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I like college football. I even plan my weekends around College Gameday. That's why I was pumped to get this title in my hands so I could decide once and for all who is the best team in college athletics. Well, at least in my mind. So, how good is this years version? It's good. I wish I could say it's much better than good. But there are a few things I was expecting to see that didn't end up in the final version. Still, I know I'll be playing this game like crazy because I like the college atmosphere, and even though I think it's just "good", and could be better, it's still alot of fun to play.

Lets break this down into something more manageable and talk offense and defense as far as game play is concerned. Where should we start? Well, defense does win championships right?

From first impressions defense is fairly straight forward. You have a choice between seven different defensive sets, with the ability to switch defenders before the snap and during the plays, as well as audibling into something more comfortable before the ball is snapped. Defensively, you're also provided with an option to backpedal or walk forward up to the line, something that adds to the atmosphere of the game.

One of the more impressive features on the defensive side of the ball, is the representation of rolling into coverages as well as disguising them. Often, you can see a safety or corner cheating up or a linebacker trying to time a blitz, which, to me, signifies a little extra effort put into the process.

Offensively, you are provided with eleven different formations with the ability to flip-flop the formations and plays with a press of a button. While this effectively doubles the amount of plays available to you, it also lets you run your favorite plays to both sides of the field. You have a lot of different options on offense, especially where moves are concerned. Pump fakes and stiff arms are the most fun, and I still haven't mastered juking. My favorite is the speed burst when you hit the corner. You have to be careful with the speed burst because once you hit it you're locked into the direction that you were headed before getting that extra little juice. So use it wisely, or you may just run out of bounds. Passing is tough. Maybe it's just me, but I'd suggest you take some extra snaps on the practice field for grins. I admit getting frustrated early with passing, but later in the season I was able to show more patience and poise in the pocket to get the job done right.

AI is good. For example, in one particular instance against UCLA, no matter what I tried, the corners always played hard, meaning that anytime I'd run wide I'd get hit in the chin by a corner. I made some slight adjustments, trying the middle and softening the defense with some dump passes as well. Situations like the one described make the game that much more fun when trying to find holes in the defense. With the AI making adjustments to what your trying to do, it's often easy to get dropped for a loss if and when you settle into a predictable pattern. Offensively, the AI is a little bland, abandoning the run early and relying on the pass too much for my tastes. Maybe it's the teams I'm playing but it makes you wonder when you're in the Big 12 and teams seem to pass more.

Whether playing offense or defense, some things are always going to be universal. Audibles, for instance, must be set up before the game starts. What this means is taking a little extra time before the game to go in and examine your playbook and stock your audible section with plays you can rely on. Another thing is that running up the middle is hell. Not because of tough defense or shoddy blocking, it's because you get stuck on linemen. That's no fun if you've got a bruiser of a running back and he can't get through the line. What? You don't care because you're on defense? Think again.you've got to get past your own guys to make the tackle. It's also frustrating to have a receiver open on offense and have the ball get batted away by defenders that make up the lead.

One feature that may make the longevity of NCAA Football '99 huge is what happens after the season is over. Once your season is completed you are brought to the season results screen. From this screen you have three different options available:

1. No Change - No change is made and you stay with your current team.
2. Retire - Leave the team you were coachibg for good or choose a new team.
3. Fired - If you're fired you have the option to choose a new school or retire. If you choose a new school then you are assigned to that school.

Once a decision is made you move to the draft screen. From here you can view which players have been drafted into the pros. This is always fun, seeing the players you've "coached" joining the ranks of the professionals. You can also see the players that have left the program by graduation. Once a player has been drafted and/or graduated he is no longer available on your roster. You must recruit new players to fill your vacant positions. After viewing which players are leaving, you can check to see who your returning players will be and find out what kind of growth they've had. A player can mature as follows:

• Breakthrough - If a player has a "breakthrough" year some of his stats will be bumped up 8 - 10%.
• Moderate - If a player has a "moderate year some of his stats will be bumped up 4 - 7%.
• Minimal - If a player has only a minimal year some of his stats will be bumped up 0 - 3%.

One thing to remember is that when a player's stats go up, not all of his statistics go up. So after seeing who's left you can then start rebuilding your team by filling the gaps.

The recruiting screen automatically shows the players you need to recruit in order to replace those you've lost. You have the option of choosing the type of player as well as how hard you want to recruit that player. The harder you try to recruit a player the more likely you'll be to get a good player. The 5 different types of recruiting intensity are: Aggressive, Hard, Moderate, Soft and None. The more you try to recruit a player the more recruiting resources it takes. Although the method is a lot different than what I stated in the preview, the results are comparable.

Once you've recruited all of your new players, you can find out which ones actually signed and how good they are. A lot of things could affect the type of recruiting you have. If your year didn't go well you may end up getting poor recruits. But, if you win a national championship you are more likely to recruit a lot better. While this is only one aspect of the game as a whole, it certainly lends itself into giving the game more longevity and replay value.

That being said I must admit to being a little disappointed that dynasty mode wasn't as ambitious as I first reported in my quick look report from E3. Clearly the design team was pressed for time to get the game out and had to leave some of the features out. While, as a whole, the feature itself is a nice inclusion, serious simulation gamers will be somewhat disappointed.

Controls are pretty straightforward with the mouse being used for menu selections and the joystick used mostly for in game control. However, that being said, you can use the joystick with the menu system but it sometimes can be confusing. My suggestion: use the mouse for the menus. For your choice of joysticks, make sure it has lots of buttons for all the different things you can do in the game. Using the MS Sidewinder seemed to work fine. My biggest complaint is having to wade through the "console" style menu system, which may be the reason I don't own one.

NCAA '99 sports 3dfx support right out of the box. What's that really mean? Well for starters if you don't have a 3dfx card or even a card that uses Direct3D then you'll be hating life. Direct3D'ers will hate life a little less than those with no hardware acceleration because an update should be out soon to make their lives a little more bearable. Those of you who'll be viewing the unaccelerated version are serious diehards of the genre and I salute you!

One things for sure, the graphics are a marked improvement over last years addition. But given last years version had sprites, there was no place to go but up. From first looks I wasn't terrible impressed by the graphics, but playing brought on a somewhat better perspective. For one, stadiums are nicely rendered and there are a lot of them to see, a total of 123 to be exact. Uniforms are done nicely with scaling of players that are believable. Animation seems to be fairly fluid, but my one gripe is once in the open field you never really seem to open up. Interceptions, for the most part, aren't done as well as I'd expected either. Still, overall the graphics hold up pretty well.

One of the things I really like about NCAA 99 is the ambient noise of the crowd. Cheers ring out for the home team when a pass is broken up or a long run is made. EA truly knows sports when it comes to the little nuances of the game. In NCAA '99 the announcer doesn't overwhelm you with irrelevant information. He provides you with down and distance information when you break the huddle and gains or losses after each play. One of the nicer features is the ability to enter the last name of players and actually here the announcer say it. If you're lucky enough to be in that common pool of names or heck, even have the same last name as a member of the design team you may get your name called out if you make a play.

Inserting the NCAA Football '99 CD starts the installation process. From this screen you also have the options of registering your software, installing DirectX 5.2a manually before the program checks or going to EA's tech support page. Three installation types are available, depending on the amount of space you have and how quickly you would like the program to load. Minimal requires less than 2 megabytes of hard drive space, partial requires 60 megabytes of space and the full installation requires 508 megabytes of space.

For PC gamers, there isn't much to choose from in the college genre when it comes to football. That makes it that much better when a pretty solid game like NCAA '99 comes out. Hey, it may not be perfect but it's got some nice things to build on. For myself in particular, I like playing the game for the atmosphere. Also on the plus side I've always liked the ability to set up your schedule. This is nice if you want to prove once and for all your team deserves to take home the crown. I also like the large selection of post season awards you compete for. It really makes it fun to see some of your players in the running for all the different awards.

What's your take on the game? Be sure to voice your opinion in the forum we've provided because that's the only way game companies will seriously consider your criticisms and suggestions as well as praises. The only way to make the next edition better is by letting them know what we think.