Most of us dream of being a highly skilled athlete, perhaps even in major college football. But how many of us actually dream of being a college football coach?
If you dream of the latter, 989 Sports' NCAA Gamebreaker 2004 may make you dance an end zone jig in your living room. But, if you still dream of making the touchdown or sacking the quarterback, Gamebreaker will not be anything better than the last 2,000 college football simulations you've seen.
GameBreaker gives all the standard features present in any respectable football game, including single game, regular season and tournament modes. But what sets the game apart from other college gridiron sims is the Career Mode.
While NFL teams often take on the personality of their players, NCAA teams typically take on the personality of their coach. And with the career mode, you can follow the career of a single coach starting from the bottom of the coaching ranks. The feature is a nice alternative to most college games in which you simply play season after season with the same team.
You begin a career as a young coach with a slim number of assistant coaching offers at smaller schools. The head coach sets goals for you and you are evaluated on your performance. For example, if you are a defensive coach, the skipper may ask you to hold opponents to under 300 yards a game for the season. If you succeed, more lucrative coaching options await you at the end of the year. You could eventually become the coach at a powerhouse school.
The offseason recruiting options are solid but not as in-depth as EA Sports' NCAA 2004. If you are an assistant in the career mode, you can only recruit the position you coach.
Still, if you are a hardcore who prefers tailoring your team with offseason moves instead of playing out every game in a season, GameBreaker features an unbelievably fast simulating option that allows you to get through an entire 12-game season in less than a minute. Other games can take up to 10 minutes to complete this task.
GameBreaker's game play is nothing remarkable. Controlling running players, particularly when returning kicks or rushing the ball, feels quite unnatural. Players glide across the field without making cuts, and behave more like a hockey players skating on ice than players wearing cleats on a grass field.
Passing the ball can often be painful to watch. The plays move along at a decent pace until the quarterback releases the throw. While the ball is in the air the game slows down to almost a slow-motion, replay-style pace, which can throw a pass-happy gamer out of rhythm. It also allows for ample time to switch control to your receiver and mash the "catch" button. But it also allows a defensive back to see the pass, giving an opponent more time to hit the "jump" button to defend the pass.
One plus for the game play is the impressive tackling sequences. They vary from a shoulder check, to jumping on a ball-carrier's back, to an all-out, picture-perfect form tackle.
Unlike other games, where you hit a "dive" button to tackle and your defender often flails across the screen, GameBreaker's tackles are much more realistic. You can latch onto a player and pull him down, rather than either making the tackle or missing altogether.
For the Playstation2 console, the game's graphics are not great, as stadiums and player jerseys have a surprisingly low level of detail. It is impressive, however, when a game is played in weather conditions such as fog that actually lingers on the field, slightly impairing your view and adding to the realism.
GameBreaker's sound is solid, as college football purists will be soothed by the tone of Keith Jackson right from the game's spirited opening. Although in the actual games, Jackson takes on the role of the color commentator as oppose to his real life play-by-play job.
Also impressive is the game's create-a-player and create-a-school options which are nothing new but are more comprehensive than in the past. When making a player, you can tailor his look from 26 different attribute options. But when deciding a player's abilities, you have a point budget to work with, meaning you won't be able to have God-in-cleats suit up for your team.
If you're a fan of the intricacies of college football, GameBreaker's career mode is worth a serious look for you. If you just only want to plug in and play a football game, there are better gridiron options out there for you.
Reach the reporter at christopher.drexel@asu.edu.
