NCAA Football 06 (PlayStation 2, Xbox)

In NCAA FOOTBALL 06, players compete for the Heisman trophy by creating an impact player and leading him from high school summer camp all the way to a collegiate bowl victory. Or, if that's too much, just pick a college you like and play your heart out. Most players will want to Race for the Heisman, which is the key enhancement in this year's version.

In one new feature, each team has three Impact Players identified by pulsing circles. The more you feed the Impact Player the ball and the better he performs, the more the pulse will increase -- and if he does really well, he'll go into the "zone." In the Race for the Heisman, you start by go through a drill, select your school, create your legend, and proceed to your new dorm room where you can check out the available options and see your Heisman Hype meter. Your goal is to feed him the ball and build his stats; in time, he becomes an Impact player and, once your Heisman Hype meter is full, you go to the presentation of the trophy.

The graphics are excellent and online play is much improved. As with the previous year's version, there's still a stadium pulse that raises the crowd noise level, you can find out how a player is performing under pressure, and you can see the matchups at the line of scrimmage.

This game is much faster paced than the earlier version so younger kids may feel a bit frustrated by the speed with which they have to make decisions, but that's a small price to pay for a really good game.