ESPN NBA had the same problem in terms of increased difficulty, but they are actually making an attempt to make the AI react as if I were to play an actual human opponet or even better. I had found this out while reading previews over at Teamxbox and I thought this is what basketball games have been missing for a while.
Read this.
The tweaked AI system for NBA 2005 is somewhat of a hybrid, borrowing real player stats from the engine in order to determine actions, but also utilizing a system which relies much more heavily on general basketball reasoning. Even the most selfish players in the league (ok, maybe not THE most selfish players) will cough up the pill when their team mate is wide upon for a bunny, common basketball sense tells you to pass to the open man no matter how good your short range jumper in heavy D is. Hoop games in the past were frustrating since the basic rules of offensive were thrown out since AI programming relied heavily on five individual player’s stats. ESPN NBA 2005 backs off the player ability dependence and turns up the dials which control the “what’s best for the team” mentality. AI players seem to, first and foremost, do what they should do to help the team; I even saw Richard Hamilton playing some defense in one game. The intuitive system will even set picks for more aggressive human players if they know that the power drive to the hoop is their favorite move. AI players will also default back to the overall team philosophy (press-type team, run and gun, ball control, etc.) and think interdependently to help the team win, including actually following one of the set plays devised by the coach. Now if we can only get real NBA players to be so team oriented and obedient….
Imagine if NBA Live 2005 had somthing like this? I mean with the already perfect controls and amount of contact in the game, this would be the final piece to a perfect game.
