Gamespot Review - 7.9

[Honorable Diggler]

Not Nice check it out

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/sports/nbal ... lashtop_bg

[GloveGuy]

Damn, we were making the same topic at the same time. Your's was posted before mine. Oh well.

7.9

Ouch! When was the last time Live got a review this low? Oh well, you can always fall back on the 8.9 given by IGN.

[GordonBulls]

the defense is a bitch though, damn

[Doug]

gamespot review's are crap all the time it seems like they don't even play the game long enough to see all the new stuff i think they just guess any score right up a review and slap it all on there page that's it.

[Honorable Diggler]

Yeah i do agree with Doug. Besides, there a bunch of ESPN D!ckriders anyway.

[durvasa]

That reviewer wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about the dunk competition as IGN and some other folks were. I expect to have a similar reaction to it. All-star weekend isn't a big draw for me personaly, and I just hope that the basketball part itself is improved enough to justify buying a copy. It's possible that the reviewer didn't play '04 frequently enough to realize all the improvements that were made. From everything I've heard and the video clips I've seen, it's more of a tweaked version of last year with All-star weekend than a significant revamp of the actual gameplay.

[sixerfan03]

That reviewer wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about the dunk competition as IGN and some other folks were. I expect to have a similar reaction to it. All-star weekend isn't a big draw for me personaly, and I just hope that the basketball part itself is improved enough to justify buying a copy. It's possible that the reviewer didn't play '04 frequently enough to realize all the improvements that were made. From everything I've heard and the video clips I've seen, it's more of a tweaked version of last year with All-star weekend than a significant revamp of the actual gameplay.

It's pretty much the same game engine. It probably got a 7.9 because it wasn't a big step-up from last year's game. Basically, there are tweaks to the game. The major change is the all-star weekend.

[Syphon]

WTF!! are these guys on drugs or something?? Or just taking huge payouts from Visual Concepts?

They gave the xbox version an 8.0! They gave NBA Live 2004 an 8.3 - HTF do they figure that!! There is no way on earth that this game is a step back from last years version.

[galvatron3000]

Granted I didn't agree with the Gamespot review( any year) I have come to understand that the game is never really grade on high gameplay points(marks) but on it's Franchise/Dynasty mode features. It is quite obvious to anyone who has played 2004 and 2005 that 2005 is much improved gameplay wise over 2004. I can't make a judement on the Franchise mode as of yet but I would have to think it is atleast 1 point better than last years. The score they gave Live 2005, in comparison with 2004, seems to be unfair but if that's an honest score then so be it. I must truly refrain from grading Live 2005 until I thoroughly have time to fool around with it but with the one game I played I must say it has made improvements, but wait til I play it longer for more comments.

[bchogan]

WTF!! are these guys on drugs or something?? Or just taking huge payouts from Visual Concepts?

They gave the xbox version an 8.0! They gave NBA Live 2004 an 8.3 - HTF do they figure that!! There is no way on earth that this game is a step back from last years version.

The reviewer didn't say it was a step back. In fact, he said it was an improvement, but just not that big of an improvement over Live 2004. You can't just look at the rating number. Ratings are given based on current expectations, which are quite rightly raised every year. Let's say Live 2004 got a 9.0, for instance, and EA released the same exact game with different rosters and called it Live 2005. Would you still give it a 9.0? No, because each year's version should build on the previous year's version in graphics, gameplay and sound. Also, reviewers make comparisons to other games, like ESPN NBA 2K5 or other sports games like Madden and NHL. If you look at the player models for ESPN NBA 2K5 you can see why reviewers aren't that impressed with NBA Live 2005. The ESPN models and textures are just more detailed than Live's. So the graphics rating is going to take a hit based on those comparisons, whether anyone likes it or not, but it is justified (BTW, Syphon, I'm not writing all this to be directed at just you, your quote is just what got me started writing this).
All that being said, it's important to realize that these reviews are all subjective, so we can agree with them or not. But we can't really dispute the reviews too much until we play the game ourselves. So I hope we don't see a bunch of "that review is shit because Live 2005 is the best ever!" posts or other such nonsense.

[ask1]

Unfortunately, many of the annoying flaws in previous Live games pop up in Live 2005. Players still have a strange "force field" around them, which makes it easier to stay in front of players, but can result in some cheap out-of-bounds calls as you "push" the ball handler toward the sideline or baseline. Players still stop to catch passes, instead of continuing to run, so don't expect many real fast breaks off outlet passes or steals. This is doubly troublesome because defenders seem to recover much too quickly when they're beaten, especially at higher difficulty levels. And when you do manage to get out on a fast break, with teammates on your flanks, you'll find that they never finish running toward the basket as they should. Instead, they always pull up at the wing right around the three-point line, which is the opposite of fundamentally sound basketball.

Damn...the gameplay doesn't seem to be improved much. A lot of the folks who attended the Vancouver Summit were making it out to seem like all the problems from 04 had been fixed. Oh well, I guess we should've seen it coming...when a significant new feature is added to a game like the All-Star Weekend, the other areas are bound to be neglected just due to lack of time and resources.

[Bang]

Hopefully ESPN gets a 7.1 (related to IGN ratings 8.1 as opposed to NBA Live 2005's 8.9)

[danielrech]

Unfortunately, many of the annoying flaws in previous Live games pop up in Live 2005. Players still have a strange "force field" around them, which makes it easier to stay in front of players, but can result in some cheap out-of-bounds calls as you "push" the ball handler toward the sideline or baseline. Players still stop to catch passes, instead of continuing to run, so don't expect many real fast breaks off outlet passes or steals. This is doubly troublesome because defenders seem to recover much too quickly when they're beaten, especially at higher difficulty levels. And when you do manage to get out on a fast break, with teammates on your flanks, you'll find that they never finish running toward the basket as they should. Instead, they always pull up at the wing right around the three-point line, which is the opposite of fundamentally sound basketball.

Damn...the gameplay doesn't seem to be improved much. A lot of the folks who attended the Vancouver Summit were making it out to seem like all the problems from 04 had been fixed. Oh well, I guess we should've seen it coming...when a significant new feature is added to a game like the All-Star Weekend, the other areas are bound to be neglected just due to lack of time and resources.

I just cant believe it myself. Why wouldnt they fix those BIG flaws? It seemed to me that gamespot was reviewing NBA Live 2004.

They obviously are only worried with fancy things that will make the game more marketable. [irony] Gameplay fixes, who needs that? [/irony]

Year after year, it's the same story.