NCAA 07 is like Cinderella in many ways. But it doesn't win out in the end.
If you remove that last sentence, you'd pretty much have NCAA 07 for PSP. The developers did a fine job on 360, XBox and PS2, but when it came to the PSP, I think they just stopped caring. It looks like they just slapped together what they could, didn't bother to double check for bugs and shipped out to us poor, unsuspecting gamers.
If you play this game, you'll mostly be playing Dynasty mode, so I'll focus on that for this review. The mode itself is a lot of fun. You can take your precious university from the pits to the pinnacle (if you have my school, South Carolina) with good scheduling, recruiting and gameplay. You get to customize so much that it really feels immersive. The options are vast.
So far, no problem. Ay, then you start to actually play the games. Yikes. First of all, if you've read anything about this game, you know the CPU can't spot the ball for beans. The ball is ruled down at the point of contact with the defender, not where the ball actually goes down. There are two exceptions; out of bounds and touchdowns. Those are usually spotted dead on, but anything else and you're on your own. I have been spotted as much as six (six!!!) yards back from where I actually went down.
So you stop running out of frustration, and you start passing. Oh dear. Sportscenter would kill to have this many one-handed catches... in an entire season! If you throw 20 completions, chances are at least 14 will be one-handed catches. Come on now. There should be no more than one in a game, if that.
Other major shortcomings include commentary. It's not that it's bland or boring, but it occasionally talks about the wrong team. I play with South Carolina, and when the other teams stat line appears, the team will refer to South Carolina's stats. The same goes with touchdown animations, when the scoring player suddenly congratulates his teammate, who is celebrating like he scored. Speaking of animations, come on now. This is college, not the NFL. If players actually did half of the celebrations NCAA 07 has them doing, they would be kicked off the team. I haven't seen an unsportsmanlike flag yet.
Lastly, and this is more personal than an actual problem, but if you rank the 25 hardest stadiums to play in, wouldn't you provide real-life renderings of those stadiums? Neither Clemson nor South Carolina, both of whom are in the top 25 in difficult stadiums, have their real-life counterparts represented. However, the wise programmers did decide to give us the detailed stadiums of Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Good choice guys!
Look, this game has some major problems, but all of them are in gameplay. The layout and the dynasty mode are still lots of fun, and there's enough there to keep you immersed for a while. But whoever wrote the Gamespot review for NCAA 07 missed the mark. This is not a game you should buy. Wait a couple of weeks and by Madden 2007 instead.