ESPN College Hoops 2K5 Hands-On
Ready for the Sweet 16 or the NIT scrub? We preview the latest build of the popular ESPN college basketball series.
It's only October, but a lot of college hoop fans are already thinking of March--that glorious time when the NCAA College Basketball Championship Tournament is upon us. Another important, upcoming month for fans of college roundball is November, because that's when Sega will release its newest college basketball game, ESPN College Hoops 2K5. We recently sat down with the latest build of 2K5 and had a chance to discuss what's new in this year's game with its developers.
The first thing you should know about 2K5 is that the game was brought home this year so that it could be developed in-house by Visual Concepts. What this means is that some of the graphical and control touches you might be familiar with from VC's ESPN NBA 2K franchise are present here in College Hoops 2K5, though they've been tweaked appropriately for the college game. Fast breaks and tomahawk slams may not be as commonplace in college basketball as in the pros, but the college game still has all its own wrinkles.
College Hoops 2K5 boasts a huge number of college teams on its roster (at current count there are more than 320). Lesser-known schools, such as Birmingham-Southern, Cleveland State, and newcomer Savannah State, all make appearances in 2K5. In addition, at least 70 classic college teams will make their ways into the game, which is a boon for fans looking to relive past NCAA Tourney glories all over again. Players will also be able to take their favorite teams online on both the PS2 and Xbox versions of the game.
What's immediately obvious in 2K5, as compared to its NBA cousin, is the tempo of the game. The action on the floor unfolds at a more controlled pace than some of the more up-and-down plays common to the NBA. This does not mean the game is slow, however. In fact, in some ways, the game pace seems a lot quicker than that of its NBA cousin. Defense, in particular, might feel completely different to those new to the series, mainly because college basketball teams actually play it. During one game, we watched as an artificial intelligence-controlled team played a full-court press for the entire first half of the game, which is a defensive tactic basically unheard of in the pros.
This defensive-minded approach has obvious ramifications on all aspects of play, but it most obviously affects the passing game. Finding an open look, even when inbounding the ball, can be tough, because the plucky AI will do everything it can to relieve you of possession of the ball. Double-teams are rampant, and they can make moving the ball around the court difficult, to say the least. To counter this, 2K5 includes improved passing controls that add depth to your offensive game. While a simple straight pass is still easily completed--provided you can find an open man--2K5 also lets you use a more controlled passing, mainly through the use of additional controller buttons. This will send a man toward the basket, allowing you to easily find an open man in scoring position. Throw in the shoulder buttons and you can perform a give-and-go or an alley-oop. What's more, this mechanic can be changed on the fly. Therefore, a play that starts as a give-and-go can be quickly modified into an alley-oop dunk with a few quick button presses (and the right on-the-court conditions, of course), and vice versa.
Post moves are similarly tweaked in 2K5. Pressing the white button on the Xbox controller, for example, transitions your controlled player into "post mode," where he can use various post moves in the paint, such as backing an opponent in. Pressing the white button again exits post mode. The final designated post mode button has yet to be determined by the developers at VC.
Fans of the NBA 2K series will be pleased to note that College Hoops 2K5 also includes a variation of NBA 2K5's "isomotion" control scheme, which is used primarily to juke defenders as you make your way toward the basket. The control scheme is a bit different from the one found in the NBA series, because it calls for the additional use of the trigger buttons on the Xbox controller. It will be interesting to see how this feature turns out in the final game, because the real college game is less dependent on flashy moves than on sound teamwork and allowing plays to unfold on the floor.
ESPN College Hoops 2K5 Quick Links
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- Sega
- Visual Concepts
- Basketball Sim
- Release: Nov 17, 2004
- ESRB: Everyone
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