Quote : The mid-range game is much improved and it's easier to attempt and hit mid-range jumpers. There are a lot of different jump shot styles, but unlike last year, those release points are all the same this year.
Quote : This helps tremendously with Offensive Rebounding and makes battling for position in the post much more important.
Quote : The AI has been upgraded to improve CPU intelligence and add further player differentiation. Shaq is a monster in the paint while Allen Iverson is unstoppable from the perimeter by another, other than the best defenders. Your teammates read the situation on the court and react according to what you are doing with the use of V-Cuts and Off-Ball screens.
We've added a lot of new animations for passes, pass receptions, dribble-bumps, dunks, lay-ups, shots, rebounds, blocks and Pro-Hops. In order for the Pro-Hop to be effective you'll now need a clean open lane, otherwise you'll bump into a defender and end up losing the ball.
Quote : We also added a lot of new 10-man Mo-cap data for creating new multi-player scenarios such as box-outs, V-cuts, backdoor cuts, pass-deny defense, pump-fake-and-go, successful and failed spin moves, 'go' moves and dribble bumps. There are also new scenarios for double-teams, battles in the post, screens and mid-air collisions.
Full Interview
http://www.easports.com/games/nbali...erinterview.jsp
MaximusPowers Impressions
Quote:
1. Spacing and mid-range game
2. Fastbreak (and the AI of your opponents)
3. Offense (and the AI of your defensive opponents)
4. Defense (and the AI of your offensive opponents)
5. Freestyle, pro-hop, and put-backs
6. Player ratings, primacy settings, and player/coach styles
1. Spacing:
One of the biggest improvements that I saw in the way that the game played has to do with the spacing of the payers, both on offense and defense (particulary on defense).
In 2004, the spacing was pretty bad. The defenders would bunch up in the middle of the court, preventing you from shooting many mid-range shots. You were basically forced to either shoot a 3-pointer or drive to the hoop, because the CPU defenders would just bunch up in the middle and swarm around mid-range shots, ofter times resulting in a ton of blocks per game. For proof of this, just take a look at the shot chart after a game of 2004 and you'll find that most of your made shots are from close range or beyond the arc.
But not this year folks.
In the short time I had with the game, I was amazed at how much better the spacing was, especially on the part of the CPU defenders. I was actually able to drive to the middle and pull up for a 15 foot jumper with only one defender in my face, one, not two or three like there would have been last year. The better spacing makes the court feel more open and less jumbled (on offense, defence, and even fastbreaks, which I'll talk about a little later), and it pretty much single-handedly gives 2005 a mid-range game that it lacked in years past.
The mid-range game is very present this year, which makes the game that much more realistic. I played as the Bucks vs. the Bulls, and when Jamal Crawford would start doing freestyle moves and then drive, I was surprised to see how often he pulled up for a mid-range shot instead of going all the way to the hoop. When guarding a player, if you back up too far when he starts to drive he will pull up for a mid-range shot (this happened last year, but not as often as it should have). And the spacing is such so that when Crawford pulled up for all those mid-range shots, there were only 1 or 2 defenders in the immediate vicinity, so there were less blocks (which is definitely a good thing). If you give the CPU too much cushion, a good shooter will punish you from the mid-range (Crawford ended up with 38 points on me, many of them from the mid-range shot).
Like-wise, when you're on offense, the mid-range game is also a great weapon this year. Since the middle of the court isn't so crowded this year, it's easiler to start a drive with Michael Redd and then pull up for a shot at the free throw line. If you beat your guy off the dribble, then you should get a pretty good look (which a shooter like Michael Redd will hit more often than not). It's a nice change of pace, because now you don't have to always just drive to the hoop and/or shoot 3-pointers anymore. A whole new dimension is added. Now you can pull up for mid-range shots without having the whole team in your face ready to block your shot (blocks obviously still happen though, if you force a mid-range shot that isn't there).
All of this goes a really long way to making the gameplay more realistic.
2. Fastbreak (and the AI of your opponents):
The fastbreak is much improved this year, and here's why: the crazy rocket-like CPU pursuit from 2004 has been turned down this year. Now when a fast player like T.J. Ford has a few steps on the closest defender, said defender will not rocket his way ahead of T.J. to thwart his fastbreak. I'm not saying that fastbreaks are necessarily easier, but they're certainly more realistic. If a defender is ahead of you, it's still hard to get by him, but now if a defender is behind you, it's easier to go all the way (unless the defender is fast and the fastbreaker is slow, of course). It's also refreshing to see a fastbreaker and defender sprinting down court side by side, and sometimes the defenders is able to stop him at the last second and/or block the shot, and sometimes the fastbreaker is just able to get to the hoop before the defender can stop him. Last year, when a defender was side by side with you, 90% of the time he'd somehow get in front if you before you even made it to the hoop. Now there is more excitement in the fast break, because it's actually possible to outrun a defender to the hoop (sometimes just barely, which is really cool to see). It's fun to get into a mad scramble for the hoop and not know until the very last second whether you'll get off the layup/dunk in time or if the defender will stop you and/or block your shot at the last second. Defending fastbreaks is great too, because if you trail the breaker and time your jump just right, you can get a really cool block (blocking shots during fasatbreaks just looks cooler this year for whatever reason).
Another big issue with fastbreaks in 2004 was the players' stoping and turning around to recieve a pass when you pass it ahead to them, and then turning back around to continue running. Unfortunatley, they still do this in 2005, but it's not as bad because it seems to happen quicker, and it doesn't stop the flow of the fastbreak as much as it did last year. It's like they snap around and quicky snap back to continue running. It slows things down a little bit, but not as much as last year.
It's possible that they do this because it's more realistic than if the players just somehow caught the ball over their shoulder in-stride like a football player.
Also, the passes seem faster, so the whole fastbreak experience flows better than it did last year.
3. Offense (and the AI of your defensive opponents):
I liked the offense better this year for a few reasons: the spacing and mid-range game are both better, pro-hop is less effective (which I'll talk about a little later), and the defensive AI seems less cheap than in 2004. What I mean by that last one is that the CPU defenders no longer rotate to open shooters with super-human speed. Last year, when you passed the ball into the post and the perimeter defender came down to double, you couldn't pass it back out for an open 3-pointer because the perimeter defender could somehow almost magically fly back out to cover the open shooter before the pass was even recieved by the shooter. And then the same defender could zoom back down to the post before the post player even recived the pass back from the shooter. So basically one defender could easily cover 2 guys.
In 2005, the Live team purposely turned this crazy speed down.
Now the defender takes longer to get back out to the shooter, leaving you with a possible open shot if you play your cards right. Same goes for rotating the ball around the perimeter. You can give it to a post player, and then kick the ball out and rotate it around the perimeter to find an open 3-pointer (which is really fun to do now), because the defenders no longer rotate over to cover wide-open shoorters with super-human speed like they could in 2004. Same goes for mid-range shots. Defenders can't fly over to block mod-range shots anymore, they take a little longer to rotate to the shooter.
The CPU's defense doesn't feel cheap anymore. It reacts and plays more realistic.
The CPU's defense is still really good (especially on the harder difficulty modes), but it's hard because the CPU defenders are smarter, not because of cheapness (there are still the occational cheap moments, but it's much better than last year).
The passing also seems faster this year, although that could just be me (is seemed faster for whatever reason).
Of course, this puts a new emphasis on BALL MOVEMENT.
Ball movement wasn't as big a deal in 2004, which was all about driving to the lane 1-on-1. Now you can set up open shots (3-point, mid-range, or whatever) with proper ball movement, as well things like penetrating, dishing, and then kicking it around for an open 3 in the corner (which I was able to pull off twice with Michael Redd).
It all makes the game play more like it does in real life, which is the Live team's goal.
4. Defense (and the AI of your offensive opponents):
The defense is similar to last year, but you really need to be careful about the CPU pulling up for that mid-range shot now. If you're not right up in a guy's face, he will definitely pull up for that 15 footer now (unless he's a crappy shooter). Like I said earlier, Jamal Crawford burned me for 38 points because I wasn't always up in his face at all times. I like how the CPU uses the better spacing to its advantage and isn't afraid to pull it up from mid-range. I also like how the CPU moves the ball around. When I played a quick game as the Rockets (against the Magic), on three seperate occations during the game the Magic were able to kick the ball out of the post and rotate it around to an open Cuttino Mobley in the corner for 3 (and he made it all 3 times damn him). The CPU makes you work on defense, but it earns what it gets by using good shot selection and ball movement, as well as freestyle of course.
One problem that I did notice is that it's WAY too easy to steal. But the Live team is well aware of this, and said that this issue was already in the process of being fixed. Good thing too, because when I was playing the Bucks, it was far too easy to get steals wil T.J. Ford by double teaming a guy in the post and just standing right in front of the guy's dribble. T.J. would mess up the guy's dribble and he's lose the ball on the ground, making it easy to steal by grabbing it off the floor. This worked almost every time I doubled a post player with T.J Ford, as he had half a dozen steals by half time (playing with 12 minute quarters). The CPU was also too good at stealing, particularly jumping up in the air and intercepting a whole butt-load of passes (they intercepted just about every other pass I made with Dan Gadzuric and Yao Ming, most likey because of their low pass ratings). They did this quite often in fastbreaks too, so couple of times the ball just went back and forth (I get a steal, start a break, but then a CPU defender jumps up and intercepts a forward pass, then I get another steal, and the whole thing repeats) But again, the Live team said that the steals were still being tuned, so it's nothing to worry about.
They assured us that the steals and pass interceptions would be turned down, they just weren't finished tuning those thing yet (so worry not ).
It appeared that the blocks are turned down from last year, which is a good thing.
Of course, there are still sliders for all of this stuff, so you'll have no problem tweaking things if they are not still to your satisfaction.
5. Freestyle, pro-hop, and put-backs:
Better than last year, because the pro-hop has been made less effective. Defenders won't just get pushed aside as easily during the pro-hop, so you'll have to pick your spots better (you can't abuse this feature anymore). The Live team said that they purposely made it too effective last year because they wanted people to try it out and have early success with it, and then they would turn it down in this year's game (they did this with freestyle too, purposely making it too effective in 2003 so people would use it, and then tured it down the following year). The result is that freestyle and pro-hop feel more balanced this year.
More so than last year, the game also takes into account the size and speed of the offensive player and the defender when deciding the outcome of a freestyle or pro-hop move. Bigger and slower guys are easier to juke out and blow by using certain moves, but they're harder to push out of the way with certain other moves. Smaller and faster guys are easier to push out of the way with certain moves, but are much harder to juke out and blow by, much harder (fast perimeter defenders are a lot better at staying in front of you and not getting faked out and blown by this year). On the flip side, the size of the player you use also matters a geat deal. So look for mismatches and take advantage of them. If a guard is guarding your forward, don't try to cross him over, try a power move or just post up on him. And if a bigger guy ends up guarding one of your smaller and faster guards, cross him over or pull a spin move on him and watch him stumble.
While this still applied last year, it all just seems more polished this year. Last year, it seemed like size only mattered a little, but now if you try to back it in a bigger guy you are going to get owned, and if you try to cross over Kirk Heinrich with Desond Mason you are going to get owned. T-Mac however, was pretty much able to own anyone and everyone (but he's T-Mac, so I didn't mind that too much).
In case you guys are wondering what freestyle moves work the best, I found the spin move to be quite effective.
The put-back system is the new kid on the block this year. Unfortunatly, I didn't get to play around with it as much as I would have liked too, because most of the time I was playing with my Bucks (I'm from Milwaukee after all), and they have no good big man.
When I played as the Rockets though, I was able to pull off a couple of put-backs with their big men (because let's face it, they're much better than anything the Bucks have in the middle ). You have to be in the right place at the right time and then time it correctly. I think it was easier to pull it off with the Rocket's big men because they were better at getting in to the proper inside position (The Buck's big guys got boxed out too easily or something). So my conslusion about this feature is that it's probably much easier to do with better and smarter big men (I tried a couple times to do it with T-Mac, but wasn't able to get it). Admittedly, I wasn't very good at it so I didn't try it very often, but I'm sure that I will get better at it and use it more often when I have the time to play around with it. The few times that I did do it I thought it was pretty cool and useful (and realistic, because stuff like that really does happen in the NBA). I just hope that they don't tune it to be too effective like pro-hop was last year. I can see how this might be one of those features that can be abused by some people. We'll have to wait and see I guess.
6. Player ratings, primacy settings, and player/coach styles:
The player ratings were far from being finalized in the build that I played, so please don't ask what some of the ratings are.
Michael Redd was actually rated lower than his backup Eric Strickland (63 for Redd, 64 for Strickland), I kid you not. But again, the ratings are FAR from completed. The Live team said that they'll try to get the ratings are realistic as possible, using both stats as well as the players' abilities in real life that may not be relfected in the stats. For example, Ray Allen is a great 3-poiny shooter in real life, but according to stats he's only slightly above average, so the Live team takes his real life abilities into account in addition to his stats, which is pretty cool.
It'll all be tuned and finalized in time for it's release, so it's all good.
Primacy ratings are built into the game for each player on each team, so that the teams and players in the game play as close to the way they do in real life as possible. The amount of touches a certain player on a certain team gets depends on his primacy rating. Players with high primacy ratings (like Shaq with the Heat) will get the ball a ton of times, while players with low primacy ratings will get very few offensive touches. Players with low primacy ratings will also be more reluntant to shoot and will instead opt to pass to another player, while players with higher primacy ratings will take more shots.
This ensures 2 things:
1. teams distribute the ball as realistically as possible (star players get the ball more).
2. the better players on the team take more shots, while the scrubs take few shots.
No you cannot adjust these ratings, they're built into the game. You can't even see them.
But you don't need to see them in order to know that Steve Francis is going to get more touches and take more shots than Dwight Howard. It's all simple logic, but put into a rating that the CPU can read and understand.
Just another way that the game plays more realistic this year.
While there aren't set playing styles for each individual player in the game, there are basic styles in the game. Examples: some guards are runners while others are shooters, some forwards are slashers while others are shooters, some big men are physical while others are more finesse. Like-wise for the coaches: some coaches play some zone while others never do, some coaches like to run and fastbreak while others prefer the half-court game. What's really cool is that when coaches move to other teams, they bring their styles of play with them to their new team, granted that there are some players on his new team that match his style of play (the game balances out the stlyes of the players and coach when determining how a team will play).
Another really cool feature.
More info:
http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~nbaliv...pic.php?t=16578
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