NBA 2K

"A pretty good game. Not perfect, but a great game nonetheless."

Well, after many many months, I finally got my hands on a Dreamcast and played NBA 2K. Right now, I like the game very much and I'm not willing to part with it anytime soon. However, this is not the perfect basketball sim everyone says it is.

Well, this is a Sega game for the Dreamcast so the graphics will rock. Each player looks like their real life counterparts. Faces are extremely detailed and don't look polygonal at all. The faces even smile, grimace and look left and right. Players on the bench have less detail, but it's not noticeable unless you look. The arenas are accurate for the most part. Attendance varies with each game, which is cool, plus the fans with the most detail animate well. Hell, they even got the coaches in the game and they are pretty good looking too. Reflections off the floor look good and not cheap like NBA Live 2000. Players move very realistically, from walking down the lane, to rolling off the post-up, to alley-oops. Even the ball looks good. All this in high-resolution and 60 fps. Wow. Commentary is very good, with great color and a good amount of wit. They even refer to players by nicknames like ''Zo,'' ''The Dream,'' ''Diesel,'' and my favorite, ''Half man, half amazing.'' Sometimes, I wish it would be less general and more continous and natural. ''Johnson, (short pause) hits the lay in and he has 18.'' You can hear coaches yelling and players calling shots, which is cool. Different PA announcers would have been good, but I guess that's asking too much.

As far as gameplay, it's a mixed bag. Analog control is always a good thing, and it shows here. Icon passing is here too. Play calling is awkward since you have to use the digital pad. This means you have to stop moving to call the play, and well, that's not right. Posting up to the rim is pretty good. If your defender is stronger than you, pass the ball because you ain't moving an inch. Sometimes, players miss passes, especially when passing cross court, just like in real life. But sometimes, the ball is deflected into an unrealistic direction, like 30 feet in the air. It doesn't happen a lot, but it happens. Free throws are done using the analog buttons and rely less on timing like in other b-ball games. This is okay, but when you get the hang of it, you are not going to miss a lot of free throws. Even with Big Shaq Daddy, a notoriously bad free throw shooter, I can get a high percentage. The only real challenge to it is put in All-Star difficulty, when you only have a few seconds to line up the arrows. Speaking of which, the difficulties are kinda off balance. In Rookie, I can blow out almost any team, but in Pro I get blown out and I can't make a 3 for my life. My roommate, an aspiring sports journalist, says you should be able to call a timeout after a shot is made, but you can't here. Otherwise, timeouts serve their purpose, to stop the clock and set up a shot. Injuries are realistic too. You can land wrong and hurt your ankles, strain your back, break fingers while dunking, and severities of injuries are well, not random. A less serious injury happens more often than a multi-game injury.

One thing that gets me is the period length. Let the record show that periods in video game basketball should be around 6 minutes long for scores to reflect a real life NBA game score. Here, you get either 5 minutes or 8, which leads to high scoring games or low ones. That could have been easily fixed. Menus are okay. Practice mode is good for people who need to work on their shots. I just wish I could practice the plays or at least control more than one player.

This is a good buy. If you like b-ball and have a Dreamcast, get this game NOW.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/26/00, Updated 03/26/00