NBA Courtside 2002


January 23, 2002 - Left Field has finally delivered its very anticipated NBA Courtside 2002, a hoops simulation for GameCube that follows in the footsteps of the two NBA Courtside titles released for the Nintendo 64. Courtside 2002 marks the release of the first basketball title on GameCube, offering up a smooth gameplay experience and impressive visuals. However, for the more dedicated basketball enthusiast, it's apparent that Courtside 2002 is without its refinements.

Features

  • Full use of the NBA license for real teams, players and stadiums
  • Features full season statistic tracking
  • Newly motion-captured animation for players looks more lifelike than ever
  • High-polygon 3D models feature face-maps of real athletes
  • Realistic ball physics
  • Simulation and Arcade Challenge modes
  • Create your own player and improve his stats
  • Enhanced collision detection and opponent AI
  • Use the GCN controller's C-stick for precision passing
  • Updated graphics allow for detailed players and stadiums, as well as a host of visual effects like real-time reflections on courts
  • Four-player support

Gameplay
NBA Courtside 2002 is essentially an improved extension of its predecessors. It features four gameplay modes including Quick Play, Arcade Play, Season Play, and Skills Mode. Quick Play is your general exhibition match, where you pick the team of your choice versus another, and Season Play pits your team in a series of up to 82 games. In this season mode you can dictate quarter lengths, customize the playoff series, and set up a fantasy draft if you like. For a season mode, it's quite sufficient. However, the lack of a Franchise mode is pretty disappointing. Courtside 2002 has a solid create-a-player mode, and taking your own team through more than one season would have upped the replay value greatly.

The good news is that the core gameplay is fairly solid. Jumping into Courtside 2002 is pretty easy and you won't be intimidated by the control scheme. This is both good and bad depending on how you look at it. On the one hand, it's easy for novice basketball players to get into the game and compete. However, on the other hand, basketball aficionados will notice that the control lacks depth compared to competing products. You really can't pull off quick breakaways or properly take advantage of backing another player under the hoop. In Sega's NBA 2K2, for instance, there is a specific button for rolling off players and breaking away towards the hoop.

The game isn't without its good features, though. Courtside 2002's C-stick passing is without a doubt one of the best control innovations to hit a sports game in years. Passing seems so effortless with the analog stick, and for the most part is pretty accurate. You can also perform give-and-gos by holding down the B-button, running your passer into position, and releasing the B-button. This works great for getting yourself under the hoop for big dunks. And, if you want to clear a path to the hoop and drive for the hoop you can quickly call picks by pressing the Z-button. As well, shooting the ball is as easy as tapping the A-button for a pump fake or holding it briefly for the shot. Unfortunately, it seems the chance of scoring a shot is more dependant on a player's stats and placement than the skill of the person controlling them. Another important control feature is the "adrenaline" meter. By using the L-trigger you can inject your player with varying levels of adrenaline. Holding down the L-trigger halfway is half adrenaline and when fully depressed you will get full adrenaline. This affects the way players shoot, steal, and, of course, run. Using your adrenaline, you can perform different dribbles, such as behind-the-backs, using the Y-button. Speaking of stealing, the setup is rather frustrating. Every time you attempt a steal your player exaggeratedly steps forward to grab for the ball and stops moving completely. Meaning, every time you attempt to steal, you have to play catch up by gassing up your turbo. That said, it's a rather big gamble to steal. So, there's definitely some control features to explore, but as we noted basketball fanatics will want to perform more advanced moves.

Another issue we ran into was the artificial intelligence. The offense just continuously passes the ball to the hoop or takes a three-pointer. It's not often that you see it calling plays or picks to drive to the hoop. Additionally, your own teammates heavily depend on you. So you'll need to work hard at calling plays and taking control of the right guy at the right time. It's true that you don't want the game doing all the work for you, but equally you don't want to feel like you're teammates are mindless slaves. You can use the D-pad to call plays and set your team up for rebounds. It's a nice feature, but because it's the same for every team you'll be missing out on team-specific plays. The computer defense for the opposing team isn't particularly bad, but overall NBA Courtside 2002 tends to be a pretty offensive game. There are many dunks and lay-ups to be had, as it doesn't take a lot of effort to get under the hoop. As we noted, this lends itself particularly well to those looking for a plug-and-play experience, but basketball pros will pick up on the shallowness of it all.

On the plus side, this offensive gameplay works well for Courtside's Arcade Play mode. As an extra addition to the regular simulation mode, you can hit a rooftop court for a more no holds barred style of gameplay. It's a three-on-three street mode more in the vein of EA's NBA Street, only lacking in the area of gamebreakers and special trick dunks. You can fly high into the air for monster dunks and viciously strip the ball from your opponents. For multiplayer games, this is often the mode of choice as the screams of disappointment come more naturally. Unfortunately, there is only one street court to play on, which steals some of the replay value.

 

What does increase the replay value is the create-a-player mode. You can edit a great number of different variables to create the perfect head shape, ear size, and even tatoos. If you're into creating humorous characters (and if you read IGN, you'll know we are) you can do some hilarious stuff. One character we created "Biff Ears" is roughly 5'2" with an unsightly large stomach and Dumbo-sized ears. His animation and ability to perform monster dunks in arcade mode definitely adds to the replay value. You can also create more professional, serious players. In fact, we recommend both. Then you can play exhibition games to increase their stats. You can create a whole team and substitute the players in for, say, the Bulls and try to create the old dream team of the early 90's. This will give you plenty to do in the single-player arena.

Graphics
Courtside 2002 is definitely one of the best-looking hoops games around. The face detail is absolutely amazing. You will recognize players just by looking at their faces. You don't even have to see their jersey most times. From the head down, however, the player models look mis-weighted and a bit top heavy. It's not that they look bad. They all just tend to look like they have big back and chest muscles. And, watch out for the replay mode, as the game's level of detail management will liberally steal a large does of polygons from one player and tack them onto another in an attempt to keep the framerate stable. Seeing Shaq shed about 50 lbs. of muscle is no pretty sight, we assure you. Additionally, the development team has taken great care to recreate all of the team stadiums. They all look great, featuring sharp textures and subtle lighting changes. The crowds also look stellar. There's no shimmering or feeling of texture repetition. However, there is a large reuse of the same sprites all around the stadium, so you'll see perhaps one hundred replicas of the same person watching you -- creepy. That said, the sprites are high-resolution but animate pretty roughly. Still, compared with the competition, it's a nice crowd.

Left Field has also spent plenty of time motion capturing the basketball stars to nail down the animations for hook shots, dunks, and even lay-ups. There are dozens of impressive dunks where you find yourself drooling over the hangtime animations, watching the hoop spring back into place afterwards. Unfortunately, there are plenty of animations that seem unpolished and often don't flow into the next one. This hurts the visual representation of the time you spend getting to the hoop or defending it.

As a whole, Courtside 2002 looks slick. It uses an odd-looking dithering method that takes away from the sharpness a bit, but in general you won't be disappointed -- especially with the aforementioned player faces. HDTV owners will be upset to hear that Courtside 2002 is the first Nintendo-published title to not support a progressive scan mode.

Sound
On the audio side of things, Courtside features decent commentary, a pretty good stadium tone, and some grunts and sneaker squeaks from the players. The commentators will occasionally give you background details on the players, but a lot of it tends to be "he shoots," "he goes up for the jam," "to Bryant," "to Jordan," etc. Like many other sports titles before it, its commentary has a long way to go before feeling realistic.

Closing Comments
Courtside 2002 was on my most anticipated list for a while. I was looking for Left Field to exploit its talents on GameCube, as the last Courtside was great on the N64 and at E3 2001, Courtside 2002 was looking great. The C-stick passing is very innovative and likewise very welcomed. It's not always spot-on, but most times it works as planned, which is a nice change of pace from frustrating yourself with button passing. Unfortunately, there's a lot of little things in Courtside 2002 that add up. Computer AI, control issues, odd animations, and other things begin to wear on the experience. It's certainly not a bad basketball game, but it's definitely not as good as some others on the market.

That said, it is the only basketball game simulation on GameCube for the next few months. If you simply cannot wait, you have no choice but to pick it up. But, we recommend holding out to see if another product like Sega's 2K2 series has anything more to offer. At the very least, though, give Courtside 2002 a rent. If you're looking to have a few rounds of hoops with some friends on the weekend, it can definitely be entertaining. As a single-player basketball simulation, however, we're looking forward to next year where we hope Left Field and Nintendo can build upon the good things we saw in Courtside 2002.

created by da biszy