NBA 2K on Sega Dreamcast

NBA 2K does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a basketball game with a staggering number of options that’s as up-to-date as last year’s season and allows you not only to play, but also tosses in all the aspects you’d expect from a football manager simulator, i.e. view stacks of statistics, view the details from a host of real players (400 at the last count) and also create your own customisable players.

There’s many different ways to play the game: Season takes you through a full NBA season if you feel like it but that’s a maximum of 82 games, although options of 14, 28 and 56 are also available, Playoff has you fighting against the opponents to get through to the finals, Practice helps you to..erm.. you know and there’s an option for people who don’t know much about basketball and just want to start a game quickly: Quick Start. Note that if you do play a full season, you’ll obviously want to save your position – unless you can play 82 games in one sitting – and the game-saves will take up an entire VMU. Well, 197 out of 200 save positions.

You may not understand all the NBA rules but even still you can alter some of them, make substitutions, change the camera views, take timeouts and that’s only just for starters. There’s also an excellent Replay option which allows you to move the viewpoint all around the court as if you were literally a fly-on-the-wall. You can then turn back time or speed it up and view the fully-animated crowd. Brief replays are also viewable when you or your opponents score but these can be skipped.

Graphics, Sound and Playability

Whether playing the game or viewing the customisable replay option, the graphics are very good indeed. I’ll have to take Sega’s word for it that the players look like their real counterparts as American Sport is not my greatest topic when playing Trivial Pursuit. The players move quickly around the court and it’s quite something to see a crowd that’s animated and not just sitting there still while making sounds like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

The sound is good too and does everything you’d expect. The crowd cheer when you score (on the odd occasion that I actually shoot a basket that goes in), the ball bounces on the court and there’s a running commentary throughout the game.

There’s just one thing that’s missing in the sound and graphics department. I’d love a side-on stick man version a la the old Atari arcade game which would go the way of the ZX Spectrum and bleep out a rendition of “Sweet Georgie Brown”. Oh, how the memories flood back as I remember that sound pouring out of the arcade halls in the early 80’s!

When it comes to playing the game, note that you can’t just the D-pad, just the joystick. One thing must be said and that it’s too easy to pass to your team-mate. I appreciate that such a game has to introduce an element of arcade into it but as the ball finds its designated player it doesn’t seem to replicate any of the skill that a real basketball player would go through.

Overall

No matter how long I played this game, I found it impossible to snatch the ball off an opponent. I only managed to accidentally knock them over and pay the penalty of watching them take a penalty shot. Perhaps I’m just crap at basketball games on consoles, although in the dim and distant past when I was at school I tried a shot from the centre of the indoor court (not quite the size of the NBA one on view here) even though the sun was creeping into the corner of my eye on the right-hand side. Somehow I got the shot perfectly straight and through the hoop it went. Well, that’s my fifteen minutes of fame…