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Kush is gone.

For those of you that played College Hoops 2k4, you probably knew team "Kush" worked on last years version along with the NHL 2k series. This year they are gone and Visual Concepts is now in charge of the series.

As most college/pro games are, College Hoops 2k5 is more of a upgrade to NBA 2k5 more than anything, but feels quite different too. Although there is no 24/7 mode, you still have "Legacy", "Play Now", "Gym Rat" (a game of 21), "Practice" and several other modes. In legacy you can choose to either pick any team and work with them over the years or the much tougher choice, you have to pick from very low-class teams and build up your respect so that someday you can maybe coach a team like UC, Florida and such. One of the things that will win games for you is recruiting. Sometimes it is confusing and there have been several bugs reported (mostly consisting of recruit offers dissapearing), but aside from that recruiting is a lot of Fun/work. You get a certain amount of points each week to recruit per coach (3 of them) and you can do such things as "E-mail recruit", "Phone recruit", "Visit recruit at home game" and all of these will help you get an idea of how good the player is. There are ratings like Rebounding, Shooting, Stealing and a very important Potential rating. However you have to spend a LOT of time with the recruit to find out the information and if you think the recruit would be good on your team and he's interested, then offer a scholarship. Unfortunately you don't get many and if they decline, well, too bad. You don't just get one back, your screwed out of one. Most of the time though, if the player is very interested in your team, you've spent time with him and your following his interests ("wants to be close to home", "wants a great coach", etc.) then you can probably get him.

College Hoops 2k5 looks a lot like NBA 2k5. The player models, animations, just about everything looks the same. Aside from improved menu's the only new graphical touch is seeing the bands play, usually before the game which is cool. (especially since they play with the beat of the song) Also all the arenas look very life-like. Although both this and NBA 2k5 are very much alike, the sound is much different in College Hoops 2k5. Yes there is custom music and also several ESPN tunes, but the crowd is much more livelier in CH 2k5 (College Hoops 2k5). As in real life crowds can get very loud, especially in huge runs (15-5 run for example) but like NBA 2k5, if your opponent gets a basket in a big run, it sounds like the entire crowd died. It's not life-like where the crowd quiets down a bit, they just stop yelling/heckling/cheering altogether which can take you out of it, until they start cheering again. The band songs of course are in CH 2k5 and sound great. Like last year they do play sometimes when a free-throw shot is thrown, but aside from that small issue, the sound...well...sounds great. (sorry)

The best part of CH 2k5's gameplay is the realism in it. UC passes around for an3 and they play this way (CPU) and also it's much easier/quicker to do this with a team like UC rather than Harvard. This was a huge thing NBA 2k5 lacked as in CH 2k5 people try and get The great thing about this is that a bad 3pt shooter won't go in that area (unless for a pick) and almost all of the time players on your team will go to there best area. But if a player is good in all 3 areas (3pt, inside, jumper) then they will alternate which makes the gameplay very smooth, realistic, tense (close games) and a lot of fun.

All of this would warrant a game worth but like other VC games, it is just . I know I sound like a broken record saying "This is an awesome deal" for just about all the 2k5 games, but they are all very well-made (better than EA...well NBA, CH and NFL are) games. It is a tad dissapointing that at the end of games when down by 3 or whatever players (all of them, the 5 seconds left kind of situations) don't all go to the 3PT line to try and win the game, but at least the Time Out bug was fixed from NBA 2k5. Get this and you will not be dissapointing.

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