Graphically, EA Sport's NBA Live 2001 is smooth and detailed. Through the players to arenas, things are all lifelike. NBA Live is not the jaw dropper that NBA 2K was, however. 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 players real. Also, unlike NBA 2K, players don't show any emotions (smiling or looking angry when dunking, bench players reacting to the condition of the video game), which can take from the games atmosphere. The crowds, once again, as with all EA Sport's games thus far, are flat. They're not very lively, which hurts the game, taking away from home/away atmosphere,. That's what's worse. Last, the digital camera angles, specially the default, side view is simply not too friendly. It's not easy to distinguish the depth/position in the players along 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 done with it's superior sound f/x. Right off the bat…well you see nothing new. Afterwards, you see nothing new. It's seems and definitely feels like EA has been doing absolutely nothing to operate the PS2 more robust hardware in terms of sound f/x. The commentary totally is apparently comparable exact replica to its predecessor, NBA 2000. The crowds are dead, very rarely will they chant, of course, if they are doing, it's nothing like NBA 2K, from reacting to game situations.
The sole thing that NBA 2K lacked, in comparison to the EA Sport's NBA Live series so far, was when it came to options. This still holds true. NBA Live is packed with playoff, options…exhibition and season 3 pt. Shootout, 1-on-1 with Michael Jordan, Practice, NBA Draft…Unfortunately for PS2, especially so many die hard sports fans which stayed loyal to Sony and didn't acquire a Dreamcast, EA's NBA Live 2001 falls short when compared with NBA 2K series in all aspects of game play.
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First, let's start out 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 with out from any of the defenders within the paint react. The defenders don't even react late. They simply remain still, like mannequins, only addressing their counterpart onto the opposing team. 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, as you increase the difficulty. Now, you can't just zoom past them, forcing yourself to pass into 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. 2 or 3 defenders enclose the player even before he receives the pass, as you pass to the open player. As far as offense goes, as difficulty increases, the CPU shooting % raises greatly. This is not because they play better, or smarter now. They just shoot an increased percentage. Whether they're covered or wide open, it actually doesn't matter, they simply make more baskets. And this also goes for Free Throws…when you have Shaq going 8-8 at risk, you know something isn't right. Having said that, 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 overall game, taking away looking at the realism (whatever little it will have).
Next, let's look into playing the video game itself. First, all players have the same special cross over move, but so did the 1st NBA 2K. Also, like NBA 2K, you will 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 even more importantly, it does take from the flow of this game. Another lacking aspect of the game is the post-up move. Alternatively, lack there of. You can't back down the defender, or do any special move like a hook, although in NBA Live you can post up. All you could do is turn your back, then a turn around shot, which can be pretty weak, and rather useless option. Last, and perhaps the worst part of game play, rapid break dunk/lay-up. For a few unknown reason, EA Sport's has it so that you will can't use turbo to perform 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, once i saw another flaw within the game. In the case of Free Throws, it seems that the if you happen to foul a player, the 3 players nearest to the basket are those 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 seems that by getting your players box out, it only helps players boxed outside 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 all the hard-core sports fan, this can't also 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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