One morning, the
good folk at Sega Sports awoke and realized that they were sick of being
second. EA Sports dominated sales in the sports videogame genre and Sega is
simply tired of it. They soon hear that several competitors are dropping their
football games this year, choosing to forgo this year to catch up to both Sega
and EA. Hooray! They also hear that EA is negating the biggest advantage Sega
had last year – they’re going to support Xbox Live. Boo! With a chance to
scoop up some loyal NFL Fever fans and a desperate need to gain an edge on EA’s
Madden series, Sega decided to go for it on fourth and long and made a gutsy
call – slapping a mere twenty dollar price tag on their quality game.
If you’ve ever had
the chance to play a twenty dollar game, you know they’re twenty dollars for a
reason. Many of them look like the handiwork of a summer intern at computer
camp and play like the LCD games of years past. These twenty dollar games are
made by small publishers looking to make a quick buck with a sub-par game, but
ESPN NFL 2K5 is more than a twenty dollar game worth buying, it’s a twenty
dollar steal that would easily be worth a fifty dollar price tag.
The easiest thing
to say about ESPN NFL 2K5 is that it’s the best Sega football game ever. Even
die-hard Madden fans are taking notice of this year’s title as they wait another
few weeks for Madden 2005’s release. Every facet of the game has improved from
last year’s version, and any gamer who loves tossing the virtual pigskin should
pick up ESPN NFL 2K5 faster than a goal line fumble.
ESPN NFL 2K5 has
all the game modes that sports gamers have come to love. Quick Game for the
patience-impaired, practice for the fun-impaired, and Franchise mode for the
social life-impaired. There’s nothing exciting going on in the first two, and
chances are most of you put your social lives on hold during the release of
great sports games, so let’s talk a little about the deep franchise mode that
ESPN NFL 2K5 offers this year. It should be no surprise that the franchise mode
offers gamers a chance to lead a football team towards the ultimate gridiron
goal, The Super Bowl. Gamers can compete with fantasy drafted teams, negotiate
contracts and say good-bye to geriatric retirees, and even be fired from their
coaching position if things aren’t going well. With all the day-to-day
processes that need to be addressed, franchise modes are beginning to get a bit
ridiculous, and the new weekly preparation addition to the franchise mode is
icing on the cake of ultimate ridiculousness. The days leading up to the Sunday
can be used to prepare certain facets of your team. Monday, for example, can be
used to help your linemen gain more stamina through workouts sans football pads,
or used to build their strength with workouts with football pads, but may make
them more injury prone. These daily activities range from light workouts to
watching game footage and significantly affect your players’ ratings for that
week. It’s a risk/reward system that can come in handy if you’re trying to even
out a certain team’s advantage. The obsessive football fan will relish calling
team meetings on Thursday to boost morale and concentration, but just about
everyone else will want to turn this option off as it takes up a bit too much
time.
Perhaps the
coolest addition to this year’s title is the advent of VIPs. No these don’t get
you behind the velvet rope or lead to drinking Cristal with P. Diddy, these VIPs
are Virtual Identity Profiles. Every user can set up his or her VIP and play
with them like an ordinary profile, but instead of just keeping track of stats,
the VIPs also record how you play. The VIP will remember such things as
which direction users prefer to run and what defensive packages they like. This
information is then saved to the hard drive and can be used to simulate user’s
playing tendencies. For example, say your buddy continually waxes you at NFL
2K5 because he’s always blitzing and running left. Wait for him to go to sleep
(or induce it with a well-placed sleeper hold) and play a single-player game
with the computer playing using his VIP. The VIP will play his style, allowing
gamers to practice against their buddies… even when they’re not there. A few
B-list celebrities (Jamie Kennedy, Carmen Electra, Funkmaster Flex, Jackass’
Steve-O, and David Arquette – Okay, C-list celebrities) have lent their VIPs to
ESPN NFL 2K5, and their VIPs will challenge you to games, heckling gamers with
their All-Pro teams and yielding unique items to victors.
The overall
gameplay has been vastly improved. The game is now more user-friendly, and it
shouldn’t take long for Madden fans to march downfield in NFL 2K5. Running,
passing, and defense have all been balanced out for a more pick-up-and-play
experience, something that was lacking a bit in the past. A myriad of special
moves can be unleashed with normal buttons or a flick of the joystick, but the
real joy comes with powering up moves. Repeatedly tapping the A button gives
the ball carrier a speed boost, but holding the A button charges up the player’s
power meter. Once the meter is fully charged, any of the special moves will
have an extra boost. A dizzying spin move, a devastating spin move, or a
bulldozing shoulder charge all become extra effective when used in conjunction
with a fully charged meter. Sega uses the system fantastically, forcing players
to decide to sprint for yardage or store up for that big juke that will make
SportsCenter.
There are a few
fumbles in the gameplay, however. The AI on the defensive backs is spotty (at
best) as they tend to over–commit to the ball. By taking poor routes to
receivers, they often give up the big play too frequently (on my first play from
scrimmage against the CPU I threw a fifteen yard pass to my tight end that
turned into a 50 yard sprint for a touchdown). There are also an unusually high
amount of dropped passes. Quarterbacks can hit receivers right between the
numbers, but the only thing he can do is cross his fingers and hopes
Butterfingers keeps his grip. When your receivers aren’t dropping passes,
they’re often watching deflected passes bounce around with beachball-esque
physics. These minor flaws are small annoyances in the game, but don’t take
much away from the overall experience.
The online portion
of the game is an absolute blast. It’s simple to jump onto Xbox Live, find a
game, and jump right into competition. The usual ranking system exists, and
people with way too much time on their hands have already found ways to exploit
it and improve their records to ’72 Dolphins-like proportions. NFL 2K5 even has
a great system for setting up leagues, tournaments, and complete seasons
online. Your league’s info will update on a webpage and looks and operates very
much like CBSSportsline’s great fantasy websites. During online play lag does
occasionally come into play, but it isn’t often for more than a few plays per
game. Overall, the online experience is awesome.
Perhaps the most
noticeable addition to the game this year is the improvement in the ESPN
presentation. No longer is the biggest sports network’s representation limited
to a few logos and idle chatter from the broadcasters themselves. This year’s
game takes the ESPN style and crams it so far down your throat that you actually
love it. From the 3-D rendered Chris Berman and Suzy Kolber to the weekly
SportsCenter highlights from around the league, the presentation will blow away
even casual fans of the sports show. Tons of new cutscenes add life to the
stadium experience and updated stats are presented ala ESPN Sunday Night
Football’s charts and graphs. Replays have a variety of angles, but the best is
ESPN’s own SkyCam, which Sega recreates very well. Sega has a huge step up on
the competition with its ESPN license, offering a game that mimics sports
television like no other.
Many critics have
said much about the graphics of this year’s game, claiming ESPN NFL 2K5 to be
the best-looking football game ever. Add me to that list, in fact, put me right
on top of it. Sega built NFL 2K5 specifically for the juiced-up Xbox, giving up
nothing in the way of graphics just to make it easier to port over to the puny
processor of the PS2. NFL 2K5 looks awesome – both on the field and off. The
same detail put into the uniforms of ESPN MLB 2K4 (the best looking fabric in
any game) has also been put into NFL 2K5, making these ballers look incredibly
realistic out there. Add to that a steady helping of fluid animations, and you
can believe the critics. The only flaw in the graphics is the lack of
lip-synching from Berman and Kolber.
On the audio side,
Sega does a decent job with the sounds of the game, and really excels with the
audio features. The barking by the quarterback is pretty generic, but the
on-field chatter and talking between the gridiron gladiators is incredibly
entertaining and player-specific. Tackles and stadium sounds are fairly good,
but the crowd noise could really have been taken up a notch. There are some
fluctuations depending on the game, but not enough when the game is on the line
or the home team makes an important third down. The most amazing part of the
audio is the ability to play certain portions of songs during specific events.
For example, if you want to hear Snoop Dogg scream, “Yeah, and you don’t stop!”
every time your team makes a first down, just go to the stadium music editor,
clip out the portion of the imported song from your Xbox’s hard drive, and check
the box next to ‘first down’. It’s the next step in stadium customization, and
it ROCKS. The included soundtrack is decent, featuring mostly up and coming
artists, including two from my favorite label, Definitive Jux. There’s one
major miscue in the sound – the commentary. Even though this is an ESPN
licensed game, there are no ESPN broadcasters in the booth. It’s a travesty,
really. No Ron Jaworski? Instead, Jaws is replaced by two voice actors that go
by the names of Dan Stevens and Peter O’Keefe and they are a real drop from
other ESPN games.
ESPN NFL 2K5 is
the most playable football game from Sega Sports, period. With all the great
improvements, abundance of customizable features, and online play that makes me
want to hole up in my living room, NFL 2K5 is quite simply the best football
game of the year. Well, at least until Madden 2005 comes out.
Gameplay: 9.0
Aside from the
dropped passes (which can be customized to your liking), NFL 2K5 plays like an
All-Pro in a contract year. A definite improvement over the last two editions
of NFL 2K, and worthy competition to EA’s Madden series.
Graphics: 9.8
The game looks
great and is a real benchmark in sports video games. But then again, I’ve been
saying that about Sega’s underrated baseball games for the past two years.
Sound: 8.8
True, the
commentary is just plain bad, but the ability to customize stadium sounds is
just too awesome to ignore.
Difficulty: Medium
Completely
customizable. Individual gameplay elements have sliders that can range from
mind numbingly easy to insanely difficult.
Concept: 8.5
Hey – it’s
football.
Multiplayer: 9.8
Too much fun to
play against someone, either in person or online. No other type of sports games
requires such strategy while under pressure. Online leagues and tournaments are
an improvement over XSN’s online leagues, but are still in their fledgling
stage.
Overall: 9.5
The first football
game of the season is a doozy. A great accomplishment by Sega Sports and ESPN
Videogames. I can sit here and list off all the great things about the game,
but in the end I come back to one thing – IT ONLY COSTS TWENTY BUCKS! And
that’s all you need to know. Buy it… now!
