Available platforms: Playstation 2, Xbox

I love college basketball. The players still play defense and have not adopted the prima donna attitude that seems to be handed out at the NBA Draft along with multimillion dollar contracts.

The month of March is heaven for me. Forget Christmas, Easter, Chanukah, Yom Kippur, Kwanzaa and Ramadan. My Holy Day comes in March. In 3 years of college, I have yet to attend a class that conflicts with an NCAA Tournament game. So I may be a bit biased when I say that I really like NCAA March Madness 06. However, as slanted as my views toward college hoops may be, I can see why some people may not enjoy the game as much as I do.

The new feature in NCAA March Madness 06 is the Lockdown Stick. This feature allows your defensive specialists to play extremely tight defense and shut down whoever they are guarding. This will create more turnovers, force teams to take timeouts, and get you an occasional five-second violation. The better your player is on defense, the more likely you are to steal the ball or force a bad pass. If you are trying to lock down someone with a player that has a low defensive rating, your defender will get his ankles broken and allow an easy basket. This feature finally gives some value to the players who can’t hit water if they fall out of a boat but are great defenders. The downside of this new feature is that it works too well. I set the all time NCAA record for steals in a game the second time I played the game. The Lockdown stick makes games played against the CPU very easy and lopsided.

Dynasty Mode is back again and, sadly, no real improvements have been made. Recruiting is still the exact same process: Players still act like idiots and get off-court violations that you have to deal with. It is a lot of fun to take a small school and build them into a powerhouse, but it is nothing new.

The graphics look good, but aren’t much of a change from last year. The stadiums are not bland and uniform; they look like the actual stadiums. Cameron Indoor Stadium looks vastly different from the Carrier Dome. The game also rates the toughest places to play in the country. The tougher the stadium, the more likely it is that your players will get shaky and their game will be affected. (Comcast Center is rated the 14th most difficult place to play, in case you were wondering.)

The gameplay is fast-paced and flows very well. The Floor General feature allows you to call plays on the fly from the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. You can change from a 2-3 zone to a half-court press immediately and not have to pause the game and sort through menus to change plays. Direct passing lets you move the ball around the court efficiently, but that is nothing new. The player animations are smooth and look fairly natural. Players occasionally run through each other and get hung up on invisible walls, but not often enough to obstruct gameplay.

The bottom line is NCAA March Madness 06 is a good game. Is it worth renting or playing over at a friend’s house? Yes. Is it worth 50 bucks? Maybe not.

As much as I like the game, it is not all that different from previous versions. If you have the extra spending money, NCAA March Madness 06 is a worthwhile investment. If you are strapped for cash and need to feed your hunger for college basketball, stick to an older version because you won’t be missing a whole lot.

Overall grade: C+

Contact reporter Eric Richardson at richardsondbk@gmail.com.