Cheat Index - ESPN NBA 2 Night Dreamcast Review

One of the first products to be released as a result of Konami, Disney Interactive, and ESPN's multiyear development and licensing agreement is ESPN NBA 2Night for the Dreamcast. The game offers healthy doses of recognizable ESPN-style presentation, but its familiar look and feel can't hide its glaring graphical and gameplay limitations. The game suffers from jerky animation, frequent instances of mindless AI, bland commentary, and a lack of options such as a franchise mode and online play.

NBA 2Night's most significant problem is in its animation, which is choppier than the waves George Clooney battled in The Perfect Storm. The game flow speeds up and slows down at will, and dribble drives and dunks are glaringly missing frames of animation. For example, the player will go up for a throw-down on the left side of the lane, and as if by magic he'll disappear and finish the dunk on the other side of the rim. Players will initiate dribble drives and finish off layups without ever really reaching the basket - the ball automatically floats to the rim in these situations. However, there are some bright spots. Players move realistically and effectively when they go for rebounds and when they play defense, and the post-dunk celebrations are understated and believable. Animation issues aside, the game's faulty AI compounds the game's flaws further.

Basketball games demand intelligent computer players in both the single- and multiplayer games. Because of the importance of teamwork, the sport inherently emphasizes smart play from all five players on the court. Disappointingly, the AI in NBA 2Night doesn't quite comply with that general theory. On the offensive side of the ball, the computer players are overly eager to get the ball in the hoop. So, instead of setting up even the most simplistic pick-and-roll moves and executing back-cuts, they almost always launch the shot after the first or second pass. On defense, computer players have the overreaction syndrome, where they fall for virtually every pump fake and go for shot blocks at every opportunity, instead of playing position defense. Presumably, to compensate for this lack of defensive skill by the computer-controlled players, the developers severely toned down the effectiveness of the dribble moves on offense - you will hardly ever beat your defender with dribble moves in NBA 2Night, which make them virtually useless in the game. Given the game's on-court flaws, perhaps Konami felt that its ESPN-licensed presentation would compensate for any gameplay flaws.

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