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A lot of people think that playing sports games is a waste of time. “Why play it on your console when you can play it outside?” That’s a good question, and here is the answer: It’s pretty hard to play basketball outside in the middle of the winter, and it’s even harder to find a spot on campus to play indoors with everyone and their brother trying to get in a pickup game of hoops at Memorial Gym. This winter, you can get your hoops in with “NBA 2K6″ on the Xbox 360, and what a tremendous game it is.
From the opening of each game, it’s like you are watching the NBA on TNT or ESPN. There is an overhead fly-by of the arena on the screen, the players are introduced, and the game is then underway. Now, compared to last year’s version, the game play is still roughly the same. But what shines this year are the graphics and presentation.
The 2K Sports engine for “NBA 2K6″ is just incredible. It is literally like watching a game on television. You can see all of the on-court details, right down to the stitching on the jerseys and the player’s sweat. As the game goes on, you can see the sweat start to soak through the jerseys, making it a truly incredible experience for the casual gamer. The obvious goal that 2K Sports had in mind was to simulate the entire NBA experience. Even the sports arenas are done correctly, you look over the BankNorth Garden as they do a fly-in for a Celtics game and say to yourself, “Wow.that really is the BankNorth Garden.” It used to be that in a sports game, except for baseball and some football games, the arena would be nothing more than a randomly generated arena, with the floor and fans in the style of each individual team. This time around, each arena has been recreated in painstaking detail, so you can say, “Yes, that’s the home of the Lakers,” or, “That’s the home of the Celtics.”
As far as presentation goes, 2K Sports has done well since ESPN was gobbled up by EA Sports. Instead of being the NBA on ESPN as it was last year, it’s the NBA on 2K Sports. The announcers are very engaging, unlike the NHL title this year where the announcers were painfully making each call, as if the game of hockey was the most boring thing a man could watch. Adding some spice to the game is the Toyota Key Matches Up sponsored by Toyota Tundra, and the Toyota Player of the Game. There is real signage from various companies advertising their products as well.
Finally, in a major boost to player customization, this year just about everything on a created character can be customized to your liking, right down to the fasteners on their shoes. In all, there are at least a thousand different combinations that you can set to a created player, and really breathe life in to them. Speaking of players, each NBA player is painstakingly modeled after their relief counterpart. Shaq looks like Shaq, Kobe looks like Kobe. Not only are the players accurately modeled, but so are the coaches. Doc Rivers looks like Doc Rivers, and Larry Brown looks like Larry Brown.
If you are looking for a quality basketball game that takes the presentation and other aspects to the next level and doesn’t skimp on the gameplay, NBA 2K6 is the game that you are looking for.
Bangor Daily News