Graphically, EA Sport's NBA Live 2001 is smooth and detailed. From your players to arenas, it is all totally lifelike. However, NBA Live is not the jaw dropper that NBA 2K was. The players, although very nicely detailed, lack the distinguishing characteristics, which NBA 2K has. The likes of players'tattoos and hairstyles, free throw mannerisms…things that went beyond, and made the players real. Also, unlike NBA 2K, players don't show any emotions (smiling or looking angry when dunking, bench players reacting to the state of the sport), that takes from the games atmosphere. The crowds, once again, as with all EA Sport's games thus far, are flat. What's worse is that they're not very lively, which hurts the game, taking away from home/away atmosphere. Last, the camera angles, especially the default, side view is just not too friendly. It's not easy to distinguish the depth/position within the players over the opposite baseline. This can be fixed by changing to the more playable NBA 2K camera style, however.
Now, let's see what is the PS2 has been doing with it's superior sound f/x. Right over the bat…well you find nothing new. At the conclusion, you find nothing new. It's seems and definitely feels as though EA does nothing to make use of the PS2 stronger hardware with regards to sound f/x. The commentary totally appear to be similar exact replica for their predecessor, NBA 2000. The crowds are dead, very rarely can they chant, of course, if they will, it's unlike NBA 2K, from reacting to game situations.
The one thing that NBA 2K lacked, when compared with EA Sport's NBA Live series at this point, was as it came to options. This still holds true. NBA Live is loaded with playoff, options…exhibition and season 3 pt. Shootout, 1-on-1 with Michael Jordan, Practice, NBA Draft…Unfortunately for PS2, especially the many die hard sports fans which stayed faithful to Sony and didn't buy a Dreamcast, EA's NBA Live 2001 falls short in comparison to the NBA 2K series in all of facets of game play.
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First, let's get started with A.I. I'm trying to be as nice as possible, but only stupid, retarded, and dimwitted come to mind. Maybe comatose or dead would be a better representation, because the CPU players are totally unreactive to any game situations. In lowest difficulty, a faster player can blow right beyond the slower defender and dunk or lay-up without having any of the defenders throughout the paint react. The defenders don't even react late. They simply remain still, like mannequins, only answering their counterpart on your opposing team. As you increase the difficulty, the only thing that happens, is the CPU players become faster and quicker, and they seem to triple and double team the ball handler all the time. Now, you can't just zoom past them, forcing consumers to pass from the 2 or 3 wide-open players. From this situation, it's seems easy and logical to pass to the open players for an easy basket, but it seems that the players move faster then the ball. As you pass to the open player, 2 or 3 defenders enclose the player even before he receives the pass. As difficulty increases, the CPU shooting % raises greatly, as far as offense goes. Now, this is not because they play better, or smarter. They simply shoot a better percentage. Whether they're covered or wide open, it actually doesn't matter, they simply make more baskets. And also this goes for Free Throws…when you have Shaq going 8-8 at risk, you are aquainted with something isn't right. Nonetheless, you miss more shots, again, whether open or covered doesn't matter. Often 3 times a game, even though repeatedly I have missed fast break lay-ups and dunks, not once in a while. This is not just stupid, but totally hurts the overall game, taking away from the realism (whatever little it could actually have).
Next, let's examine playing the overall game itself. First, all players have the same special cross over move, but so did the 1st NBA 2K. Also, like NBA 2K, you could have some control, calling picks, double teams, ally hoops, etc. You can even have the easy 1-button directional passing option. Alternatively, pass to a specific player. The only problem with passing to a specific player is that, unlike NBA 2K, the players specific button passing is not static, always changing from X to O to Square…First, this makes it harder to use that option, b/c you have to look to see what button a specific player is first, before you make that pass. Secondly, and even more importantly, it takes off the flow to the game. Another lacking aspect of the game is the post-up move, or lack there of. In NBA Live you can post up, but you can't back down the defender, or do any special move like a hook. All you could do is turn your back, followed by a change shot, which could be pretty weak, and rather useless option. Last, as well as the worst element of game play, rapid break dunk/lay-up. For unknown reason, EA Sport's has it to make sure you can't use turbo to move up and perform a dunk. That is, you can use the turbo to run to, but have to release turbo, before attempting a dunk. Maybe they didn't realize this, but if anyone played the game, they would realize that once again, the flow of the game would stop.
I couldn't believe my eyes, while i saw the other flaw by the game. With respect to Free Throws, evidently the as you foul a player, the 3 players nearest to the basket are the types placed on the line to rebound. This might seem funny, but when you repeatedly have Damon Stoudamire standing where a Center should be, next to Shaq or David Robinson, you know your in trouble. The rebounding in general is a farce…you seem to have the best chance of rebounding if you stand right outside the paint. It appears using your players box out, it only helps players boxed away from the paint to rebound.
There are probably a lot more things wrong with the game that I haven't mentioned or realized yet, just because I got tired of wasting my time playing this sorry excuse for a basketball game. For every hard-core sports fan, this can't be also called a Sim. I can't believe they would hurt their reputation and name but releasing something like this, although i know that EA, just like everybody else has been hurting from the stock market. In wrapping up, Michael Jordan's presence can't even help this game, and if he had played NBA Live 2001, he would probably have refused to be associated with such a joke.
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