Sound:  
The sound package is one with many decent points, but again it falls victim to one of my major complaints about such games. The in game commentary is passable. I have yet to play any of the 2K basketball series up to this point, but a friend of mine who had, said that a ton of the commentary is exactly the same as the previous versions. Disappointing, but apparently not if you haven’t played the series before. I would consider this to be very Madden-esque, since he has been repeating his same phrases since the first game in the Madden series, which was found carved on cave walls from sometime in the mid to late Cretaceous Period.

The other major downfall I found was another carry over similarity from the Madden series. There are TONS of names included, mainly among the players that the computer generates for the draft, that are not included in the commentary. So, once again, you draft a franchise point guard and a franchise center, and for the next 15 years you get to hear about how “Number 16” passes to “Number 45” for a monster dunk. It is just idiotic that such an oversight exists in any sports game in this supposed greatest video game generation ever. I wouldn’t care if they included half as many names for the players they generate, if they would only include all of the ones they did include in the actual sound package. I don’t think I am the only one who is annoyed by this. I’d sacrifice lines of commentary for player names, just for a sense of completion in the sound aspect. There should be plenty of room on the discs to add the names, so I have no idea what is holding the developers back from doing this. I mean, they take the time to program in damn sweating, from the ground up, but they won’t record all the possible names that they include? Hell, I’m willing to offer my own services in the recording of next year’s version, if only they’ll include the damn player names they bother to take the time to make up and program into the visual aspect of the game in the first place.

OK, enough of my ranting and raving. I went into this for way too long with Madden, so I’ll taper this off before I run out of breath. (Typing, uh… breath, that is.) The sound is a decent package, but hardly something I will keep listening to when I play. The few glaring errors are something that will disappoint a lot of people, I would imagine, and I can only hope that these mistakes can be learned from for future games in the series.

Gameplay:  
Now, as with all games, gameplay is what separates the Clippers games from the Lakers games. (I should note, that the Lakers, like all great things, were originally from Minnesota; as can be evidenced by the fact that Los Angeles is completely devoid of lakes, whereas Minnesota has enough lakes to submerge every mob hit victim from the Greater New York/New Jersey area in a comfortable private lake of their own. Not that I am making suggestions.) While NBA 2K3 will by no means be confused with NBA Jam in terms of pace, what it offers is a very, very good basketball simulation.

2K3 offers the standard set of options for play. You can play an exhibition game, a season, a street game, or start from the playoffs if you want. However, as is the case with nearly any game for the major sports, this game is all about the Franchise mode, and it delivers it in a big way. The options put before you are many. Do you want a salary cap? How many games in the season and in each playoff series? How long will your quarters be? Who will be your coach? Do you want to start with NBA rosters, or have a fantasy draft? This is the kind of stuff you have to decide when you start, and most can be adjusted once you start the franchise. (Fantasy draft can’t be turned off, obviously. Once you draft, your roster is set, unless you make roster moves yourself.)

Once you settle in to the season, between games, you can make trades, waive players, sign free agents, and so on. You even have a “Trading Block” where you can put players to see what other teams will offer you for them. It’s a nice feature that can keep you from having to try and build a trade from scratch, which can be at times frustrating. You can also alter the deal once you see the proposal, too, so if you want something a little different, you can offer that trade to the team instead. The team management side of it is very deep, and is one of the things I love in any sports game.

In the off-season, you’ll go through several phases. First, you get a chance to re-sign your team’s free agents before they go on the open market. After that, you go to scouting, where you can assign points (the “money” from the salary cap) to a certain number of scouting trips for a player. You can scout a player up to 3 times, at which point you get a complete picture of their strengths and weaknesses, and even the NBA player they resemble. When you first examine the scouting report, you’ll have a few comments and a player they roughly resemble, but if you scout three times, you’ll get all the nitty gritty on the player, and a more specific player that they resemble and a revised prediction for their level of NBA success. It’s a well-implemented system, and I sometimes will simulate through a year or two here and there just to take part in the draft and see if I can get a steal in the later part of the draft. There’s a lot of strategy to it, and it’s really a lot of fun to try and build a team for the long term. After you draft, you’ll have to sign your rookies, and see who is available on the free agent market. There are usually a few big names out there every year, so if you budget yourself well, you can go get that franchise player, but they will cost you some big bucks. (Points, whatever.) Once you do that, you go to training camp, where you can dedicate each player’s training to one particular focus, (perimeter or post, offense or defense) or a general training regimen. Then you will go through the preseason (if you want to play the games, you can, otherwise it simulates them), and then the regular season starts all over again. Repeat that for the next 30 years and see what you can do with it.

The setup really is immersive, and trading, scouting, and drafting wisely can be the difference between competing every year and sucking hard. In my first year, I traded my big name players, who had contracts running out and I didn’t want to have to spend all my points to keep, to bad teams, so I would have a good shot at a high draft pick or two, and ended up with the first and third picks in the first draft I went through. I also had my own pick, which was like the 12th overall. I drafted a point guard (#1 overall), Ian Wright, who, when thoroughly scouted had a comparison player of Jason Kidd. Not bad at all. (He also stepped in and is immediately leading the league in Nose Size. And this is a league that still includes Scottie Pippen, so that's quite an accomplishment, rookie or not. The guy has a schnoz, that's for sure.) I then got a center, Courtney Jensen, at #3, who ended up with Shaq as his comparison. Wow. I may not like Shaq in real life, but boy is he fat. Oh, I mean, dominant. So through some, I think, smart management, (and some luck in the draft lottery, which is included in the off-season schedule, by the way) I got a guard and a big man to build my team around for the next 10-15 years. This is the kind of thing that gives you that feeling of accomplishment for building a good team from the ground up, and connects you to the team.

The games themselves are a different breed from the NBA Jams of the world. The pace is much slower, and the focus is on player movement, ball movement, and, I keep saying this, strategy. You can go out and bomb 3 pointers every time down the floor, but you will lose. You can play loose defense or constantly go for steals, but you will get picked apart, or get eaten up with foul trouble. Nothing worse than seeing you second string point guard on the floor 2 minutes into a game. (Unless you are lucky like me, and traded to get what ended up as the #1 pick in the second year’s draft, and got another franchise point guard. I am a point guard in reality, so why not draft a couple all stars at my own position?) There are times when the game gets incredibly frustrating, and you will find yourself in a huge shooting slump, while the computer won’t miss for what seems like 3 quarters of a game. I mean, I have Vince Carter on my team, and he has had games where he misses 4 DUNKS. Now, it is realistic that he wouldn’t make ALL of his dunks, but I don’t think he’ll ever miss 4 open dunks in one game EVER. It just seems to be a bit lopsided from time to time, and adjusting the gameplay sliders in the options for shooting can make it seem a little more even, but generally speaking, the games will be competitive, and it won’t be too annoying. If you can deal with an occasional few minutes of outrageously unfair gameplay, you’ll find that the game is very, very solid otherwise.

As a total package, NBA 2K3 is a great NBA game. Whether you just want to kick your little brother’s ass for a game, or build a dynasty to last throughout the entire duration of your franchise, it is all there for you to do. So go, my loyal readers, and build your teams. Draft, scout, sign contracts. Fire your coach, bring in the next big thing from the coaching ranks and see what you can do with that ragtag bunch of overpaid veterans with bloated contracts that your previous GM left you with. (Ok, so you don’t HAVE to be the Knicks, I guess.) The NBA 2K3 experience is definitely one that hardcore basketball players won’t want to miss out on.

Control:
The control scheme is as follows:
On offense, the A button is to pass, and the B button shoots the ball. The L button is held to back up a player into the post, while R is the Turbo trigger to get your player to run. X will perform crossover/special moves, and Y will bring up the passing icons for all the other players on your team. Hitting Up on the control pad will call a pick for the player with the ball, and pressing Down brings up the plays your offense can call. The control stick can be used to pass much the same way as on NBA Courtside from last year. The Z button can be used to go into “Pivot mode” where you can make some moves, such as jab steps at a defender to try to get them to commit out of position. A very thorough scheme on the offensive end.

While defending, A switches your control to the closest player to the ball handler. B is to jump/block a shot/rebound. Y brings up the icon switching, where you can switch to any player on the floor without having to switch manually through all your players. L squares up your controlled player in a defensive crouch, and X is used to steal the ball. Z is used to call for a double team on the player who has the ball. Again, the scheme holds its own on the defensive end as well. The controls are definitely a strong point in this latest 2K3 game.

Multiplayer:
The game is a little slow in terms of excitement for multiple players. The simulation style doesn’t quite fit in well with fast paced, head to head action, but if you have a couple players who enjoy the strategy aspect of the game, it can still be a highly enjoyable game for two or more players. You won’t generally have a high flying dunk fest, but perhaps you can talk some smack after you execute a perfect pick and roll in your opponent’s face. A satisfactory game to play with your pals, but hardly the head to head riot that NBA Jam served as, oh, so many years ago.

OVERALL:
Now, I may have been critical of NBA 2K3, but I don’t want you to leave thinking I didn’t enjoy the game. Hell, I love the game. It’s a slower pace than I’m accustomed to in a video game, but that’s what I expected and wanted from it. I’ve played basketball in real life all the way from elementary school, to high school, right through a year of JUCO hoops, and still play every week, so I have been around the game a long time. This is the kind of game that I can play strategy, work the clock, do whatever I need to from a strategic point in a given game. It isn’t just a scorefest to see who can bomb up the most 3’s in a game. It definitely makes you work the ball and rewards smart play, such as hitting a great pass to an open man for an open jumper, lay-up or dunk. On that note, I shall now provide and example, which is the best game I have played of NBA 2K3 so far, and coincidentally, the game I just finished playing:

I am, of course, the Minnesota Timberwolves, which is a given, since I am a hairy man. No, wait… I remember, it’s because I’m from Minnesota. I am in the third year of my franchise, and my last game was against the Raptors. Now, for the majority of the game, I was trailing by 7-10 points. I was down 10 going into the fourth quarter. I managed to chip the lead down to 4, then fell back to 8, and then I ran it to a tie with 3 minutes to go. The lead went back and forth, one point either way. I needed a defensive stop to get a chance to shoot for the win, and Jensen came up with a great rebound on a long 3 point attempt. (Which would have put me down by 4 if it went in.) I had to move it up the court, and it ended up culminating in my point guard, Mr. Ian Wright, #1 pick overall, hitting a game winning shot coming off a pick as time expired. T’Wolves win 89-88. It is this kind of game that I want to play. A back and forth affair that will benefit those who play tough defense, not a run and gun “Who will shoot the last 3” game. Now let me share the secret I hold to running a great comeback. The secret is this…

Avril Lavigne. (Who, coincidentally, is going to bear my offspring, but that is another story for another day, children.) I know the naysayers out there may disagree, and think that perhaps defense or fundamentals are the key to playing a great game of basketball, but they are wrong. That’s why they are naysayers, and not something better, like, say… doctors, or lawyers, or video game reviewers. (The real heroes.) The proof is in the pudding (a stupid saying, but one I shall use regardless of how dumb it sounds) from my last game. I was down 10 going into the last quarter. Prior to that I had NOT had Ms. Lavigne playing. My MP3 player then decided, through shuffle mode, to play an A.L. song at the start of the 4th quarter. Soon, the lead fell to 4, then the song ended, and the next (non-Lavigne) song came on. My deficit falls back to 8. Noticing the pattern, I select another song, which is indeed fortified with extra Avril-ness. Suddenly, by the end of the song, I am tied in the game. Coincidence? I think not. So I played some Lavigne-y goodness the rest of the way, and sure enough, I win the game in remarkable fashion. Now, you may not think this is scientific proof, but I shall provide you with this fact:

Record in games where I listen to Avril Lavigne songs in the 4th quarter: Never lost.

Record in games where I do NOT listen to Lavigne songs in the 4th: Have occasionally lost.

So there you go, scientists. Put that in your flask, heat it up over your Bunson burner, and stick it right where the carbon cycle restarts. I have obviously proven myself correct, and you owe me an apology, and a large cash settlement.

OK, enough of my idiocy.

To bring an end to this madness, I shall state this yet again. NBA 2K3 is a great basketball game. It may not be for everyone, but for those looking for this style of game, you can’t possibly go wrong with it. You may not listen to the game for long, and may end up turning it off in favor of something else, (Perhaps… Avril Lavigne?) but you will definitely play this one for a long time once you get going in it. The franchise mode is very deep and enjoyable, and even playing a game with your buddies can be both a hoot and a holler. All around, I give NBA 2K3 my official seal of approval, and now that Sega has that, they can breathe again, and are free to get to work on 2K4.

 

The Lowdown on  NBA 2K3 Aesthetics: Awesome Control: Awesome Gameplay: Awesome Multiplayer: Above Average Sound: Below Average Innovation: 3/6 Lasting Appeal: 5/6 Overall: Awesome! "Top of the Genre"