Right now, I'm playing student, which is fun. Specifically, playing history student, which is just wonderful. But besides that, the games I'm playing really can be expressed as the game I'm playing, and that is College Hoops 2k8. Let's just lay it out there: I love college basketball. L-O-V-E like the sculpture in Philly. As 50 said eloquently once, I love you like a fat kid loves cake, college basketball. I lud it. So, given this torrid love affair I have with the sport, its only logical that knee deep into college basketball season, I'm playing a college basketball game exclusively. The allure of College Hoops 2k8 is the super-deep Dynasty mode. So deep, it's almost too much. So in it, there are two modes, Open, where you pick any team you want to and play out a career, or Career, where you have to start out on a small-conference team and with shitty attributes as a coach, and work your way up the ladder, earning jobs at bigger schools and improving your coaching stats. Pretty cool, right? So what makes it almost too much? The recruiting. Oh, the recruiting, how I hate/love you. On one hand, it is incredibly deep, 5 years' worth of recruits in the system, from Freshmen to Junior College players. You have points to spend to try to attract the players you want to your school, and as you go to bigger schools, you have more points. There are scouting reports for each of the players, and also the game attached numerical rankings, such as the #20 overall player/#5 shooting guard, and also star classification, from 1 to 5 stars. So, the challenge is recruiting players who you actually have a chance to pull in, while trying to get the best possible players who fit your system. It just sometimes becomes too much to keep track of, especially when you are trying to fill 4 scholarships while targetting the junior class to set yourself up for the next year. That being said, it is absolutely satisfying to pull in highly-rated recruits, or to find diamonds in the rough that come out way better than they were rated. Location also plays a factor in the recruiting, as often, recruits like to stay near to home. So places that are recruiting hotspots (California, New York City, Texas) can have an advantage sometimes, though the very best recruits often don't care how far they have to go, they like to play for the best programs. And then ontop of that, you have the actual gameplay, which is cheesey gooey delicious college basketball at its finest, at least as good as it has ever been. And yes, I've compared this to EA's March Madness, and March Madness is neither compelling gameplay-wise or simulation-wise. So, I think, in the next few posts I will relate to you my experiences in my latest dynasty in the game.