Why can't anyone make a good, single player Basketball game???
User Rating: 6.7 | NBA Live 2004 PC
Why can't anyone make a good, single player Basketball game??? The last time anything game legitimately close was some of the Sega Genesis NBA Live games from the mid-90s. Is this game THAT difficult to translate into video games? Let me start with the good: Lots of options, sliders, a decent enough Dynasty / GM modes. Graphics are nice and the game runs with a smooth framerate. Sound is well implemented and while it can get repetitive, it's never annoying. The bad: Control for the PC version is just a bear. I'm using a Gravis AFtershock, and loose is the best way I can describe it. Your player sometimes runs down court just the way he should. Sometimes he gets stuck in the freestyle-mode limbo where it looks like he's having a seizure. All I want is to be able to walk my man past half court without him having a fit... geez. Passing is a joke and is simply not precise. There is an direct-passing mode available and it does make things a little better, but overall the passing is just poor. The flow of the game is severly dosrupted by the poorly implemented passing. Think that guy is open?!? He won't be after it takes 3 seconds longer then it should for that lame pass to reach him... Forget trying to drive to the basket either... the collision detection cause your player to leap back three feet everytime any contact with a defender is made. Of course, the CPU can take the perfect lanes and avoid the contact for the most part... ugh. The lay-up/dunk button is a nice additon as is the drop step button. Unfortunately these "NBA" players aren't smart enough to just go strong to the hole. Whenever a CPU opponent gets within a step or two, your player trys to "adjust" his shot in mid-air. These become truly ugly to watch as what was once an easy "draw the foul" finger roll/dunk becomes an off-balance over-the-shoulder brick. Not to mention the far-more-occasional-then-it-should-be lay-up off the bottom of the rim. Yes, we are to believe that NBA quality players actually lay-up balls off the front or bottom of the rim 5-10 times per game!!! (The CPU makes this blunder as well) Games quickly devovle into 125-75 blowouts (easy difficuly levels) or 105-100 nail biters where both teams routinely shoot 70%+ and might have 5 offensive rebounds total. You'll quickly grow bored of blowing away everybody on the easier difficuly levels. Then again, you'll grow just as frustrated when Golden State and Denver suddenly go off for 72% shooting nights as soon as you dare crank up the difficulty. Why is it so hard to balance these things? I just want a decent, well-balanced single player game. I want the good teams to play good and the bad teams to be bad. I don't want to either blow everybody away or watch everybody have ungodly shooting averages based on one change in difficulty. Anyways, The 6.7 score is about how I feel about the game. It's not as terrible as my review makes it out. It can be fun to play, regardless of some pretty serious issues. I don't feel ripped off by any means, but I only paid $15.00 for the game on sale at Target.
