Well, I bought ESPN 2K5...

[J@3]

After many recommendations from Matthew and Nick, I finally picked the game up and spent most of the night trying it out. First thing I noticed, is that I generally hate the player movements. Try something, blow up a balloon and put a marble in it... then try and throw the balloon where you want it to go. It'll get there eventually, but it'll wobble all over the place along the way. The presentation and whatever is good, and the halftime/fulltime highlights thing kicks ass. I still don't understand practice mode though.

I went into 24/7 mode but that looks like a more boring version of Top Spin's career mode so I gave that one a miss and tried out The Association, which is the dynasty mode for 2K5. It's pretty good, I like alot of their idea's like the trade block and such... the trade AI is pretty decent, I put Kobe Bryant on the trade block and got offered T-Mac and a 1st rounder. The computer offered trades though in large are absolutely horrendous. I ended up with Josh Howard, Josh Smith, 2 first rounders and Mike James for a combination of Devean George, Vlade Divac and Medvedenko. I didn't even make any offers, these were all offers they made to me. That aside it's not too bad, free agency also kicks ass because you can sign players to an exception AND there's heaps of guys from the NBDL and various leagues, including Joe Forte

The draft is fantastic. I absolutely loved it, the scouting isn't as good as Live's because you can't try the player out first, but if you scout a player you get strengths/weaknesses AND an NBA comparison which is cool too. The actual draft itself is awesome, there's actually some graphical content and you can cycle through a variety of options including players your scouts recommend you draft (while you're in the draft!) and there's a time limit aswell which is hectic but adds some realism. When the draft's all said and done, you can even choose which rookies you sign and which you don't. Not to mention that there's pre-season games.

Anyways I haven't got enough time to type much more, but for 1/2 the price of Live it's worth a look.. I've just got to figure out some sliders and get used to the gameplay before I enjoy the game fully. There's something about hitting 6/7 from 3 with Dan Dickau and beating the Lakers by 30 on the 3rd hardest difficulty that tells me something isn't right.

[COOLmac©]

with that said, i'm going to the mall this weekend and grab me a copy of 2k5

EDIT:since its payday today

[Null17]

if only i had a console, i'd try it out...

[Jowe]

dan dickau is the pwn's!

[J@3]

It's getting a bit better, I'm slowly growing accustomed to the player movements and I'm 2-3 in my New Orleans season. Although I just made a shit load of trades so I'll probably get bored with it soon.

The absolute worst thing about The Association, is the friggin players wanting to talk to you. It's fucking annoying, every week you've got some tool saying "Coach I'm not sure if we're playing well!" and you have to answer it or they get annoyed. When you're simming, this drives me insane.

[The X]

would you recommend me shelling out the $50 on the game?!? I have PS2 and would definitely have purchased the game had it come out in November or December or even January....but now it's April, game got delayed 3 months or so....

but yeah, what's your verdict?!? I'd just be playing Association Mode I guess, so I'd have one dynasty going in Live (Bobcats) and one in ESPN2k5....

[J@3]

Well judging by your Bobcats dynasty it seems you really like the rookie/draft aspect of the game (same as me) so you'd definitely like the ESPN version. Both the Live and ESPN dynasty modes have plus/minuses, I mean in Live people whinge about not getting any trade offers whereas in ESPN 2K5 you get them every few weeks. I think if you can tolerate the gameplay (some people actually enjoy it more than Lives) then it's definitely worth the $50.

[The X]

sweet....might look at getting it then....yep, big fan of the rookie/draft/gm aspect of dynasties....it means I'll be able to dust off the old PS2 and get some use out of it again

[Big-D]

everybody sould allready have this game it is fun and super cheap.i got mine 15.00 usd at gamestop

[GloveGuy]

Welcome to the Dark Side, Jae.

(Whatever that's supposed to mean.)

[The X]

Andres, it only just got released over here, hence the reasoning why Jae only just got it....

[Ruff Ryder]

The absolute worst thing about The Association, is the friggin players wanting to talk to you. It's fucking annoying, every week you've got some tool saying "Coach I'm not sure if we're playing well!" and you have to answer it or they get annoyed. When you're simming, this drives me insane.

You could have turned that off. Also, during the end of one of the games you play, check out the turnover stat.

[J@3]

Dickau had 9 turnovers the other day lol , the game's definitely growing on me... it's just a matter of actually ignoring any stupid trade offers.

[Ruff Ryder]

Dickau had 9 turnovers the other day lol , the game's definitely growing on me... it's just a matter of actually ignoring any stupid trade offers.

well there's a glitch that everytime you touch a lose ball or deflect a pass, it counts as a turnover on your part. I once had a game with 130 turnovers between the 2 of us.

[J@3]

No shit? That's retarded... I noticed that the assists are a bit dodgy too. In Live it seems that you have a certain amount of dribbles the player takes before scoring to have an assist given to the person passing the ball. So if someone passes the ball to a guy in their own end of the court, and that person dribbles all the way to the other side and scores it doesn't count as an assist. Whereas in ESPN 2K5, it's pretty common for the guards to get like 9 assists each per game.

[COOLmac©]

oh shit.......my controller for the PS2 is busted...now i have to shell out another $15 just to play a $57 ESPN game.......

[The X]

well, I shelled out the $48 Aussie for ESPN2k5....will give my verdict when I get chance to give it a quick once over....

[The X]

forgot how bad PS2 graphics were compared to PC

but yeah, players look cartoonish....although I don't mind it, it's kind of cell-like or whatever you call it....

graphics aren't great due to PS2 but 1000 times better than the last bball game I had on PS2 which was Live 2002....

luv the ESPN presentation....menus seem better....like music better too, even though I'd like some rock

as for gameplay, not into it yet....will take time I guess....some things feel better, like fastbreaks, but a lot of controls are not as good....main thing that annoys me is the camera angle....I want it closer/zoomed in more in press/sideline camera option....any suggestions for best camera angle?!?

will give association mode a good run in next week or so....

jury's still out, but I got a feeling it might grow on me, but not replace Live....

[J@3]

The controls definitely take some getting used to, but I've figured them all out now so I'm happy. I've got the game on Xbox and you can upload your own music and save it as the background music instead of that rap shit.

I'm starting to love this game... I created my own team (St. Louis Vultures ) and filled it up with shit free agents (my starting 5: Travis Knight, Cherokee Parks, Terrence Morris, Ansu Sesay and Brent Price) then put them in place of the Bobcats and started a dynasty. I'm 2-0 surprisingly (in my Cleveland franchise, LeBron and Z got injured at the same time so I was fucked at 1-8) with Sesay averaging 35/5/3/5steals/3bpg I've won both the games by a combined total of 5 points.

[Boyk]

since were talkin espn 2k5 i may aswell fill yous in on mine lol

i started one with the Bobcats im 2-4 so far and ive traded Knight for Mckie, then i traded mckie and 2nd rnder for bonzi wells.

i lineup with: Okafor,Wallace,Slay,Wells,House

with White,Allen,Kapono,Bogans,Cook off the bench, i run a 10 man rotation and when healthy thats my proper lineup.

Wells is the leader averaging 21.6ppg 5.6rpg 2.3apg on .493% shooting.

i fill yas on the rest later lol

[The X]

I thought you might have XBox version....a lot better graphics from what I've heard....what do you find is the best camera angle?!?

and maybe you should sign John Wallace or something as for Sesay, was a fan of his when he was back at Ole Miss....good to see he is stepping up

[J@3]

He's a freak.. being 6'9 he shuts down other SG's defensively aswell... I use the default camera angle (I think) although I haven't really experimented with it yet, I might though.

[The X]

Sesay was a college PF from what I remember....6'9" lefty....he's a SF now....he can handle the 2?!?

[J@3]

Brent Price does the majority of the ball handling, Sesay's pretty quick on the game so all I really do with him is drive a bit and shoot pull up J's. I run my entire offense through Travis Knight. I noticed with the AI, if I score a few in a row at the start with Knight then teams will start doubling him and others will open up. After 2 games he's averaging 14/12/8

[The X]

looks like what Travis Knight should have been given that big fat contract he received....