Out of the big three sports (four if you count hockey), basketball, in my opinion, hasn't made the strides in videogame simulation that the others have. While NBA2K2 and NBA Inside Drive are considerable advancements for this generation, there is still no comparison to the likes of Madden, NFL2K, High Heat, and All Star Baseball. Konami was one of the pioneers in the 3D hoops genre with NBA In the Zone back on the PSX. While the graphics have come along as expected, there just isn't any substance to make ESPN NBA 2 Night 2002 worth your time.
You'll find the player models and overall visual effort in this year's version to fit in right along side the other NBA games. Most players are recognizable by face or body type, and the arenas are a good representation of the real thing. The player introductions are even complete with laser light shows on the court. There are moments during the game where I would proclaim it to have the smoothest animation in all of sports, but this is ruined by poor transitions. A player running to the hoop will all of the sudden skip from the running animation straight into the dunk animation. Viewed separately, the dunks are a thing of beauty, but when you see how the player teleports from one move into the other it destroys that reality.
The commentating team of Brent Musberger and Stuart Scott is a strange one. Not that the lines of spoken text are poorly read but poorly implemented. Musberger's commentary is a little jilted and isn't always up to speed with the game. Scott sounds just like he does on Sportscenter with his comedic one-liners, but there in lies the problem. A color guy shouldn't sound like he's talking over highlights of the game. There should be more banter and interaction between the two about what's occurring in the game.
Underneath the audio/visual shell there's not much to talk about. NBA 2 Night doesn't know whether it wants to be an arcade or simulation game, which is the kiss of death. The shooting percentage is too high to be taken seriously, and it's not over the top enough to be lumped into the same category as NBA Street. All the rules are in place for a shot at simulating the game of basketball, but the controls are just too arcadey. Right off the bat I was hitting 15-20 foot closely guarded, turn around jumpers with Horace Grant. The reality is, he's struggling to hit from that range with no one in his face.
That leads to the next problem. With the game being released well into the current season, I expected better ratings and more current rosters than given. Instead, I got the obligatory Grant Hill starting role, and a Mike Miller and Pat Garrity that couldn't shoot 3-pointers. I simulated an entire season, and aging John Stockton was the MVP and led his team to an NBA Championship where he also won tournament MVP with like 28 point and 12 assists per game. Uh, sheeyeah right.
There are just too many other valuable options when looking for a decent basketball title to even consider NBA 2 Night. It doesn't do any one thing better than something that is already on the market. It just does everything not quite as well. If for some reason you've waited this long to compare 2 Night with NBA2K2 and NBA Live, I'm sorry to tell you that it wasn't worth the wait.
