Argh

I did a terrible, terrible thing recently....

I bought ESPN Basketball.

That was the biggest waste of $30 ever. I wanted to see what it was like but man did I expect it to be better...

First of all, the interface is crap. It's confusing, it's way harder to use than the Live interface and it's missing key things.

For example, while I was pleased to see Trajan Langdon as a FA, I was TICKED OFF that I couldn't add NBA legends to Franchise mode, which is one of my favorite features in Live.

And what's more, all this talk about realistic game play is bullshit... It's WORSE than Live... I shot 45%, which was nice, but the computer kept shooting 60% and still losing by like 40+ points. I felt like the Dream Team screwing around and still kicking Angola's ass.

Next, the graphics are godawful. I don't know where anyone gets off calling them anything but reprehensible. The jumpshot animaiton is terrible and jerky, the player faces are warped and distorted...

And IsoMotion? It's good for a charge 60% of the time you use it, unless it turns your player around FOR you instead of driving to the basket. Wow, the dribbling controls suck SO badly in that game it's not even funny...

Conclusion? ESPN Basketball is somehow WORSE than NBA 2K3, which I thought to be impossible.

I'm really hoping Live 2005 fixes all of the problems I'm having with 2004. The graphics are great, the interface is awesome, the controls are great... I just can't play a realistic game of basketball on it. No joke, straight out of the box I'm using the Wizards as they stood at the beginning of the 03-04 season to score 140-180ppg and regularly blow teams out by a margin of 20+ pts. No editing, no legends added, nothing. On Superstar. I tried dropping the sliders down and yeah, my shooting percentage went down but the computer's dropped below 40 and I didn't touch their sliders...

wow i'm glad you posted this cause i was deciding between espn 2004, nba ballers, or nba street.....you helped me decide against one of them at least!

Glad I could help. : D

NBA Street is fun. Ballers is alright as well.

haha I thought everyone already knew this, ESPN kinda screwed up and went backwards in terms of gameplay, 24/7 was a waste, and even though the graphics wre good the camera's sucked, and they took out lal the plays.
Shaq does free throw line dunks, 360's and reverses, in traffic, Stephon Marbury does windmills and tomahawks, and their's so much stupidness, I don't know what they were thinking.
Yao and Shaq are constantly doing crossovers, the isomotion was bad, not compared to College Hoops isomation which was actually good, and too many blocks.

The gameplay is bad too, too easy, no defense, and the AI always plays the same, it was odd they digressed after a pretty good game in 2003.

2k3 was bad but not as bad as ESPN Basketball.

I mean, you're right: When was the last time you saw Shaq do a windmill?

There should be, in Edit Player, a dunker style option. That way, instead of being dependant on the rating, the success and power-through ability is dependant on the rating and the type of dunk is dependant on the style. Shaq goes up and booms in your face. Jordan and Vince dunk over you. Desmond Mason dunks around you. Jason Richardson and Vince Carter do 360s and weird shit like that during games... on fast breaks, which don't exist properly in either ESPN or NBA Live because the computer gets insane, fake speed boosts so they can catch up to you, preventing pure fastbreaks.

Also, IsoMotion is the worst dribbling control system ever.

And no, the graphics were not good in ESPN, not compared to live. The animation on the jumpshot was shit, the players looked like total crap, all boxy and disproportioned and mostly nothing like the players. Some of the cyber faces were reasonable but most sucked.

I'll give it this though: Al Harrington is black in ESPN, unlike Live. Fools.

And yeah, the defence is abysmal, the shooting percentages unreal...

I have yet to play an ESPN or Live game where I haven't been able to murderously destroy the NBA record for points in a game by the end of regulation. It's really irritating. Everyone talks about how they're capable of having NBA-style games with appropriate, realistic scoring and stuff but I just don't get that, ever. My best was a 100 to 83 game where I shot 36% and the computer shot 27%.

i got nba street volume 2...man it kicks ass

NBA 2K3 IMO was the best Sega B-Ball game yet; 2K5 will be interesting tho...maybe I should stick to buying Live...
I like to read the reviews 1st before I buy a sports game...namely IGN.

Same here, I like to read reviews first and in some cases try a demo (like starcraft, bf1942). This is for all of my games, except some of them which are just so hyped up and I've been reading about it for 2 years, and it will definitely be good (like HL2).

i really dont know what you guys play on but i have yet to get alive game over 120 points. yes i turned down the sliders mutch lower than they were now and i maxed out comp's defense. also i maxed out there double team effectiveness. trust me do that and yull see a diffrent game

most of my games are between 90-85 points per game

yea, espn2k4 was the worst game ever. hehe i was really disappointed.

nba2k3 was really good. i played it more than live2003 coz i hated averaging double figures in blocks in live. gameplay in 2k3 was awesome too.

then they come out with 2k4 which was (!$_(@*$ plain stupid. enough said

this year i will stick to nba live2005 hehe

o yea: i played nba ballers WAY MORE than espn2k4

When I first played the game....I thought it was sick....then couple weeks later it started to look less appealing to me.....then after like a month I really noticed the bad things about it. I still gonna get 2K5 only if its twenty.

yea. $20 is like dinner. so its not that painful when u find out it sucks. ahhaa