ESPN NBA Basketball

"One of the best bball sims but still missing a lot."

ESPN NBA Basketball gets a lot of things right. The game is presented in a pretty cool ESPN themed style. The players themselves are some of the best texture and model work on the PS2. Iso-motion is a good system and, with practice, the player can pull off impressive one-on-one moves. There are a lot of good animations and the game is quite a joy to play. There a few really good tunes that play in the menus and during the pre-game introduction. However, if you're a hardcore basketball fan, you'll know that the game is missing many elements that are inherently part of the game. The game is really fun to play and it's still one of the best out there for bball sims but it still doesn't have everything you would ever want.

Baseball sims and football sims seem to capture a lot of the nuances of their respective sports, especially with newer ones like ESPN NFL and MVP Baseball 2004. However, basketball sims always have seemed to be stripped of the nuances of NBA basketball and ESPN also fails to include many of these elements.

ESPN NBA Basketball is best and most fun when you're controlling a slashing guard such as Kobe Bryant or Allen Iverson, as you are given a multitude of dribble moves, hesitations, jab steps, fancy lay-ups, and what have you. After a few weeks of practice, the player can pull off some serious highlight film material. However, the problem comes when you try to play any other type of basketball. Low post moves are non-existent, even compared to 2K3. For example, when have you ever seen Shaq go to a turn around jumper from a post-up. The jump hook isn't even an option in ESPN and it takes a lot away from the low post game. Your only choice is a weak little turn around jumper.

Another glaring problem becomes apparent after you've played the game for a few months, you've really get accustomed to the controls, and gotten comfortable with controlling your player. You start wanting to do a little more with your team but the problem is that, the teams in ESPN don't really play any team ball. NBA Live 2004 does a great job with their 10 man motion capture and their multitude of play sets. There are just 4 offensive plays in ESPN NBA, which actually wasn't a problem for me because I don't really know the complicated plays like the triangle or the flex. However, your teammates seem to want to stand around and either watch you put on the one-on-one moves or have you pass it to them so that they can put on one-on-one moves. There are no rotations, back door cuts, or anything that makes up team ball. And don't even expect anything from inbounds plays, which are exciting parts of real NBA ball when it gets tight late in the game, since your teammates will stand still and do nothing. There are 4 plays, post-up, pick and roll, iso, and a little screen away from the ball that opens up a man for a 3 point shot. However, it just isn't enough to get your team to move like a real NBA team would. So it turns into a one-on-one fest with you controlling a slashing guard like Vince Carter, blowing by your man, and dunking or your point guard feeding it to someone posting up for a turn around jumper, which is your only option out of the post-up (there is no drop step and it's useless to try to turn the corner on your defender).

Lack of options is a big problem. Posting up, you can only go to a turn around jumper or futilely try to turn the corner (you almost never get by your man and a lot of times end up losing your dribble). At least in NBA Live 2004, you can go to the hook or a strong drop step as well as a turn around jumper or trying to turn the corner on your defender.

There's also a lack of animations or, to be more specific, there are not enough animations to reflect individual player styles. Shaq has never finger rolled in his life yet in ESPN NBA Basketball, he always goes to the finger roll when he does a lay up. There's a need for a hookshot or a one handed shot. The crossover animations are also very generic and they don't do a very good job of distinguishing between players that have handle and players that don't have as much. I was able to crossover and drive by a man playing as Kwame Brown, which is quite unrealistic.

The animations for the players with better moves aren't all that great either. The crossovers that Allen Iverson performs in ESPN, which by the way aren't any different from the moves that say Gilbert Arenas performs, aren't really deceptive at all and it seems unfair to be able to get by someone with such a bad move.

The defense that the computer plays is a joke. I guess it just balances out the horrible offense that your team plays for you. I can understand that, if I'm controlling Allen Iverson, I can pretty much drive by his man at my will and yet no one really rotates over in time to stop him so I score easy lay-ups all the time and end up with 40 point games every night. It's just too easy to get into a one-on-one situation, drive by your man, and score. The computer needs to play smarter defense and come to challenge with double teams. Then when you take a strong dunker like a Kobe Bryant or a Vince Carter into traffic and go to the hoop, they always go up for a dunk from 5 feet or more away and often times they are able to finish with two defenders in front of them without any contact. These situations call for more animations either with the ball handler going to a lay-up that changes in midair or with the defender making contact with the ball handler in an effort to stop the shot.

Then there are other things that I've yet to see included in any bball sim. It's too easy to keep your dribble in traffic and not have the ball stolen from you. In ESPN, even if you are in position and you swipe at the ball, you'd probably draw a reach in call. The player should have to play smarter and not dribble into trouble. When the ball is put on the floor, it should be fair game for anyone. How about calling time-out after recovering a loose ball to overt a jump ball situation or even a jump ball situation at all? There needs to be more situations like that--that force the player to use timeouts more strategically. Including ways to get technical foul calls would be fun. I remember in the Kobe Bryant game for Nintendo 64, a player could hang on the rim after a dunk and get a tech, as lame as that is. After seeing MVP Baseball 2004 with it's multitude of animations for every field position as well as player specific batting stances and deliveries for hundreds of batters and pitchers, it almost seems necessary that NBA games should follow suit with adding in more animations, more dribble animations that are geared toward specific players and more low post move and dunks geared toward certain players. Watching Kobe Bryant's smooth rhythmic dribbling is quite different from watching someone like Jamal Tinsley who looks markedly less graceful. How about Magic Johnson's little back down dribble that he always went to? If you'd watch him play you'd know what I mean. ESPN Baseball has a confidence meter, how about one in Basketball. Not just for hot and cold streaks but things like when a player can beat on a player and cause him to lose confidence. For example, Dennis Rodman got into Shawn Kemp's head in game 6 of the 96 NBA Finals and caused him to commit a flagrant foul late in the game. How about ways to commit flagrant fouls that would take away from an opponent's confidence meter yet also result in technicals and flagrant foul calls? Or maybe calling timeout at the right time so that a player can get a talk from his coach and get some confidence back. Things like this would add excitement and challenge to basketball sims which seem to be too much about one-on-one moves and less about the things that make the game fun to watch. I hope people from Visual Concepts read this haha.

Yet after saying all of this, ESPN NBA is still one of the best basketball sims out there. It is really fun to play, the graphics are incredible, and Iso-motion is about the best dribble move system. I do hope that next year Visual Concepts will improve upon some of the AI and animation issues but in the mean time, I'll have fun with the Iso-motion.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/31/04