Graphically, EA Sport's NBA Live 2001 is smooth and detailed. On the players to arenas, all aspects are 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'hairstyles and tattoos, free throw mannerisms…things that went beyond, and made the players real. Also, unlike NBA 2K, the players don't show any emotions (smiling or looking angry when dunking, bench players reacting to the state the game play), which can take off the games atmosphere. Once again, as with all EA Sport's games thus far, are flat the crowds. They're not very lively, which hurts the game, taking away from home/away atmosphere,. That's what's worse. Last, your camera angles, especially the default, side view is not actually too friendly. It's very hard to distinguish the depth/position in the players inside the opposite baseline. This can be fixed by changing to the more playable NBA 2K camera style, however.
Now, let's see what exactly the PS2 has been doing with it's superior sound f/x. Right over the bat…well you see nothing new. In the end, you notice nothing new. It's seems and indeed feels like EA has done absolutely nothing to utilize the PS2 stronger hardware when dealing with sound f/x. The commentary totally looks to be the equivalent exact replica to its predecessor, NBA 2000. The crowds are dead, very rarely do they really chant, and while they are doing, it's nothing like NBA 2K, from reacting to game situations.
One and only thing that NBA 2K lacked, in comparison to the EA Sport's NBA Live series up to now, was as it stumbled on options. This still holds true. NBA Live is rich in season, options…exhibition and playoff 3 pt. Shootout, 1-on-1 with Michael Jordan, Practice, NBA Draft…Unfortunately for PS2, and especially each one of the die hard sports fans which stayed loyal to Sony and didn't get hold of a Dreamcast, EA's NBA Live 2001 falls short in comparison to NBA 2K series to all factors of game play.
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First, let's get started with A.I. Only stupid, retarded, and dimwitted come to mind, even though i'm trying to be as nice as possible. Maybe comatose or dead would be a better representation, because the CPU players are totally unreactive to any game situations. In lowest difficulty, a quicker player can blow right past the slower defender and dunk or lay-up not having some of the defenders throughout the paint react. The defenders don't even react late. They merely remain still, like mannequins, only replying to their counterpart by the opposing team. As you increase the difficulty, the only thing that happens, is the CPU players become faster and quicker, and they seem to double and triple team the ball handler all the time. Now, you can't just zoom past them, forcing anyone to pass to your 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 only shoot a higher percentage. Whether they're covered or wide open, it actually doesn't matter, they just make more baskets. This too goes for Free Throws…when you have Shaq going 8-8 at risk, you understand something isn't right. Even so, you miss more shots, again, whether open or covered doesn't matter. Repeatedly I have missed fast break lay-ups and dunks, not once in a while, but often 3 times a game. This is simply not just stupid, but totally hurts the game, removing from the realism (whatever little it might have).
Next, let's look at playing the sport itself. First, all players have the same special cross over move, but so did the 1st NBA 2K. Also, like NBA 2K, you may have some control, calling picks, double teams, ally hoops, etc. You can even have the easy 1-button directional passing option, or pass to a specific player. , 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,. That's the only problem with passing to a specific player. Secondly, and more importantly, it may take off the flow within the game. Another lacking aspect of the game is the post-up move. Alternatively, 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 should do is turn your back, followed by a change shot, which happens to be pretty weak, and rather useless option. Last, and perhaps the worst aspect of game play, the fast break dunk/lay-up. For a lot of unknown reason, EA Sport's has it to ensure that you can't use turbo to operate up and start a dunk. Have to release turbo, before attempting a dunk, although that is, you can use the turbo to run to. If anyone played the game, they would realize that once again, the flow of the game would stop, although maybe they didn't realize this.
I couldn't believe my eyes, when I saw the following flaw around the game. With respect to Free Throws, it appears the when we foul a player, the 3 players closest to the basket are the ones placed at risk to rebound. When you repeatedly have Damon Stoudamire standing where a Center should be, next to Shaq or David Robinson, you know your in trouble, even though this might seem funny. 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 by having your players box out, it only helps players boxed right out of 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 termed as a Sim. I know that EA, just like everybody else has been hurting from the stock market, but I can't believe they would hurt their reputation and name but releasing something like this. 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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