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Good: New defensive control, commentary

Bad: Details still outdone by the NBA counterpart

Longing for: The day the NCAA will allow real player names and likenesses

I love college basketball. It's my favorite sport to watch and follow. I've dreamed for years that we'd get a true simulation with all the trimmings necessary to be able to experience the greatness of the game at home. And while EA has tried to capture the magic over the years, the results have always been pretty average until last year. This year we see a few improvements in March Madness 2006.

The highly touted Lockdown Stick certainly increases the relevance of good defense. This is a good thing. In previous iterations, defense has been pretty general, but now you can lock on to your opponent, sidestepping to your heart's content to stay in front of your man. You'll get beat every time if you try to guard someone much faster than you, but the new Lockdown feature does balance risk and reward extremely well with regard to trapping and blocking passing lanes. Try too hard and too often and you'll get burned. Get the hang of it by pacing yourself and you'll become a great defensive juggernaut.

The new defensive improvements also enhance transition games. Many college teams make up for their lack of talent with a solid transition game. Getting such a dynamic to come alive is much easier in Madness '06 and improves the pace to a significant degree.

Using the D-pad will call plays on defense with all-new diagrams. Be it man-to-man or zone, you'll be able to call it all on the fly (Well, as "on the fly" as it gets for having to awkwardly change your left thumb movement in the heat of battle.) Also highly touted is the new Senior Leadership feature where your team and home arena key off of your specific senior's performance and attitude. The feature seems to only affect those attributes, however and doesn't seem to really impact the game as it should.

In the newly revamped Dynasty Mode, assistant coaches can scrounge up necessary recruiting info so that you can pluck high school and junior college talent from the national pool. Like its pigskin brother, Madness allots points proportionate to your school's budget that are spent on recruits. It'll take some nice planning to land the EA All-Americans. But you have in-season recruiting to set you up for up to 30 years to come in your hopes for a dynasty.

EA tends to get more detailed with the more popular schools and KU is definitely no exception. From the "Beware of the Phog" banner to hanging jerseys to Big Jay running around to "Rock Chalk Jayhawk" being chanted before the game, Allen Fieldhouse feels more true-to-life than ever before. It's also deemed by the game as the #2 hardest place to play. Sure, the new video boards didn't make it in time, but that's forgivable. KU's own Bill Self is featured on promotional videos regarding the new emphasis on defense in gameplay. A wise choice. As with any other NCAA game, the real player names and likenesses can't legally be used, so Dickie V and Brad Nessler will be calling the kids by the numbers.

The online mode includes four to eight player tournaments and the normal chat and lobby accoutrements. Xbox Live play was solid as a rock and taking the PS2 version online proves almost as solid, just with a little slowdown here and there. If you're into classic games, Madness serves up some of the best match-ups to satisfy most college buffs.

Dick Vitale and Brad Nessler do a fine job making the commentary pretty lively. Some of the tangents spill over into what should be play-by-play commentary, but it's nothing that hinders the experience too much. Couple Vitale's enthusiasm with a plethora of specific college fight songs performed by the actual school's band and you have a nice presentation that gets you in the appropriate mood. The graphics sport the same decent character and arena modeling, with an added shine to the players for some reason. I believe it's supposed to simulate sweat, but comes off looking totally unnatural.

Overall, Madness 2006 improves upon a tried and true formula and adds enough to the core gameplay to warrant a serious look. Diehard college basketball fans should definitely give it a try.

Graphics: B

Sound: B

First Play: B

Last Play: B

Gameplay: B

Overall: 83% B