My first impressions...

Well, it looks like I'm the first person to tear myself away from the game since getting it.

I've played it about 11 hours total since getting it last night. Here are some tidbits, thoughts etc...

-The first thing I did when I got home with the game was go on here real quick just to say I had it, but then Tales yelled at me to play so I played. I did a dunk contest immediately on rookie difficulty and couldn't even get Vince to attempt a dunk. He would just kind of twirl around then time ran out and I quit and did the two dunk practice modes. That helped a lot. The dunk contest isn't really THAT hard, but I haven't won yet on rookie. I've gotten a couple 50's though. It takes practice.
I'm going to write a dunk contest guide in a bit if no one else does, similar to the freestyle guide I wrote for Live 2003.

-The ratings reports that had some people rated strangely seem to have been from early versions of the game. Because the ratings seem pretty accurate to me.

-The computer shoots loads of midrange jumpers now. It makes playing defense a lot more difficult because you can't hang out under the basket and wait for them to drive into you anymore.

-The pro hop has been somewhat neutered, but if you pro hop and pass immediately, you get a SWEET no look or behind the back pass.

-Dynasty mode goes a lot slower, mainly because your PDA rings off the hook. My team owner (I was the Nets of course) kept mailing me asking why I wasn't training players or buying dynasty extras when I was purposefully scrapping the team. Then he made a bunch of empty threats (my GM rating never went down) so I stopped listening. Then he sent me a message asking why I wasn't reading his e-mails.

-I drafted a 6'11" 274 pound small forward.

-Players grow. It's been three seasons and Lebron is 6'9" and for some reason Carmelo is listed as 6'10".

-I'll add more later.

Players grow. It's been three seasons and Lebron is 6'9" and for some reason Carmelo is listed as 6'10".

Woah! Awesome! I've pondered about this too some time ago but I figured it wasn't really necessary. Do veterans grow too?

nice read...also

I'm going to write a dunk contest guide in a bit if no one else does

PUT IT UP!!! lol

-The pro hop has been somewhat neutered, but if you pro hop and pass immediately, you get a SWEET no look or behind the back pass.

Yes!! A little more flair to a fundamentally sound game Now Magic and Larry can show off their own highlight reel. Great addition, EA!

No way, are you serious about players growing, that's madness, sick!

I gotta try the behind the back pass right away. I always lose it on the pro-hop.

I might be going online tonight.

Well, it looks like I'm the first person to tear myself away from the game since getting it.

I've played it about 11 hours total since getting it last night. Here are some tidbits, thoughts etc...

-The first thing I did when I got home with the game was go on here real quick just to say I had it, but then Tales yelled at me to play so I played. I did a dunk contest immediately on rookie difficulty and couldn't even get Vince to attempt a dunk. He would just kind of twirl around then time ran out and I quit and did the two dunk practice modes. That helped a lot. The dunk contest isn't really THAT hard, but I haven't won yet on rookie. I've gotten a couple 50's though. It takes practice.
I'm going to write a dunk contest guide in a bit if no one else does, similar to the freestyle guide I wrote for Live 2003.

-The ratings reports that had some people rated strangely seem to have been from early versions of the game. Because the ratings seem pretty accurate to me.

-The computer shoots loads of midrange jumpers now. It makes playing defense a lot more difficult because you can't hang out under the basket and wait for them to drive into you anymore.

-The pro hop has been somewhat neutered, but if you pro hop and pass immediately, you get a SWEET no look or behind the back pass.

-Dynasty mode goes a lot slower, mainly because your PDA rings off the hook. My team owner (I was the Nets of course) kept mailing me asking why I wasn't training players or buying dynasty extras when I was purposefully scrapping the team. Then he made a bunch of empty threats (my GM rating never went down) so I stopped listening. Then he sent me a message asking why I wasn't reading his e-mails.

-I drafted a 6'11" 274 pound small forward.

-Players grow. It's been three seasons and Lebron is 6'9" and for some reason Carmelo is listed as 6'10".

-I'll add more later.

about the rateings, would be cool if you could post some examples of how they are different from the pics we have seen(assuming you got the time or patience to do this).

mid range game sounds great.

the dynasty. i assume you are simming 82 game seasons? i was wondering if you or anyone else could check if the game auto sims after your last game? in the 29 game mode this could be a huge pain and cause us to miss alot of pda stuff. anyone able to confirm that it does not auto sim or confirm that it does?

i dont think i like the idea of players growing. i guess it could be ok if its not rediculous.

I don't think it auto sims anymore.

In real life, Yao grew from 7-5 to 7-6 since he was drafted.

Milicic is more 7'1 than 7'0 now too and KG was 6'11 when he came to the league but he looks 7'1

Same thing with Kwame Brown from Washington, he was listed at 6'11 when he was drafted, and although he is still listed at 6'11, he looks as tall or taller than Brendan Haywood who I believe is listed at 7'0.

Woah! Awesome! I've pondered about this too some time ago but I figured it wasn't really necessary. Do veterans grow too?

I don't think veterans do. But Lebron and Carmelo are around 18 or 19 so I could see them going up an inch or two.

Hedo Turkoglu was listed as 6'8" when he first came in the league. Now he's listed as 6'10" so it makes sense.

I put that on the NLSC wishlist a year or two back so I'm obviously happy about it.

about the rateings, would be cool if you could post some examples of how they are different from the pics we have seen(assuming you got the time or patience to do this).

Well, for example, in the early pics Rod Strickland was Golden State's starting point guard. In the actual game Derek Fisher is the starter, just like he should be.

The Pacers also had Bender starting at PF in the early pics (I think), but Bender is the 6th man with Foster and Jermaine O'Neal starting as it should be.

the dynasty. i assume you are simming 82 game seasons? i was wondering if you or anyone else could check if the game auto sims after your last game? in the 29 game mode this could be a huge pain and cause us to miss alot of pda stuff.

I don't think so. But most of the PDA stuff you can miss. All you need to get to on time is trade offers, and they stick around for 4 days before the offer is withdrawn.

But trading as a whole is an entirely different animal now. You have to send off offers then get responses. Which makes it tougher, and if the draft pick trading was as hard as last year you'd have NO prayer of ever getting one. But teams seem a lot more willing to listen this year. But there seems to be no logic to whether or not they'll do draft pick deals at any particular time. Then sometimes they'll say no, you change the offer, then a few days later they'll say they're not trading draft picks. But at least you can start asking for picks earlier in the season.

Getting a trade offer is a lot better though, because you can close out of the PDA, check contracts, age, everything, then get back to them and decide if you accept it.

I haven't got enough cap room yet to do free agent signing yet (like I said trading is hard and a little annoying right now), so I can't report much on that.

As far as the rookies go, there are no more scouting reports during the draft. You can't even see the guys development potential or height and weight. You know only what you scouted (letter grades) and nothing more. And you can't even see the computer's draft picks. They start right at your draft pick. Then when you pick a guy it jumps right to your next pick. I don't like it.

And the no-look pass is sweet, but on second glance I don't know if they actually go behind their back, it's hard to see in traffic.