The NCAA Final Four Franchise has seen better days. On the PSOne the series had some pretty good gameplay and in depth options but the A.I. was flat at times. Now making an appearance on the PS2, it would appear things have gotten a lot worse in all aspects of the game. Many thought last year was just a bad outing for 989 Sports, but now one has to really question what is going on at the studio.

The visuals this year are very sub-standard for the powerful Playstation 2. The players and court look like something from a PSOne game. It appears that the developers at 989 Sports still have not been able to come to terms with the PS2 development environment. This is odd considering they are practically a first party publisher. The players need more polygons and motion capture to give them a life-like appearance. As they stand now, they move around the court in a slumbering manner. Court details are unimpressive as are crowd animations and the attempt to add in cheerleaders on the sidelines. The facial expressions are fair at times but are nowhere close to the animations found in Sega's NB2K series. Players move quickly while moving the ball but when it comes to jams and special moves they almost come to a stand still. As a result the flow of the game is inconsistent and frustrating to say the least. On a positive, the new down-court camera view used in Sega's NBA2K series works well here. So does the highlight reel of the player of the game. The voice work is respectable enough but still has a long way to go as far as next generation systems go.

Perhaps one of the only high points this year is the touch control shooting. While not totally realistic, it allows some variety in the gameplay and some degree of skill in making those three point shots. Otherwise the gameplay is pretty messy. Controlling the players is easy enough but they are all over the court. Examples include: passes that are totally out of bounds appear to suddenly swerve back in, and players going out of bounds and then suddenly pulling off a spectacular dunk. While in past games in the franchise, the A.I. was regarded to as too easy to slam every time, in this outing the defensive A.I. is near impossible to break. This proves frustrating as you try to break through the defense with special moves that work sporadically. Even your offensive A.I. players act like they are robots. They can be found standing around doing nothing when instead they should be trying to get open or jumping up for a rebound.

NCAA Final Four is another failed attempt from 989 Sports at tapping what the PS2 should and is capable of. If you are a college hoops fan there may be a glimmer of hope in EA Sports' upcoming NCAA basketball game. Otherwise, Sega's NBA 2K2 is just around the corner.