Players : 1
NBA 2K
does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a basketball game with a staggering
number of options that's as up-to-date as last year's season and allows you
not only to play, but also tosses in all the aspects you'd expect from a
football manager simulator, i.e. view stacks of statistics, view the details
from a host of real players (400 at the last count) and also create your own
customisable players.
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, Playoff has you fighting
against the opponents to get through to the finals, Practice helps
you to..erm.. you know and there's an option for people who don't know much
about basketball and just want to start a game quickly: Quick Start.
Note that if you do play a full season, you'll obviously want to save your
position - unless you can play 82 games in one sitting - and the game-saves
will take up an entire VMU. Well, 197 out of 200 save positions.
You may not understand all the NBA rules but even still you can alter some
of them, make substitutions, change the camera views, 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.
Graphics, Sound and Playability
Whether playing the game or viewing the customisable replay option, the
graphics are very good indeed. I'll have to take Sega's word for it that
the players look like their real counterparts as American Sport is not my
greatest topic when playing Trivial Pursuit. 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 is good too and does 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.
There's just one thing that's missing in the sound and graphics department.
I'd love a 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!
When it comes to playing the game, note that you can't just the D-pad, just
the joystick. One thing must be said and that it's 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.
Overall
No matter how long I played this game, I found 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. 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...
No doubt next year we'll see NBA 2001 with updated team statistics and further
improvements all round. There's been quite a buzz about this game in the
newsgroup I read regularly, uk.video.games.dreamcast
