Ok, I played the demo now ...
Before I start to give my impressions, I need to say that this demo was very limited in all aspects and i guess a very early demo too!
1. Only baseline cam and very far away!
2. NO SLIDERS!!! (just in the demo of course)
3. PS2 demo with poor graphic compared to what I am used from xbox/pc
4. Unfortunatly I had to play it on a 12" tv if not even smaller.
You could chose from 4 teams and play a 4x5 mins game. There were no others options than just playing the game, as I said, no camera change, no sliders, nothing.
So the worst thing on the demo was that it was just to slow. I guess the gamespeed was set between 10 to 20. Honestly, that destroyed the most of the gameplay flow because every single movement was just far to slow!
And of course I couldn't see very much with that very far away baseline cam on a 12" tv =)
I wanna rule out all the negative aspects first and then come to the pros!
Two things, that annoyed me the most ...
1. The sliding of the cpu players while dribbling is still there. They almost never did any moves while dribbling, they just slid around all the time, from right and to left and back! That really looked arkwardly! I wonder when EA is ever gonna fix that. It never seems like players are really in contact with the floor and never are really running on it, but gliding or sliding like in any ice hockey game.
2. The worst part I figured out when playing with Marion(scorer). I was inside the perimeter but still to far away from the basket to dunk or make a lay up, but I tried one of his scorer moves and guess what...
As long as you are inside the perimeter and you try one of theese moves, like an up and under layup or whatever, they will attempt it! No matter how far away the rim is!!
I guess you all can imagine how stupid it looks if they try to dunk the ball from such a distiance. It looks like they got a turbo boost or so and try to fly to the rim. At least they never make the basket but turn their layup attempt into some strange looking other kind of shot attempt.
EA defenitly has to work on that, like restricting the range of theese moves to a reasonable distance from the rim!
Besides that the commentary seems be a lot like last years version, except a few new things from Steve Kerr.
Ok, I know some that didn't sound very good at all, but lets get to the good things.
There are a lot of new animations.
What I've seen so far:
-new dribbling animations (a few new, but many of the old ones seem improved)
-new rebound animations
-new dunks/layups
-new steal animations (like stripping the ball from behind)
-new foul animations
-new celebrations
-new passing animations
I also liked the new superstar moves.
The animations look good and if you know how to use them correct, you really got an advantage, but they are defenitly not too strong, like the pro hop in the first year. For the power moves, for example, you really need to be in the right position posting up otherwise you won't be able to execute the move properly. Same with the scorer moves as I said before. If you are too far away from the rim or if you got too many players in your way you will just fail.
The passing animations with Nash (playmaker) can look really good and also can be very useful, like passing behind the back or between the legs. But you really need to have a clear passing lane otherwise it will just turn into a turnover.
I think it really depends on the person that plays Live 06 or any Live game.
All the videos on IGN or elsewhere just look like crap, like it was with last years videos, because there was either cpu vs cpu, what is simply a disaster or the guys playing the game just didn't know how to play it.
I hate it to see someone playing the game and just playing with McGrady for example trying to dunk on every attempt or taking shots always with a defender in his face. All the videos don't show someone who really uses all the different moves Live 06 has and they don't show how it looks if you play the game like a basketball simulation.
If you don't change the sliders and just try to dunk and shoot around and don't know how to use all the moves in the right situation Live looks like a peace of crap. But PLEASE, whoever doesn't understand how to play a basketball game please don't complain about NBA Live!!!
But if you really want to play it as a simulation and if you know how to play it and figure out all the different moves, NBA Live will always be the best basketball simulation out there!
(I always wanted to get rid of this
)
Unfortunatly the gamespeed was so slow that the whole game was really destroyed because of that, but all in all I think, with our adjustable sliders and everyones favorite camera angle this game will be improved and better than 2005 and the older versions. In my opinion the game improves and gets better every year anyway.
So with all this new and good looking animations and the new superstar moves, that really are not too overpowered, I'm really looking to forward to the game like I do every year.
The game will have its bugs as usual but I think we will have fun with it for another year until 2007.
And if EA finally decides to get me on board as their physics engine programmer, I think we will have a really great game in a few years, without all that sliding, strange bouncing balls, ugly looking moves and the 10 foot high jumping
