As before, there many an option as well keeping itself as up-to-date as
possible and packed with statistic. In fact, in that respect there's everything
a basketball fan could ask for.
There's many different ways to play the game: Season takes you through a
full NBA season if you feel like it but that's a maximum of 82 games, although
options of 14, 28 and 56 are also available, Franchise, which puts you
in a game style akin to those football manager games... but as a basketball
manager.. obviously. As well as Exhibition matches and Tournaments,
there's a series of Street courts based on real locations and there's
also a Practice option.
You may not understand all the NBA rules but even still you can alter some
of them, make substitutions, change the camera views (eg. TV cameras, side-on,
isometric and swivel), take timeouts and that's
only just for starters. There's also an excellent Replay option which
allows you to move the viewpoint all around the court as if you were literally
a fly-on-the-wall. You can then turn back time or speed it up and view the
fully-animated crowd. Brief replays are also viewable when you or your
opponents score but these can be skipped.
Whether playing the game or viewing the customisable replay option, the
graphics are very good indeed, well-detailed and colourful. The players move
quickly around the court and it's quite something to see a crowd that's
animated and not just sitting there still while making sounds like a
ventriloquist's dummy.
The sound seems better than before and rather atmospheric, while doing
everything you'd expect. The crowd cheer when you score (on the odd occasion
that I actually shoot a basket that goes in), the ball bounces on the court
and there's a running commentary throughout the game.
While there is a side-on camera view, I'd still like to play a version based
on the side-on stick man version a la the old Atari arcade game which
would go the way of the ZX Spectrum and bleep out a rendition of "Sweet
Georgie Brown". Oh, how the memories flood back as I remember that sound
pouring out of the arcade halls in the early 80's!
In this version, it's still too easy to pass to your team-mate. I appreciate
that such a game has to introduce an element of arcade into it but as the
ball finds its designated player it doesn't seem to replicate any of the skill
that a real basketball player would go through.
Two years on and I'm still finding it impossible to snatch the ball off an
opponent. I only managed to accidentally knock them over and pay
the penalty of watching them take a penalty shot. Apparently the game has a
new steal system and (I quote) "a revamped low post game allowing the player
to exploit the defender with lightning quick drop step moves, back him down
for a rim-rattling dunk, or shoot a sweet fade away jumper."
If you can understand that, then you're a better man than I.
Perhaps I'm just crap at
basketball games on consoles, although in the dim and distant past when I was
at school I tried a shot from the centre of the indoor court (not quite the
size of the NBA one on view here) even though the sun was creeping into the
corner of my eye on the right-hand side. Somehow I got the shot perfectly
straight and through the hoop it went. Well, that's my fifteen minutes of
fame...
Presumably this will be the last NBA title on the Dreamcast, but no doubt
they will appear on other consoles as Sega continue to write games for them
and update their sports titles on an annual basis.
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ORIGINALITY ENJOYMENT
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Somewhere along the line I missed out on the 2001 edition,
but NBA 2K2 improves upon