ESPN NBA Basketball Preview

Developer	Visual Concepts
Publisher	Sega Sports
Genre	Sports
Release Date	10/21/03

With the football game war quieting down somewhat, Sega and Electronic Arts shift their focus to a sport that uses bigger, rounder balls. And by that, we mean basketball, silly. Ever since the NBA 2K (now titled ESPN NBA Basketball) series debuted on the Sega Dreamcast, it has arguably outperformed EA Sports’ Live series in terms gameplay realism. This year, Sega Sports and Visual Concepts are adding some brand new on-court features and gameplay modes along with impressive visual updates and the newly acquired (and wisely utilized) ESPN license, aiming to once again offer the superior basketball simulation.

ESPN NBA Basketball introduces two major upgrades to the series’ already solid gameplay. First up is the new IsoMotion control system. With IsoMotion, you can control your players in ways that were impossible before. You now have much more control over dribbling and defensive moves as you can now duck and dodge defenders using fast reflexes that this system requires. IsoMotion seems to be Sega’s answer to EA’s Freestyle controls in NBA Live, and that is a good thing.

The other gameplay upgrade lies within the passing system. This year, Sega introduces a new lead passing system that, similar to IsoMotion, offers more control and options when passing the ball to a teammate. You can now throw a pass behind your back to a teammate in front of you who is heading toward the net. This move is accomplished by a simple double-tap of the pass button. You can also control alley-oops in ESPN NBA Basketball. As long as you have open teammates, you can attempt an alley-oop by pressing the shoot and pass buttons simultaneously in conjunction with pointing the analog stick towards the net.

The largest addition to game modes in ESPN NBA Basketball is the all-new 24/7 mode. In 24/7, you create your own player (including a bevy of appearance options) who will have mediocre default stats, but can be turned into the next big thing when you put him through 24/7’s Training Mode. In training camp, you will have the chance to improve your player’s shooting, defense, passing, and offensive and defensive awareness. Suspiciously akin to Madden NFL 2004’s Training Camp mode, you get the chance to improve a specific stat in the appropriate challenge. (Scoring a dunk or lay-up on an NBA player will boost your dunk/lay-up attribute by one point.)

Once your training is done, you will have the chance to enter heated competitions using a map of the United States to scour for contests across the country. As the name 24/7 might suggest, the competitions you can enter depends entirely on the time of day it is. Using your PS2 or Xbox’s internal clock, new competitions with different players will change on the hour, every hour. Can’t win the New York alley-oop competition at 3:00 PM when you come home from school? Try New York bright and early when you wake up next morning, say 6 or 7 AM, and you will be offered an entirely different competition. We wonder if Sega threw in any “special” events for the overnight hours…

After winning a competition in 24/7 mode, you will be given the cell-phone numbers of the players you just beat. You can call them later if you need a partner in another team competition or game. And of course, your player ranking improves with each conquered competition. After a substantial amount of rank improvement, you will have the chance to face “boss” characters that offer large status improvements. You can also unlock a variety of items to use on your player, from throwback uniforms to plenty of Sega-related memorabilia. To top it off, you can use your 24/7 created player when playing online games.

All the expected normal game modes make a return this year: quick game, season, playoffs, practice, tournament, street mode (full or half court games with one to five players on each team or a game of 21), and the franchise mode. In addition to all of last year’s features, the franchise mode introduces hiring and firing of head and assistant coaches, rookie scouts, and trainers. Of course, the PS2 and Xbox versions will feature online play and downloadable content, headset voice chat, and (PS2 only) online leagues and tournaments.

Visually, ESPN NBA Basketball looks to improve greatly over last year’s game. As expected, the Xbox version looks better than the PlayStation 2’s, but nevertheless graphical improvements on both systems are equally noticeable. Every single NBA player in the game (over 500) has a unique face, along with little details like skin textures and animated clothing. Sound wise, commentary has been greatly improved, with Bill Fitzgerald handling the play-by-play, and Tom Tolbert (of ESPN fame) dishing out the color analysis. Pregame information (i.e. team match-ups) will come from the mouth of Kevin Frazier, the host of NBA Shootaround and NBA Friday. Like all of the sports games bearing the ESPN name this year, ESPN NBA Basketball features all of the official ESPN logos, overlays, and the all-too familiar musical jingles that combine to deliver an unprecedented broadcast-like presentation.

ESPN NBA Basketball is looking very impressive and should hit retail outlets on October 21 for both PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

Preview by Nick Pappas