I've played a few games and here's some of the things I've noticed... for the people who haven't played it yet, or just those of you who want to read.
The Great
- Obviously some of the animations, it's great that the dunk animations are faster than before. In previous versions they looked almost in slow motion...
- Fast breaks, although maybe too many.
- Those old school jerseys, if there are any retro rosters made later some of these will come in handy, although there aren't many.
- There have been a few times that I have felt I had to work for something in this game. Offensive rebounds is one example, and I do get one once in a while by jumping after every shot I take. I have gotten a couple of tip-ins and they are very satisfying.
The Good
- Practice mode lets you practice some of the new stuff, so it's nice they implemented it, or should I say brought it back. Even without a controller with those dildo buttons, I found that I can pull off a couple of moves/post moves in practice mode.
- Create a player is better this year, plenty of shoes and all that other junk. Now though it's gonna take ages to create all those players for roster patches etc.
- That animation of the dribble between the players legs that Yohance uploaded, that was an example of something really really good
The Bad
- Not a single descent camera angle, although I can live with the press box. The whole freestyle thing has thrown the keyboard out of what though, and as the camera angle changes slightly apon the ball being moved from side to side, the direction in which players run also changes. When I try to recover and catch somebody on a fast break, I end up running out of bounds on the SIDELINES!
- They just had to know that the way they have changed the way in which keyboard buttons are assigned to the same button for offense/defense would piss people off. Seriously though this is really sad, why change something that made so much sense and worked so well. And all of a sudden I can't use caps lock in the game, so not only do I have to use new buttons all together, but they're all mixed up. I used to use my shooting button for jumping on defence, and now to jump on defence it's some weird button can't even remember which. I used to like using the big keys (caps for shoot, shift for enter, control for turbo) and small buttons for moves etc (a for spin, z for crossover) but now I can't because caps is gone, so I use all small buttons and it's just a pain. All those small bastards feel the same!!!
- Why is it that if I want to turn down the volume of the menu music I have to basically start up an exhibition game. Why is it that in franchise mode the playoff tree doesn't automatically come up like in previous versions?
- It seems that the "jumping too high" problem is back, after we complained for years and they finally solved it, they fuck it right up again.
- Although it's nice that the dunk animations are quicker, some of the others are too quick, some of the dribble moves, etc. The movement of the players almost feels like that of the NHL series.
- Franchise mode feels like it is lacking a bit of depth, probably because it's basically the same as before and we've played it so much in the other versions of the game. You have to trade draft picks dammit and it's inexcusible that this wasn't implemented. The offseason process is just the same bullshit, different package. It's annoying that you cannot complete the offseason mode out of order, but have to do it in the order they have set, even though there is a list of things there and you can click on any of them first. If you decide trade to before the draft, it will sim the draft for you. Frakin weak.
The really fucked up
- Obviously the blocks/jumping. I thought that in a real basketball game, when you took a three, a defender would be outstretched trying to put a hand in your face. Obviously I was wrong, and nowadays NBA players swat threes while jumping high enough to match the "Carter over Weiss" dunk. They wanted to make defense fun, but instead it's really unrewarding. There should be an animation of a player stretching (while barely getting off the ground) with his hand in the shooters face. And hell sometimes they might get a piece of the ball.
- The swish animation, and the shooting animation. Firstly it's doesn't exactly run the best on my PC, but it runs well enough to play. However with those AWFUL camera angles, you can barely tell when your shot has gone in, and what makes it more difficult is that players jump and will grab the ball right as it comes out of the net. You can't tell whether it was a rebound or you scored. The net animation is fine for some of the layups, but terrible for jump shots. The jump shooting animation also looks a little funny, although not bad from some angles, it looks horrible from behind.
- NO TRADING DRAFT PICKS. Simply unforgivable. The whole "build for the future" aspect of the game is basically lacking.
- Again I found a couple of nice post moves in practice mode, like the turn around jumper, but you can't do it in the game because as soon as the ball goes in the post it's a steal! Unless the other team is posting you up, then it's a score.
- Dunno if ingame saves are there, haven't looked yet...
- Derek Fisher hit 6/7 threes on me and some team got 80 pts on me in 5 min quarters.
- Just like with 2001 I can't win a game and consistantly lose by double figures. I'm sure this will change, but for now it's annoying the crap out of me. This game can turn into a bit of a dunk fest. Well, the other team dunks....
- The ratings. In previous versions, some of the games greatest players were rated in the 90's, most of those guys were in the "legends" pool. It separated the greats from some of the stars today, and now you have T-Mac rated 94, Kobe rated 95!! I really wish the players could be rated like before, the best couple of players in the league rated around 90 tops. I haven't looked through all the ratings but maybe if we lower some of the overblown ones, we can get players back to the ratings we're accustomed to. Anybody else want this??
I really hope a roster patch improves some of these things, and a patch from EA wouldn't do any damage.
Thanks for reading...
(No, i didn't tweak the rebounds rating)
After I tweaked the steal rating and pass the ball more carefully, it looks much better now.
