NBA 2005
- March 17, 2005 14:27 PM PST
- Email this!
For NBA 2005 to satisfy your need for a basketball challenge, youd best find some friends who have PSPs.
- GamePro Score
- User Score
- Write your review!
The game does its best to massage pro basketball into a compact package. Along with the teams come some nifty closeups of the star players, although these representations are uneven at best. There's also a full season mode that enables you to run the team by taking into account trades, injuries, and roster moves. You can even simulate games. But why would you want to do that with a handheld? No, this is a game that has to establish itself on the court and that's where NBA 2005 struggles. One of the main challenges is adjusting to the challenging gameplay views. The standard side view looks great at first look. Naturally, players appear small to accommodate the PSP screen, but you can still single them out while they're running up and down the court. Visual hangups arise during heavy action around the basket. Running a set offense or trying to set up a defense in side view can be very confusing and frustrating, because the characters are so small and quick. It's easy for an opposing A.I.-controlled player to spring free near the basket, because you just can't see them in time to switch defenders quickly enough.
A better way to play is via Follow view, which tracks the action by looking down court from behind the team on offense. This view has its own challenges as well, again particularly on defense where it's sometimes hard to judge the depth of players who are standing closest to the basket.
On offense the view plays like a dream when you're pushing the ball up the court. You can easily see players filling the lanes, and if you like to play fastbreak basketball this is the way to run and gun.
In general the controls master the action in workmanlike fashion. The passing is fairly intuitive with the mini-stick, and you can make your ballhandlers show off some slick dribbling, too.
The shooting technique introduces the new Clutch Shooting Mechanism. The double tap system provides a simple onscreen indicator that lets you know at what point during your character's jump shot that your buttonpress is most likely to result in a made basket. The scheme takes some of the guesswork out of shooting for casual gamers, but experienced basketball players would probably prefer to develop their own feel for their jumpshots.
If you want to put some "touch" on your shot; however, you can participate in the Skills Challenge mini-games. The Paint game, for example, requires you to move a player to different spots around the court to take jump shots. It's probably the best way to find your shooting touch and the more you play the better you get at it. The 3-point Challenge is pretty much what it sounds like, and it helps you hone your long-range accuracy. Both offer good fun that's enough to sustain your interest for short periods of time.
In fact, NBA 2005 is best for quick pick up games. Multiplayer WiFi mode enables two players to go head-to-head or up to eight players can take on the mini-games. There's decent five-on-five basketball if you don't mind playing in the Follow view, but the mini's can be an entertaining way to while away the time. This isn't a game that's going to make you want to abandon your big-screen basketball games by any means, but it can be enough to temporarily satisfy a serious basketball jones.
