This game is supposedly better over time but for most of the NBA Live purist like me it turned out otherwise. First question i asked myself was Why? I came up with a list of possible insights to answer my own question (and hopefully some ppl in this forum) :
1. The engine of this game is pretty much the same like 2k1 but they (read: EA) got rid some of the nice features and added new 'ugly' ones in favor of the console market, which is currently the biggest area where their money comes in.
2. Back in 2000 EA did a better game (simulation wise) called NBA Live 2k. But now they wanted to create the gameplay as fun as possible by giving you tons of blocks and twisted dunks. Does it sound like the console's song to you?
Did you find on the game's manual, in introduction part, where it says "NBA LIVE 2003 - It's more than just basketball." Just read the whole intro part then you'll figure out why this game has too much "fun".
3. The PC programmers of NBA Live 2k3 just did the conversion straight from the console version and patched it over. Also, EA would try to avoid spending to much $$$ on hiring different group of programmers for different platforms. In programming world, the best term to explain this efficiency is CORE - "Code Once, Runs Everywhere" or things like that.
So they actually didn't do much to add special features for PC version. Remember Yao Ming was added later in the PC roster, including the announcer's voice in the game?
Some of us complaining about why their Win9x/ME machines couldn't play as smooth as those who run XP. The conversion tools they used for the PC version might be only for DirectX 8.x machines, which is installed by default if you have XP but it isn't for Win9x/ME. This is obviously one of the Microsoft strategy to orchestrate the OS market monopoly. Wanna play smoother, they asked? BUY XP instead now! So i think this is not entirely to EA programmer's fault.
4. The graphics is top notch but its still far as far as realistic simulation is concerned, with only one exception: the ball physics. The hardware and programming tools we have right now is still have less power to simulate real-life behaviors. Game developers in general are still working hard to come up with a way to imitate their games like the real physics of our life. The super smooth preview vids of this game we saw several months ago on the net were basically not the actual game. We might be thinking that way but it was truly pre-rendered animations done by the motion capture folks to attract ppl to buy the game when it shipped.
The more the game gets close to realistic views then the more you have to invest your money to play it. I mean, GO get Geeforce7 or Radiator to play NBA Live 2006!!
Even the EA programmers for PC version had to drop the refs in Live 2k3 in order to play it smooth on Geforce4Ti4600 or Radeon9700! Again, this is not just the hardware issue but also the Windows OS constrain.
Well, thats my .05 eurocents tho. After I realised this game shortcomings, my upset is getting down. But still, my expectation is whatever the next NBA Live series gonna be, I would desperately like to see the PC version back to where it supposed to be. I don't expect it to be super real because of current technology limitation, but at least we get it closer and closer. Simple as that.
Yeah, i'm a painful old skule geek.