NBA Inside Drive 2004 Preview

Microsoft and High Voltage Software's NBA Inside Drive franchise has been around for a few years now. The basketball series became Xbox-exclusive at the console's launch two years ago. Much like Microsoft's NFL Fever series, Inside Drive has yet to really capture the NBA game audience and truly establish itself as a contender against EA's and Sega's respective NBA titles. We recently had the opportunity to spend some time playing a preview version of the latest Inside Drive game, NBA Inside Drive 2004. While any fan of the series will certainly find a number of familiar things in Inside Drive 2004, the game does make some notable changes to the overall gameplay, and it will feature some new modes along with support for Microsoft's new XSN Sports service.

In terms of gameplay, Inside Drive has a couple of new aspects that definitely add to the game's realism. The game features an all-new low-post moves system for your bigger, more physically dominant players. You'll be able to use these power-post moves to dominate the low-post area both offensively and defensively and give your center a much higher edge than in previous years. Considering the addition of new cover athlete Shaquille O'Neal, it seems only logical that High Voltage would want to improve the postgame. New juke moves have been added as well, and they're especially effective in one-on-one situations, when you need that little bit of extra slipperiness to try to jam toward the basket. The game also features a new give-and-go system that will let you design complex passing systems to confuse the defense.

Speaking of defense, Inside Drive 2004 also features some upgrades to the defensive system. This year's game aims to give you much more control over stealing and blocking shots. You can ultimately decide if you want your defense to be more relaxed or more aggressive, though you'll need to be careful if you opt to go aggressive, as fouls tend to pop up pretty regularly in the game--in fact, half of the time when you try to manually steal the ball, the referee will call a foul on you. While in most cases, you can see why the CPU would see this as a foul, the referees seem to treat you a bit harshly in certain situations.

NBA Inside Drive 2004 features all the standard game modes, including single game, practice, playoffs, season, and general manager modes. The game's season mode is also its dynasty mode. In this mode you can take an NBA franchise through up to 25 seasons and sign, cut, draft, and trade players as you go. The trading system in the game is designed to let you make unbalanced trades, and up to three players or picks can be traded at once. The one quirk we noticed in the trading system is that we were able to gain draft picks out of other teams pretty easily. First-round picks, in fact, only cost us mid-rated players with less-than-exorbitant salaries. Aside from this fact, the trading did seem to work well, and CPU teams offered us plenty of fair trades as the season went on.

As far as the game's presentational aspects go, if you were a fan of the look and feel of previous Inside Drive titles, you won't be disappointed by Inside Drive 2004. Though the player models look roughly the same as in earlier years, more detail has been added to each model, including real-life tattoos, hairstyles, and gear such as headbands and pads. The animations in the game are much more fluid than before, and most of the stiff and jerky movements have been replaced with more-realistic-looking animations. All of the in-game arenas look pretty nice, with all the right lighting, reflection, and attention to detail you'd expect. Despite the various improvements, we did catch a few rough spots in the game's presentation. There were occasional texture glitches, and the arena crowds, despite being fully 3D, had some awfully jaggy models. Finally, the game's frame rate was pretty inconsistent. Hopefully High Voltage will fix these few issues that, while not major problems, mar an otherwise very solid visual presentation.

The game's audio is also very well done, though it's also not without its issues. This year's commentary is provided by the veteran trio of Kevin Calabaro, Kenny Smith, and Marques Johnson. Their work is nicely done and combines a good mix of play-by-play and color commentary, although the editing is still a bit rough in certain situations. The in-game effects, arena announcing, chatter, and crowd noise are all really good and provide an excellent atmosphere for an NBA game. The game's soundtrack is a mixture of different types of hip-hop, and while none of it is immediately recognizable, it works well with the game.

Since NBA Inside Drive 2004 is an Xbox-exclusive title, it seemed a no-brainer that the game would feature Xbox Live support. The Xbox Live functionality lets you play quick matches or optimatches against online opponents. You can also download roster and player-rating updates and track your stats via a new leaderboard ranking system that tracks based on the difficulty of opponents and games. New for this year's title is the inclusion of support for XSN. NBA Inside Drive 2004 will contain the full spectrum of XSN features, including the ability to organize your own teams, schedules, and leagues from the XSN Web site, which will in turn broadcast league stats, transactions, scores, and the like to your computer or Web-capable cell phone. All in all, NBA Inside Drive 2004 should provide one of the most definitive online basketball experiences available on the Xbox.

As it stands, NBA Inside Drive 2004 is looking to be a solid addition to the Inside Drive series. The new gameplay additions are good and intuitively put together, and the addition of the XSN online support should allow for plenty of replay value. NBA Inside Drive is scheduled to hit stores October 28.