Like its football and hockey brethren, which arrived earlier this year,
ESPN NBA 2K5 has shipped to stores at a bargain price of $20. What makes
it the Deal of the Week is that you can have 2k5 for only $14.95 in
BestBuy this week!
The basic gameplay
mechanics in ESPN NBA 2K5 have been tweaked to a great degree. This is
most evident during post-play, which offers you tons of viable options.
With your back to the basket, you can attempt to back in your defender,
spin around him to gain an advantage, fire
up a jump hook, execute a
drop step with the new pro hop/drop step button (to get closer to the
basket for a dunk or layup), or any combination of these. Depending on
your position, you can also pro-hop laterally to free up for a look at
the basket. While other games may allow you to do some of these moves,
ESPN NBA 2K5's post-game play both looks and feels the most realistic in
that these maneuvers can work some of the time but not all of the time.
Related to the post-game
is rebounding, and here the game does a good job, for the most part.
When every shot goes up, you'll see a spot on the floor where the ball
will hit (assuming the shot is missed). If you can position a player on
that spot and jump at the appropriate time, you'll board the ball above
the rim and eliminate the chance of anyone else getting it. If you're
only near the spot when you jump, your chances of getting the rebound
are lessened.
Three major false designs
of 2k5. First, like 2k4, you can't lock player. So when using player in
positions such as PF, SF and C who need to inbound the ball frequently,
system will automatically switch to other player. You lose ton of
touchdown-pass-fast-break opportunities. Second major bugs that bothers
me a lot is that you don't have full control. In 2k4, you can control
your teammate to shoot when you don't have to ball. In 2k5, they just
kept on passing if you're in the paint area until turn it over or run
out of the clock (24 sec violation). The third bug happens when you're
trying to steal some easy bucket by out running your man to the the
other end of the floor, the player whoever inbounds the ball, will hit
the ball to PG's head standing in front of him and makes it instantly
out of bound. Again, the false design makes you lose many fast break
points.
Overall, it's a good game
but $14.95 makes it an outstanding game. So go get it this week. You can
sell it later for more than $15 bucks after you finished it on eBay.
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