This year’s version of Inside Drive looks good graphically, but not great, the players almost look human, but in a strange sort of way. Also as with the NFL Fever, the ball looks eerily realistic. The arenas look fantastic as well; the hardwood floors look truly genuine. However High Voltage falls short in making them feel anything like an arena full of thousands of fans screaming their at the top of their lungs, in short the arenas look great but have no life.

The gameplay of NBA I/D is a fast paced run-and-gun type of basketball game, however it is not much in the way of a realistic basketball simulation. Your superstar type players score at will, either by a flurry of three pointers from almost anywhere past half-court or by crossing over the defender and making a poster of the opposing team’s center. Passing in NBA I/D is really only an option and is only necessary when in-bounding the basketball. However there one thing that helps to make playing NBA I/D enjoyable. That is the play-by-play team of Kevin Calabro, Marques Johnson, and Kenny “The Jet” Smith. All three are accomplished play-by-play announcers in the NBA and work together tremendously well. Kevin Calabro never seems to run out of things to say about plays, and for the most part all three are spot on when it comes to describing what just happened on the floor. The fact that Kevin Calabro is in the game is just cool for a SuperSonics homer like me.

NBA Inside Drive’s franchise mode has everything you need to become an armchair GM this season. Before season drafts, trades, retirements, after season drafts are all in NBA I/D. Nothing extremely new or groundbreaking, but NBA I/D’s franchise mode is surprisingly deep, even though the gameplay is rather arcade like. The only thing I could find to complain about is that the game’s menus are rather uninspiring, quite unintuitive while you attempt to navigate through them. Other than that minor gripe, NBA I/D has a quite robust franchise mode that comes complete with a point system to manage your team’s budget. Also an interesting feature in this season’s version of Inside Drive is the ability to be able to integrate your created players into your franchise. The created player then has the chance to collect points that you can distribute among his stats, or he can progress like every other player in the game; this is something you get decide when you begin your franchise.

All in all High Voltage made a pretty decent basketball game with a great franchise mode, great play-by-play announcing and a ho-hum arcade mode. However this season looks to be rough for the boys and girls from Redmond going against the twin towers in the middle (NBA Live and NBA 2K3), I don’t think they ready to make a playoffs run… this year.