ESPN NFL 2K5 - Review

Added August 6th, 2004 by Ian Derbyshire

Introduction:

How do you compete with the biggest name in sports videogames? You sell your games for $20 USD and release them two weeks before EA's Madden? Well that would be one way, but what if they did both of those and put out a game that had excellent gameplay, graphics and sound as well? Sega is determined to compete with Electronic Arts and ESPN NFL 2K5 shows it.

Gameplay:

For all of you people who exploited the running game in last year's version I have some bad news for you: They've added some physics, your momentum won't let you run back and forth with the opposing team in a line behind you. They've also added some better AI, they block better than last year and they're smarter about pinning you against the sidelines when you're trying to break free. It also learns, in last years you could use two or three plays and they'd always work but if you don't spread it out the defence will start stopping them cold. One thing that bothered me about the AI was that your team still blows blocking assignments sometimes and I mean really blows them. I was running a strong side run in the Triple formation and all three of my blockers marched right past the defenders and I lost a good three yards. A little frustrating but on the default Pro difficulty it doesn't happen much, on medium (All Pro) it happens a bit more. The contrast between Pro and All Pro is fairly strong; I defeated Arizona by a good 60 points on Pro and couldn't score a point on them in All Pro. I obviously need more practice but it should be perfect for people looking for a bit more of a challenge. The defence side of the ball hasn't changed much except that if you run Zone defence a lot eventually the opposing QB will start to tear holes in it, frustratingly enough when you run man 2, which I do, the QB will begin to hit people who are double or triple covered sometimes. Unlikely but since it happens in real life I can't complain too much.

One of the coolest features I think they've added is the 25th Anniversary feature. This allows you to play 25 famous football plays throughout history including: The Catch, Montana to Clark in the '71 NFC Championship, and one of my personal favourites (damn the Pack!) 4th and 26 from 2003 NFC Divisional Playoffs where McNabb aired it out 28 yards to Freddie Mitchell and later went on to win the game. That would be one of those real life examples of completing in double coverage by the way.

The Crib has been changed, it is now a two story deal and instead of unlocking items by completing goals, like rushing for 300 yards in a game, you unlock crib points which you can use to purchase cool stuff for your crib like posters, popcorn machines, etc. I got some New England bar lights…Go Pats! The Crib is also where you'll receive calls from celebrities, such as David Arquette, Funkmaster Flex, Carmen Electra, Steve-O, who want to challenge you to a match with their all-star teams. So far I've only played Arquette's team and it's pretty tough, I was proud to lose only by two touchdowns. While you're playing the celebrities little pics of them pop-up and they smack talk you a bit, sometimes funny and sometimes annoying. I'm dreading playing Steve-O's team.

You don't like your team's performance in your franchise? Then make'em run two-a-days! Sega has added the ability to specify the workouts your team does to prepare for the next game. Aerobics for the receiving team, film on coverages for the QB, 7 on 7 drills, weight training for the offensive line, the possibilities are endless and the results effect your player's morale and focus. So don't work them too hard or they won't work well for you on Sunday.

Graphics:

The graphics have been improved! They're much sharper than they were last year, the players, the grass or turf, it all looks more realistic than last year. They've added more cut-scenes, more video replays after the play and it all looks amazing. The faces could still use some work but to me that's not a really that big a deal…they're wearing helmets! Sega added a bunch of new animations for tackling, and breaking tackles, making the visuals more realistic, more like a real football game. I love hitting guys at the ankles and watching them flip onto their backs. The players are all wonderfully normal mapped. The bump mapping is top notch this year and a big part of that is due to Sega developing the game on Xbox and then porting to PS2. The players are much sharper and more realistic looking than last year, just take a look at Keith Traylor's player model…yech.

Audio:

The stadiums are louder and the crowd is much more eager to let you know what they think. If you're losing and going for it on a 4th down they boo you, it's great! Sega also added customizable stadium music for those of you who didn't like the music from last year, which they're still using. My favourite feature? Lined up against the Pack and one of my linemen said "I'm coming for ya Brett." I thought that was awesome, the smack talk is more frequent and easier to distinguish over the crowd and QB.

They've changed Chris Berman to an animated face and his pregame isn't quite as cool as it was last year but his halftime is a bit cooler and still includes the hot at the half player. Dan Stevens and Peter O'Keefe are back as commentators but you can mute the TV, it's almost the same commentary from last year. Suzie Kolber has been added to provide injury reports during the game and interview the postgame hero.

Controls:

For most sports games you want an easy pick and play control set and Sega has pretty much accomplished it. On the base difficulty level the controls aren't difficult to learn but when you being to increase the difficulty level you have to learn how to read the defence or offence and then call audibles or adjust your lines, accomplished with the left and right triggers and control stick, in order to address what you see in front of you. Even that isn't hard to learn once you get the hang of it but definitely not for the first time player.

Replay:

Of course, you want to unlock everything in your Crib don't you? Other than that in Franchise mode you have to win the Superbowl at least once, and there are defensive and offensive players of the year. For the most part replayability is the same as any other sports game, every game is different and most sports fans want to create a dynasty so they keep playing year after year to build the perfect team. I'll turn it over to DylanH for the online play…

Although there seemed to be some server side problems early on the Live implementation is done very well. This is one of the first games to use the Live Server Protocol. This means that Sega and Visual Concepts are able to do things they weren't before. One example of this is ESPN Leagues. This is extremely similar to what Misrosoft offered with XSN but allows for more freedom. Where XSN forced players to hop onto their PC to create tournaments the ESPN Leagues can be set up entirely on their television screen. There's several options, you can choose to do either a full season, with many teams spanning over weeks like the real NFL or a quick tournament with three of your friends which would be much much shorter. Another cool feature is text messaging. This is something that obviously caters to the PS2 players who can use their USB keyboards to type up a quick note to their pals. It would have been nice to see voice messaging throught the Xbox communicator, this is what is what will be offered in Live 3.0 supported games very soon. Now, enough about features, let's talk about gameplay. Online you can create a match that suits your style, pick from different quarter lengths, difficulties and other options. Once you have a match created you're taken to a screen that shows players who challenge you as well as players hosting games similar to your own who you can challenge yourself. Once in game, most of the time you'll find a game that's seems very similar to something you'd play in your franchise. There may be occasional lag although I personally experienced very little.

Summary:

I thought this game was excellent, although not many changes were made to the overall gameplay Sega added plenty of features and did tweak what was already stellar gameplay. I think EA and Madden are going to have their hands full with this $20 competition.