NCAA College Football has lived in an odd space since the college-themed football franchise first hit. Given developer Tiburon Studio's work on the Madden franchise, NCAA has often been dismissed as a derivative cousin of the sports juggernaut. But a funny thing has happened since its debut, because NCAA has quickly morphed into a very different beast from its relative. The franchise now offers a very unique experience that serves up a healthy dose of atmosphere that has all the dramatic flourish of a good college game with solid gameplay. We had the chance to take a look at an early version of the latest entry in the series, NCAA Football 2005, for the PlayStation 2, which continues to take the franchise down its own unique path.

　　For the latest entry in the series, the development team has focused on the biggest difference between the NCAA franchise and other traditional football games--the college atmosphere--and has headed off into some interesting territory with it. One of the most interesting new elements to the game is the home-field-advantage system, which affects your team's performance. Basically, the way it works is that your team's performance is affected by the stadium environment it's playing in. This means that your team is more at ease and is more likely to perform better in friendly environments, such as its home field, rather than at away stadiums, where the opposing team's supporters would like nothing more than to see it crushed. While the effect on your team's performance is obviously quantifiable by how it performs in a game, you'll also be clued in to the effects by onscreen occurrences, such as screen-shaking, which is a nice little touch. The impact of this effect on your team is directly related to each player's football experience, so seniors will be affected far less than skittish newcomers to the team. The match-up-stick system lets you both issue commands and manage your team on the field quickly and smoothly, which helps the pacing of matches greatly.

　　The graphics in the game are being buffed to a new sheen thanks to a promising mix of substance and style. On the technical side of things, you'll find the game's own unique variations on some of the tweaks that are being made to Madden, such as improved character-model detail, which highlights the upper torsos of players and the lighting used to display it. One unique element of the game's graphics that the team is focusing on is the activity on and around the field, which helps bring the massive stadiums to life. You can expect to see more people in the stands, in addition to some slick bits of animation to reflect their sometimes very fickle moods.

　　Sound has become one of the most important components of the experience offered by NCAA College Football, thanks to Tiburon's excellent mix of ambient sounds. The roar of the crowd, the sound of the bands, and the fight songs you'll hear over the course of a game are all going into the mix for this year's pigskin offering. The audio package actually ties in nicely with the home-field-advantage and player-composure systems by offering audio cues about the state of a game. While the early version of the game was anything but final, the audio was already quite impressive, which bodes well for the final version of the game.

　　Based on what we've seen so far, NCAA Football 2005 should have a lot to offer when it ships. The game is now anything but a Madden knockoff, thanks to its unique atmosphere and gameplay mechanics. This latest entry in the franchise seems poised to add a lot to the already solid package, both in terms of its gameplay and its college atmosphere. NCAA Football 2005 is currently slated to ship later this year for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. Look for more on the game in the coming months.