blurredvision
Lifer
Well, I finally got my 360 back from repair, and queued up all the demos I've missed out on over the past month. NBA 2K8 was one of the first to get done, so I went ahead and booted it up. To my surprise, someone has finally made a sports game that has tons of on-court/field presentation!! This looks like the sports game that I've been waiting on for years.
For me, when I buy a sports game, presentation is just as important as gameplay. I'm the kind of person that would put up with a couple of quirks in the gameplay department if the presentation was up to snuff. This is one of the reasons I've been unhappy with Madden for the past few years.
In the NBA 2K8 demo, the animations are fantastic! They are 98% fluid, and everything just looks real. Stretching before the tip-off, high-fives after a basket, backpedaling, dribbling, shooting, anything....it all looks the best I've ever seen. Then, you start to notice the TON of people and stuff on the sidelines and end court. It basically looks as populated as a real stadium would be. There isn't empty space anywhere that I could see in the demo.
Then you look at the bench. You have your reserves lounging on the bench, then one will lean back and cross his legs while he watches. Others are leaned forward watching, or doing their own thing. If you watch them, they switch up and do different things, and not once does it look forced or fake. Then you look into the stands, and it's probably one of, if not the, best crowd I've ever seen in a videogame. There didn't appear to be largely repeated animations, so everyone is doing their own thing. And FINALLY! People are all the time walking up the stairs to the concourse, and others are squeezing by in the aisles trying to get to the stairs. I was amazed, this is what I've always wanted from a game. I know I've said in the past that it would be cool to have people acting normally in the stands, walking and stuff.
I also read that either 2K8 or Live 08 would implement TV camera angles this year to help mimic the TV broadcast we all see. I don't remember if it was this one, but I think it is, because these are the best cameras I've seen in a basketball game. I've always wanted realistic camera angles after the plays. This is one thing that's always irked me about Madden, is that the camera angles and movement aren't very realistic, they just lock onto a player and are static as hell when the player moves.
Other than all that, the frame rate absolutely sucks in the demo, and even after everything I posted here, I wouldn't buy it for this very reason. Hopefully they'll clean it up for the retail release, because if they don't, they'll get some pretty bad reviews because of it. It does affect on-court gameplay occassionally, and the cutscenes are marred because of it.
For me, when I buy a sports game, presentation is just as important as gameplay. I'm the kind of person that would put up with a couple of quirks in the gameplay department if the presentation was up to snuff. This is one of the reasons I've been unhappy with Madden for the past few years.
In the NBA 2K8 demo, the animations are fantastic! They are 98% fluid, and everything just looks real. Stretching before the tip-off, high-fives after a basket, backpedaling, dribbling, shooting, anything....it all looks the best I've ever seen. Then, you start to notice the TON of people and stuff on the sidelines and end court. It basically looks as populated as a real stadium would be. There isn't empty space anywhere that I could see in the demo.
Then you look at the bench. You have your reserves lounging on the bench, then one will lean back and cross his legs while he watches. Others are leaned forward watching, or doing their own thing. If you watch them, they switch up and do different things, and not once does it look forced or fake. Then you look into the stands, and it's probably one of, if not the, best crowd I've ever seen in a videogame. There didn't appear to be largely repeated animations, so everyone is doing their own thing. And FINALLY! People are all the time walking up the stairs to the concourse, and others are squeezing by in the aisles trying to get to the stairs. I was amazed, this is what I've always wanted from a game. I know I've said in the past that it would be cool to have people acting normally in the stands, walking and stuff.
I also read that either 2K8 or Live 08 would implement TV camera angles this year to help mimic the TV broadcast we all see. I don't remember if it was this one, but I think it is, because these are the best cameras I've seen in a basketball game. I've always wanted realistic camera angles after the plays. This is one thing that's always irked me about Madden, is that the camera angles and movement aren't very realistic, they just lock onto a player and are static as hell when the player moves.
Other than all that, the frame rate absolutely sucks in the demo, and even after everything I posted here, I wouldn't buy it for this very reason. Hopefully they'll clean it up for the retail release, because if they don't, they'll get some pretty bad reviews because of it. It does affect on-court gameplay occassionally, and the cutscenes are marred because of it.
