By cyanide
Introduction to this review
After a long wait and excitement for the much hyped NBA Live 2005 (PC), I ended up very disappointed. If it wasn't for the sliders, I wouldn't be playing this game at all. After adjusting my sliders to my preference at 9 minutes per quarter on All-Star setting, the game became more fun to play with, although the major flaws can be really frustrating. The computer I'm using for this review is a Pentium 4 1.8gHz, 512 MB RAM, and an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB on press box camera view. In hopes of improving the gameplay for Live 2006, I created this review just for gameplay and the related GUI around it. No slam dunk contest, no three point shootout, no dynasty, just the nit-picky bugs and issues that myself, and other users have found to be problematic. I hope this review would help EA and the developing team to be more aware of the issues they should fix and the good additions they should keep. Although this review is very critical, I pointed out many excellent additions and changes that was implemented in this year's version. Now, the good and the bad of Live 2005 gameplay.
Graphic User Interface/Controller Options
The excellent part about this are the appropriate theme colors and extremely quick loading. This makes navigation quicker and the set up of show/hide team info, starting lineup, and jersey selections are very nice. Selecting the controller is fine except it would be much convenient for us if the controller we select automatically loads our preferred controller settings, rather than us search for it. Not only that, can we rename or even delete our created controller settings?
Loading/Player Introductions
The loading time is very quick, which is excellent, but that's probably due to the fact the game is ported from consoles, which is why the graphics are so-so. The player introductions is a nice way to show the good and bads of player faces, but overall, the introductions are nice. One thing that makes me laugh is how all the players have arthritis and can't even bend their fingers or at least make a fist when they're pumping their chest.
Commentary
Live 2004 actually had more expressive commentary, but this year, Marv Albert sounds so monotonuous and I don't even notice he's talking even after a big play. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but at least he's not annoying. Is the Czar even there? I don't mind the commentary, but I find it strange that Marv says a player is entering the game for the first time when he's already entered the game moments ago.
Sounds
Excellent. I think it's perfect the way it is. Only improvement that I can think of is maybe the crowd could be more into the game, especially late into the game, scoring streaks, comebacks, and after really big plays.
Pause menu & submenus
Good layout to navigate through. I love the team leader board, and I hope they don't take that out for 2006. Also, they must, must, must bring back the in-game save feature. It is a burden for users to try and finish 12 minute quarters without being able to save the game. I don't know how often this was re-requested, but this is one of the most popular demands that was lost since Live 2000. Player and team statistics are nice looking, but the sort column and save stats are missing. I don't understand why that was removed, but it was very, very useful. The camera options, like the controller settings, does not restore the user preferences. It's always set back to default, and that is a large annoyance for users who have to adjust the zoom sliders and turn off the zoom-in feature. Also, a large request from users was a custom camera feature which would be a nice addition. Substitutions are quicker with the highlight selections, and I love this very much! Excellent idea, except it doesn't work well in the defensive matchups submenu. In replay feature, for some reason, the red locator is automatically set to the court rather than on a player. The replays are nice and controlling the speed is improved too. Consider bringing back the save a replay feature which was popular in the Live community. One annoyance is the lack of returning to the game by pressing the ESC button or even re-pressing pause button on the controller. It's very annoying when I have to use the mouse to click back to the game then quickly rush to get my controller. Overall, the design and user friendly navigation is very good, but missing and overlooked features are a problem.
Playbook and playcalling
Utter dissapointment. This was the most wasted and overlooked feature, and kind of makes you wonder if EA did any work in this department. Like the problem with saving settings on your controller and camera options, you cannot save plays like Motion 3 and Box 2 to your controller preferences for more than one game. It always resets to Basket Cut, Pick and Roll, Post Up, and Isolation. On top of the comprehensive list of plays, you don't even know what they look like! I have no idea what the difference between Motion 1 and Motion 4 when there's no diagram animations to show how it's played.
Graphics
I think the graphics from this year's version with 2004 has been stagnant. There is no significant improvement in graphics, and the addition of the white halo is excessive and should be toned down significantly. The player models are pretty good, but the muscularity of the players that you see on Alonzo Mourning, Antonio Davis and Corey Maggette are not as apparent (could be due to the lighting rather). The overall size and proportions for player models are very good and on the court, Penny Hardaway looks like Penny Hardaway, and Shaq looks like Shaq. Although it's not apparent, the center court logos are not done very well. Take a look at the Pistons home center court. Pixely and not well rendered. There's a color problem with the LA Clippers home court on the paint. The crowd reminds me of South Park. The crowd is poorly done. Even though I don't notice them much, they could contribute more to the home court atmosphere.
Animations
I would like to say that there are some excellent animations that I feel EA did a tremendous job with, but there are some that complelety rendered this game obsolete. I'll break them up into subcategories:
- Dunks: The best ever! I have never seen more realistic dunks. The way the rim bends and how the net inverts through the rim is awesome! The centers and power forwards dunk the way they're supposed to, and the guards dunk the way they are supposed to too. I don't have any complaints but all the praise for the dunk animations. A nice future addition would be the in-your-face dunks where body collision occurs midair. If this will be implemented, make it rare because these do not happen often.
- Layups: Both excellent and poor. The normal layups, the finger roll and the off the backboard layins are excellent. They are ordinary and realistic. Now, the bad layups are the wacky and fancy moves that miss all the time which are absurd when you see Shaq doing it. When I see these layups, I don't see basketball players. I see awkward ballerinas. Watch NBA games and you'll see that players when trying to avoid a block will adjust his ball positioning quickly without changing too much of his form or being super fancy. Bring back the reverse layup which happens so many times in NBA games.
- Midair shot adjustment: I don't use this much, but from what I've seen so far, it is satisfactory.
- Tip-ins and dunk putbacks: Dunk putbacks are excellent, except for when the players attempt it when the ball is way out of sight. Slow recovery after putback dunks. Tip-ins are fine but very plain and I'm concerned about the ball being too much of a rainbow shot.
- Shooting: Some of the shooting animations are weird, like when the players kick their feet and double pump the ball in the air, but it's subtle and not too bad. Overall, I think the shooting animations are very good and responsive. The variety of shooting styles are excellent and I love how Rasheed wallace has a distinct shot from say, Eddie Jones. What really annoys me is that when I want to take a shot in the paint, my player seems to rather throw up a hookshot instead of a short jumper. Also, I hate it when I tap the shoot button to make a fake, the player ends up shooting a bad shot anyway. This needs to be fixed.
- Passing: This is it. This is probably the biggest flaw in the entire game. I simply cannot stand how poor the passing is in this game. You got unrealistic bullet passes mixed with slowest passing I've ever seen. The bullet passes are good, but some of them are way, way too fast. The ball physics is terrible when it comes to the slow passes and lob passes. The ball actually floats in the air and is wide open to interception and completely slowing the gameflow down, not to mention allow the defense to reclaim position. I can't even swing the ball around the three point line without one of these dreaded lob passes. Player A, who makes the pass just stands there doing nothing until Player B makes the catch. After Player B catches the ball, he pauses for half a second before being able to move. The passing and movement is not smooth, but rather pass, stop, pass, stop. Combine that with slow ball physics and slow player recovery, and you got yourself a really bad game. I just hate it when a player jump catches the ball and lands slowly while cradling the ball as if he's going to fumble it any second. Also, if Player A is moving from point 1 to point 2, Player B passes it to point 1 rather than point 2, so Player A has to back up to catch the ball at point 1. Finally, sometimes the lob passes to the post player is horrific. The post player jumps two feet away from point A to point B to catch the ball, and sometimes he ends up out of bounds. Can't forget to mention that the whole action is incredibly slow in movement and responsiveness.
- No-look passing: Now, this saved the game! When you press pro-hop and then the pass button right away, you'll make very nice no-look passes that is all instantaneous and fast responding. It is incredibly fun if your guard can find a niche, drive down the lane and quickly scoop it to a streaking power forward who slams the ball with authority. Speaking of authority, it'd be nice EA could get players screaming after a jam. My only complaint with this is that when I press the pass button right after pro-hopping, it doesn't respond and my player ends up fumbling the ball or getting called for the charge. Also, after a fumble, the player is very slow to recover.
- Alley-oops: When the players do connect and the player goes for a dunk, it looks very, very nice. When the players do connect and the ball is nowhere near the rim, it looks awful, awful. I think if a player is not in position for an alley-oop, instead of trying to alley-oop it from 15 feet away, it should count only as a lob pass. Also, if a player is near the rim, the player should catch and dunk/layin rather than catch and fly out of bounds chucking the ball on the back of the backboard.
- Movement animations: Very good. Other than the creepy staring look that players make when moving laterally on offense, the players run, sprint, and jog well. On defense, it is excellent. The defense animations in 2005 is superb and very realistic. The players' defensive stances and body positioning are great.
- Dribbling: There's the normal dribbling and the freestyle dribbling. I thought the normal dribbling for big men and guards are very good except for one, where the point guard is imitating the Hunchback of Notre Dame with a hobbling leg. The freestyle dribbling sucks big time because it is incredibly slow. You don't see players in the NBA make slow crossovers or stutter steps. I suspect the slow freestyle dribbling was done on purpose to it harder to blow by opponments, but I think EA needs to improve defensive movement and CPU AI rather than stunt the speed of freestyle dribbling.
- Blocks: The blocking animations are good, but the frequency of jump shot blocks are the next worst thing in this game other than the passing. The blocks range from monster blocks (which I think could be a little more powerful), to light deflections. The blocks off the backboards are great addition and adds to the realism. The blocks in traffic off dunk and layup attempts are beautiful. Now, the ugly: jump shot blocks. It happens all the time even with the slider set at zero. It doesn't happen often in Live 2004, and I can't imagine how EA could let this happen. To make things worse, it's so easy to get your hookshots blocked. I even had a wide open Rip Hamilton with nobody even close to him get a shot blocked by Chris Kaman, who came out of nowhere. Even after getting my shot blocked, the player who got his shot blocked just stands there momentarily dazed and confused. Pathetic.
- Stealing: After adjusting sliders, the frequency of interceptions and steals decreased, thankfully. The stealing animations are fine, and I like the touch of taking a gamble to reach in for a steal if he hits. If he misses, I don't like how he keeps running in the opposite direction when he should be quickly getting back on defense. Actually, after that happens, the AI (or myself, if I get the ball stolen/intercepted from me) pauses and does nothing for a second then is stupid enough to jog back on defense.
- Rebounding: Excellent. The variety of ways and boxing out in this game is terrific. I'd like to see more one handed rebounding, and consider rebound tips for those who are engaged in positioning battles.
Cut scenes
Sooooooo annoying! I don't understand why EA would implement a cut scene where you'll see not one, but two camera flashes in your eyes along with a team's logo before (and sometimes after) every replay, inbounds, foul, and free throw attempt. I rather see the camera angle changing on the court, because I don't want to go blind watching camera flashes that tell me which team has possession of the ball. The injury animations are fine, and shouldn't be much of a big deal since it rarely happens, which is good. The timeout animations are hilarious. I love how the coaches communicate to the team by waving his hand and not moving his lips at all. Take a look at NHL 2005, folks. One time I hit a game winning three pointer at the buzzer, instead of my team celebrating, they just walked around looking confused and unhappy, and walked off the court. Wow, this game is full of emotion.
Inbounding
After the opposing team scores, it is momentarily unresponsive to inbound the ball. If you watch NBA games, the inbounding after a basket tend to be instantaneous, unless there is a full court press.
Post moves
I have to admit that the post moves are much better and challenging than previous versions. You can drop step and make fakes, but it doesn't affect the defending player much because he'll block you silly if you dare try to shoot over him. But if you manage to blow by him or get him in the air after a fake, the basket is all yours. One glitch that I find annoying is how if you're holding the ball in the paint, the defensive player can push you away as if you're on rollerskates.
The net
Awesome! The nets that swishes after dunks and three pointers are absolutely realistic! The variety of the ways the ball goes in the net after boucing off the rim or the backboard are terrific. One minor clipping problem is when the ball looks like it's literally going right through the net.
Diving
Much like Live 2004, erratic and slow to recover. It takes like two seconds for a player to get his butt off the floor to get back to work. A little sense of urgency, please.
Fouls
The balance of fouls are not very well done. After tweaking with the sliders, I managed to reduce the number of jumper fouls, but it still happens quite often. I feel that there should be more fouls on mid-air collisions when a player is attempting a dunk/layup. Careful analysis of NBA games show that a large number of fouls are drawn by players attacking the rim and not afraid of contact. In the NBA, a lot of fouls are also called on fastbreaks for players who have a good chance at getting at the rim. EA has to be careful not to let fouls happen all the time on contact because I wouldn't want my post players to get a foul every time somebody drives in the lane. I thought the reach in fouls were well done after adjusting the sliders for that. Intentional fouls are good, although I've never seen players that quick before. It would be fun if we have the option to make a technical foul or even cause flagrant fouls.
CPU/AI
Although I talked a bit out the AI in the above, I'll go into further detail in here. The CPU is somewhat improved from last year's. There are substantial improvements in the AI on defense and offense, but at the same time, there are players that don't know how to work with the gameflow. For the AI, I'll be talking about the CPU interchangably as my teammates or my opponments.
- AI on offense: The AI knows where to go, that's for sure, but because the CPU doesn't call any plays, you won't see a single guard cutting across the lane or coming off screens in the paint. It is strictly post men inside and guards on the outside. Even when I'm congrolling on offense, because I refuse to change the playcalling settings after every single game (see Playbook and playcalling), I'm stuck with a repetitive, and thus boring gameplay, where I have to use the guards to bump into my own teammates or try to create my own shots with the poor freestyle moves. The only time guards consistently score inside is on the "fastbreak" and the only time players regularly score inside are the post players. Guards shoot jumpers all the time, and I don't see guards driving in the lane very often unless a point guard beats my man. Even if the players are spread out well initially, there is no movement at all. It's just standing around and I have to try to make something happen by moving the ball around and try to drive and dish to generate movement. When I'm on defense, I notice that when I'm covering say Kevin Garnett, I'll try to double team him. This leaves Olowokandi wide open, but Garnett doesn't even notice. Although the AI does an excellent job of finding the open guards for wide open jumpers, the big men don't seem as intelligent in the post as they could be. Last note: This happens often where my point guard dribbles near the baseline, and bam, suddenly my opposing player pushes me right out of bounds even if my directional arrow is pointing away from the baseline. Finally, when the CPU takes a three pointer before the buzzer somewhere near the halfcourt line or beyond, the CPU does it without urgency and shoots too early. Often the ball goes out of bounds before the buzzer and I have to inbound it with 0.3 or 0.1 seconds left.
- AI on defense: Very good. This game is more challenging because the defense knows where to go, but then again, we're not very well tested now that we can't make fluid passes or quick crossovers. The double teams were not as annoying as Live 2004, and the overall defensive awareness is very good. My only gripes with the defense is that sometimes the guards are slow at recovering after he gets beat, and that when I'm on offense, sometimes a player who is jogging ahead of the pack can get a pass and go for a dunk, and it's not even a fastbreak!
- Fastbreaks: Lots of issues. The fastbreak really only works after you get a steal. That's when players actually start to run and catch passes without stopping (surprise, surprise) and keeping momentum. Now, if you watch NBA games, a fastbreak can occur after (a ) a steal, (b ) a rebound, and (c ) a block. This doesn't happen to (b ) and (c ). After a rebound or block, I tried to generate a fastbreak, but my lazy players just jog up the court. EA needs to address this, and I also suspect that was taken out to reduce the number of scoring and keep the scores realistic. Now, if I'm able to steal or block and be the first one to cross the halfcourt line for a wide open dunk/layup, the CPU is able to quickly catch up and get in front of me. I'm saying the catchup bug is still there, but others might disagree with me. I'll explain: If you see Vince Carter steal the ball and start sprinting from Moochie Norris in any regular season NBA game, do you think Moochie Norris would be fast enough to turn around and start sprinting and be in front of Vince within a second or two? I don't think so. I've heard the excuse that players are slower when they dribble, but come on, have you ever seen Allen Iverson or Rip Hamilton on the fastbreak? They are fast with, or without the ball, period.
- Substitutions: With the appropriate slider settings, the CPU is not too bad about giving lots of time to starters and some playing time to benchers. What I don't like is that the AI substitution choices are sometimes poor. For example, instead of putting Elden Campbell, Antonio McDyess or Derrick Coleman in for Ben Wallace, Darko Milicic was chosen! Ouch.
Conclusion
We've seen a number of nice additions and improvements such as the dunks, the net, blocking, no-look passing, the defensive AI and animations. Even though this game has enormous potential, there is a serious problem with gameflow, particularily with passing and the high number of jump shot blocks. The game lacks a sense of urgency where players appear indifferent to the game, and the inability to save settings and limited playcalling make the user feel disconnected from the game. These issues hurt the replayablility of NBA Live 2005, and I would not put this year's version ahead of Live 2000 or Live 2004 in terms of gameplay. Although EA improved the dynasty mode and made a huge addition with the All-Star Weekend, I feel they overlooked too many elements in gameplay. I give NBA Live 2005's gameplay a 6.2/10.
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... i might post my opinions after i try it out..
