it difficult to play the game.

After spending a few hours on this game though, I'm sure most people will get used to the camera movement and have little trouble playing.

The sound in the game is equally impressive. There's some catchy music and the sound effects are top notch. According to the press release that accompanied the game, the yells heard in the background while playing are actual chants from the respective school.

The programmers went the extra mileage to try and recreate each school the best they could, and it shows.

The play control in the game is very well done as well. It is compatible with a joystick, but I used the keyboard. I found the players to be very responsive and easy to control. It seemed a little difficult to score points, but that's probably because of the high artificial intelligence in this game. It might be a little difficult playing this game with another player since you'll be sharing the keyboard, unless you decide to play over the phone lines. That's right, like many games these days, you can challenge a friend across the country. You can do a direct dial-up, or you can play over a network. At this time, it doesn't appear to have internet play, but maybe they'll include that in a future version. It should be noted that a maximum of only 2 people can play this game at one time. It would have been nice if the game would allow more people to play at once.

The game is very realistic. It keeps track of each players' vitals. They begin to perform badly when they become tired, so substituting players is a must. The game seems to rely more heavily on the simulation side, so fans of arcade basketball games may be disappointed.

If you like a game that keeps stats and features realistic basketball play, then NCAA Championship Basketball should be on your computer. Overall, a very well done game that should keep sports fans happy for quite some time.