"It's not easy being green," Kermit the Frog often sang. But for Dartmouth, sometimes it's not even easy to be the Big Green.
989 Sports's "NCAA Final Four '99" is a realistic and competitive college basketball video game for Sony's Playstation which, with the possibility of playing with nearly 300 Division I teams, should set the standard for hoops games.
Naturally, upon putting the game in the machine, I figured where better to open up the college basketball season then in our own Leede Arena with Dartmouth taking on the visiting Providence Friars.
The video game wins major points on realism with coaches pacing the sidelines, 3D graphics and play-by-play commentary. When Ian McGinnis '01 launched a three-pointer to shock the Friars, 40-39 in a prototypical Ivy League defensive struggle, the small crowd gathered around the television screen roared only to hear Quinn Buckner refer to the winning Dartmouth squad as the Green Wave after having called us the Big Green throughout the contest.
Now the Cameron Crazies may not know or care whether or not we are the Big Green, Green Wave, or Green Beans. But, I am sure that the Tulane students playing the game in some cramped dorm room don't want to hear Buckner refer to them as the Big Green.
Buckner is sharp and surprisingly witty for a video game and ultimately, the Green Wave comment while annoying is pretty trivial in comparison to some of the game's subtle nuances which make it the best college basketball game on the market today.
The crowds are animated, the chants are audible and the fight songs ring true. The new 6th man meter riles up the crowd and increases the visiting team's chances of missing a shot while increasing those of the home squad.
Like most basketball games, defense is not an easy thing to play as turbo-drives to the hoop result in easy scores. But, anyone who has played "NBA Jam" knows that defense is secondary and 989's "Touch Shooting" gives the user plenty of control on the offensive end. And if you still can't score, you can cherry pick and even taunt your opponents.
"NCAA Final Four '99" aims for realism to ensnare the basketball fans across the nation. Dartmouth hoops fans might purchase the game because #35 on the screen is actually modeled after Shaun Gee '00 with his height, weight and abilities. In a simulated season, Gee brought home the Conference Player of the Year award for the Ancient Eight but the Princeton Tigers found their way into the video game's tournament.
Dartmouth finished way below .500 in the Ivy League and overall in the simulated season, bringing only a bit more satisfaction to the Big Green fans who have believed in a squad that few outside of Hanover had a realistic shot of sitting where they do -- in first place by two games in the loss column.
And while Dartmouth never cracked the Top 25 poll that appeared weekly on the screen, battles with Lafayette and New Hampshire were intriguing and exciting contests -- even for a video game. While other college basketball games can rival "Final Four's" game controls, they only boast 30 or 100 teams, whereas now fans of Prairie View A & M and other schools can not only see their teams claim tournament berths but even cut down the nets in St. Petersburg in April.
Dartmouth is 4-1 thus far in my season but here's to hoping that this year's real-life team will continue their success and that when next year's version of this very good game comes out, that Quinn Buckner and the game developers know how truly "Big" this Dartmouth team has become.
