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The second NCAA football title to come out this football season is NCAA Gamebreaker 2001 from 989 Sports. Based predominately on the Gameday engine, the college game captures the full complement of NCAA Division 1 teams. Over 20 bowl games are in the game as well. Gamebreaker even touts a recruiting mode. And don't forget the wonderful Keith Jackson calling the game. So with all this good stuff, will it unseat NCAA Football 2001?

Presentation/Graphics : 75
In many respects, I could almost cut and paste the review of NFL Gameday 2001 and insert the word Gamebreaker. The two titles are similar in more ways than one, and one of those ways is graphically. Once the game boots up, an adrenaline flowing video shows great plays from past college games. The video quality is exceptional. So how long until we can have those kind of graphics for our in-game play?

On the field, the stadiums are pretty bland. Field goal nets are static and don't have the detail of those in NCAA Football 2001. The fields use large pixels to simulate the texture of the grass, and press boxes look like a mess. Player models are similar to Gameday. Each player has the same look albeit in different sizes. They have the same Gameday wrist bands. The lack of detail in the player models shows itself in the uniforms. Helmet decals lack sufficient detail to instantly recognize teams from even a short distance.

Gamebreaker 2001 uses 4 different camera views. The default camera tends to zoom out at the snap of the ball, which makes running up the middle near impossible, or at least difficult to find holes. Fortunately, the cameras let you zoom out to view the entire line so you can spot your receivers and make note of their passing icons before the snap of the ball.

Gamebreaker appears to use many of the animation sequences of Gameday, including the sissy kick runs I mentioned in the Gameday review. I had a couple players pull up lame and they went off the field grabbing their hamstrings. The oddest animation occurs with jumping. Players leap like Superman, and lineman jump up and down like they are on pogo sticks. The end result is a lack of any natural motion.

The most significant graphical flaw is one that also influences the play of the game. The first time I saw it I couldn't believe my eyes. The collision detection is absolutely terrible. I noticed a receiver run right through my lineman on a pass play. I then realized that tight ends exhibit the same characteristic. It is only on run plays that the collision detection was turned on and the players blocked. What this means to you is that you can abuse the detection system and line up every time on the tight end. On pass plays you run right through the tight end on your way to the QB. I also noticed this phenomenon in the end zone as a defender overtook my receiver and passed through my player's body.

Presentation/Audio : 85
Gamebreaker features the guy that truly makes college football. One of the saddest days in college football occurred when Keith Jackson retired from calling games. Fortunately he has returned to call select games. His brand of commentary is exceptional, and his presentation comes across in Gamebreaker. He calls the action solo, which is fine by me. His calls are correct, and the witty comments perfectly reflect the action on the field.

Despite the exceptional audio from Keith, the rest of the game's sound is weak. The crowd is weak and mostly outputs a stomp-stomp clap sound. The band in the stadium plays a generic song on occasion. Outside of Keith, there is nothing in the game's audio to give you the college football feel.

Interface/Options : 70
After playing NCAA Football 2001, I was thoroughly impressed with the options in the game. The recruiting features in that game are fantastic. I was hoping some of that would make its way into Gamebreaker. Fortunately, some recruiting is included in the host of game modes. Incidentally, the modes of play include scrimmages (or exhibitions), a bowl season, career mode, and various tournaments. I feel the career mode in Gamebreaker is the best around. You take the reigns as a second line coach at a university. Starting out, you are restricted to offers as offensive or defensive coach, a defensive coordinator, or a special teams coach. After each season, depending on the performance of the team, offers at your university or another school open up.

During the season, the stats from the rest of the teams looked reasonable. College football is wide open when it comes to stats. It is not uncommon to find teams with outrageous pass or run stats, much like real life. Teams which dominated the passing game did not have huge numbers in the running game. Where the statistical engine broke down is the ranking system. After the first season, Gamebreaker had East Carolina sitting at number 2. I mean no disrespect to East Carolina, but it is simply unrealistic to expect them to be that high in the polls.

After the season, I made my way into the off-season activities. What I found was a decent recruiting system that allowed you to recruit blue chip players. However, the recruiting process was several notches below that of EA's system. The off-season transactions were merely a novelty and not an integral part of the game.

Gameplay : 65
As mentioned earlier, Gamebreaker appears to run on the same engine as Gameday. After having played Gameday, I was more than a little unimpressed. I had multiple issues with the AI in the game. I was hoping this would be fixed in Gamebreaker. The first thing I noticed about the play was that penalties were called way too often. Penalty calls can be set to either high or low. The default is high, and when using this option, pass interference was called on too many occasions. The pass interference calls often were unjustified. If the secondary makes a break on the ball and intercepts the ball without running through the receiver, no penalty should be called. In Gamebreaker, clean interceptions were often greeted with a yellow flag. You can mitigate the situation by turning the penalties to low.

A pleasant surprise was the balance of plays by the CPU. If you set the AI team's playbook to balanced or running, the CPU will actually run the ball. I had numerous games where the rush attempts by the CPU near the twenty mark. In addition to calling run plays often, the CPU was effective on the run. Its ability to run the ball made the game more enjoyable as I wasn't stuck playing the secondary all game long.

However, my joy quickly turned to despair as the CPU started making boneheaded calls. Imagine this situation. The CPU has the ball inside of my 15. I was up 7-3 with 1:30 to go in the first half. The CPU was stuck on 4th down with 11 yards to go for the first. What would your average NCAA coach do? Well, of course, go for it. Why settle for 3 to close the gap to a single point? Needless to say, I got the ball back and the CPU looked stupid. Thinking this tactic was a function of the IQ option in the game, I played subsequent games with the CPU IQ at or near the maximum. Unfortunately it made no difference.

In another game with the IQ set to the maximum, I was up 28-0 late in the third quarter. On a fourth and one deep in my territory, the CPU decides to kick a field goal rather than go for the first down. They make the field goal and eventually get the ball back. On their next series, I sack the QB a few times and the CPU is faced with a 4th and 20 at midfield. And you guessed it, they failed to convert a fourth down. In yet another game, I was playing a passing team and they pass the entire first half. With ten seconds to go in the first half, they call a run play. Then a timeout. Then a pass play to run out the clock. Great AI guys. And don't even get me started on the lack of blocking by receivers.

On defense, the AI secondary comes straight out of Gameday. I was able to routinely complete near 90 percent of my passes. The secondary would converge on the ball realistically. However, players always seemed to be in zone coverage and there was ample room for receivers to find open spots. I could call the same play on every down and not have the AI catch on. The AI defense lined up in a run defense most of the time with single coverage on the receivers and a single safety in the secondary. Bumping up the CPU pass defense and IQ did little to affect my picking apart the secondary. When I was on defense, I could break up a pass play by simply pressing the jump button. Players jump like crickets, and on one play I viewed the replay to see just how high and far players could leap. My player jumped up around 4 feet and nearly 6 yards downfield!

For every bright spot I encountered in the game, I was met with an uglier downside. The pace of the game is great, yet the kicking game is inadequate. To control kicks you move the pad left or right to set the direction. The power of the kick is a function of a rapidly moving power meter. You can't set the direction all the way to the left or right before the kick automatically occurs. What this means is that kicking deep in your opponent's territory is virtually impossible if you set up on the hash marks. Likewise, you can't kick or punt the ball into the corners.

Another bright spot is the turnover aspect. Initially I felt there were too many turnovers in the game. But once I viewed the stats, I realized the numbers were realistic. It just so happened that turnovers occurred at the wrong times (is there ever a good time for a turnover?). But then I get another wacky play that befuddles me. I rushed the passer and caused a fumble. An offensive lineman picked up the ball and starts running. Every single one of my players except for the player I was controlling froze in place. They never made an attempt to tackle him let alone chase him.

Despite being a near carbon copy of Gameday, there are additional differences in Gamebreaker that set it apart from the pro title. Rushing the passer is difficult in Gameday. Sacks are next to impossible. When an offensive lineman would engage a defensive player, the defensive player could not escape the block. By contrast, Gamebreaker 2001 has a realistic pass rush. Swim moves are effective, and the number of sacks is realistic. In addition, defensive lineman can actually bat passes down.

The game play is substantially better than Gameday. However, even on the higher levels of difficulty, Gamebreaker doesn't provide enough challenge to keep games interesting. The CPU does a decent job at protecting against runs to the outside. Up the middle, I felt like breaking a run was a game of chance. Holes rarely opened up, yet my back could bust through the line and pick up decent yardage.

Replay Value : 65
Despite a more balanced offensive attack by the CPU, Gamebreaker 2001 just doesn't make the cut. It is plagued by the same glaring flaw as its cousin NFL Gameday 2001. That problem is a lousy pass defense. Both human and CPU controlled secondaries play too loose, leaving passing lanes completely clear. In addition, the graphics and sound don't get the juices pumping. Even Keith Jackson's exceptional commentary doesn't save this aspect of the game. Finally, the off-season extras in the game are rudimentary and don't add to the game. Simply put, there is a better college football title out there.

Overall : 70
Like its pro counterpart, Gamebreaker 2001 sits on the bench behind the number-one starter from EA. The graphics and sound are subpar, and the game play has some serious issues to contend with. College football is an exciting sport, and Gamebreaker 2001 just doesn't bring that excitement to the table.