Upon starting the game for the first time you are asked to select your favorite team. After selecting Notre Dame I was brought to a character creation screen. I was asked for my players last name. I entered Brady and next I was asked to pick the type of drill I wanted to take part in. Being that Walter Payton is my childhood and adult hero I selected the halfback drills. I took part in the running back drill and after I completed it I was offered scholarships from 3 different schools. I was free to take a scholarship from one of these schools or be a walk on at the school of my choice. I decided to take the scholarship from Texas A&M. After accepting the scholarship I was able to go to my new dorm room or the main menu. The new Heisman mode could wait so I went straight to the main menu.

EA Trax are the default menu music but you can change it to the marching bands if you prefer that. The EA Trax are really cool in NCAA. I heard some old De La Soul and Neds Atomic Dustbin. The main menu screen has the logo of your favorite team and on the right side it shows old footage from college football greats like Peyton Manning, Herschel Walker, Ricky Williams, and Walter Payton. Very, very well done.

Enough with the fluff, let's get down to what really matters: gameplay. I started a game as Notre Dame at home against the 17th ranked Eagles of Boston College. I was playing 8-minute quarters on All-American difficulty. I've read elsewhere that All-American was too easy out of the box so I was cocky going into the matchup. A combination of my football game rust, a so-so Notre Dame squad, and an excellent BC squad saw me down 35-0 at the end of the first quarter. I was in shock.

I gave up 2 big plays for touchdowns. One in the air and one on the ground. The touchdown pass was a thing of beauty I can't ever recall witnessing in a football videogame. The wide receiver caught the ball over his right shoulder while looking back at the ball and he did it in full stride. He was off to the races and there was nothing I could do. I was impressed. The touchdown run was a result of great blocking, misdirection, and an Impact Player making an impact. BC ran a counter and my defense totally bought the fake to the right. My safety was in position to contain the damage to a 10-yard gain but BC's half back flattened him and scampered the rest of the way for a touchdown. I was impressed again.

The 3 other touchdowns were a result of 2 interceptions and a god-awful punt of mine. Down 35-0 it was time to check out the competition from a lesser team. I backed out and started a new game at home against the Tarheels. Notre Dame had a slight edge on paper so I was interested in seeing how this game would turn out. It turned out to be the best game of football I've played in 2 years. I had more fun in this game than I did combining every game of NCAA 2005 I played.

Right off the bat I broke a 77-yard touchdown run. NC answered back with a 78-yard touchdown run. It was tied 7-7 not even 2 minutes into the game. In NCAA 2005 I would routinely see 7-7 scores well into the fourth quarter. The rest of the first quarter saw a lot of stalled drives and only 3 more points for North Carolina. I was losing 10-7 after one quarter.

I was being pressured by the Tarheels defensive line in the second quarter and ended up throwing 3 picks in the quarter resulting in 10 more points for the Heels. Neither team ran the ball very well in the second quarter. I was losing 20-7 at the half.

North Carolina started the second half with the ball and marched down the field for a field goal to make the score 23-7. I knew it was time to step it up. I felt pretty good defensively only giving up 23 points on 3 turnovers and 2 horrible punts. On offense I wasn't finding any rhythm and I needed to back off the relentless pursuit of the Tarheel d-line so I made a conscious effort to take the pressure off a struggling Brady Quinn and utilize my impact halfback, Darius Walker. The plan worked and I was also able to incorporate my impact wideout, Rhema McKnight, into my attack. My defense also forced 3 interceptions in the second half that really helped my offense get going.

I won the game 38-23. I ran Walker 34 times for 304 yards and Quinn threw a touchdown pass to McKnight and finished the game 7 of 20 for just under 200 yards. Not the most accurate stats but I still had an absolute blast playing the game. I always like to start off any sports game on the second-hardest difficulty so I have room for growth in case I start dominating the CPU. I will stick with All-American for now but I will need to raise the qb accuracy for both human and cpu and lower human running. I'm hoping to find a nice balance through sliders.

My initial impressions are very favorable at this point and I have a lot of hopes that 2006 will turn out to be the game many of us expected last year.

Quick hits:

Positives -

NCAA 2006 is easily the best it's ever looked on the Xbox.

I didn't notice any slowdown.

I noticed a huge difference in difficulty and skill between Boston College and North Carolina.

Dropped passes are much more reasonable. I ended the game with a combined total of 7 dropped passes (4 for me and 3 for the cpu).

The CPU finally mounts a rushing attack.

The CPU mixes up their play calling and keep you on your toes.

The overall pace and feel of the game feels much more like football than 2005 did.

Great college atmosphere.

Great presentation.

Division 1AA and 1AAA player names can be edited.

Sliders are assigned a code to easily share with others.

Negatives -

Mario running is still present but the new backwards juke might help in this area.

Some questionable late-game offensive AI witnessed. The Tarheels were down 38-23 with less than a minute and were going into the hurry up offense only to run 3 reverses in a row before finally taking a timeout with 4 seconds left.

Slider tweaking is always frustrating.