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NBA Inside Drive 2003 Review
Richard Amos
27/01/2003
Microsoft’s offering of basketball simulation confirms our initial affirmations that they’re not always right.
NBA Inside Drive 2003 is, pretty obviously, the sequel to last yearās 2002 offering and has improved in various areas, but weāre not exactly sure if itās enough. For those not acquainted with the series, Inside Drive is Microsoftās attempt at cashing in on the more simulation-based basketball, hoping to rake in the punters who find EAās NBA Live too arcadey. Sadly, the big M are undoubtedly finding themselves up to their neck in water, with Segaās NBA 2K2 out and 2K3 rapidly approaching on the horizon.
The biggest new feature to this game is the franchise mode ā“ not being basketball loonies here at TVG, we canāt comment on the realism/quality of this, but we can explain the features. You are given a team, which you can then work with for up to 25 seasons, managing all aspects of it such as transfers of players. The settings are pretty extensive and you can set things such as difficulty or the length of seasons. This option is obviously only going to appeal to the most hardcore basketball fans, but all the same is a great and much welcomed addition. Itās undeniable, however, that this play mode will add months of last ability to the game. Thumbs up.
Also added in this new version is a Practice mode, where you can learn how to shoot properly without throwing the ball into the crowd, or just practice some dribbling skills. Obviously this option adds no longevity, but it does provide constant support for expanding your skills when needed.
The create a player mode is again expanding on the customisable aspect of the game, and you can set various attributes such as offensive skills, defensive skills and physical attributes. All in all, you can be THAT guy playing pro basketball; most definitely an option for the daft homebound game fanatics to live out their moronic dreams to be an NBA superstar, although the more hormonally adept fanatics will be slightly let down by the lack of female player models.
With regards to gameplay, we hated this game. The controls are extremely responsive, yet there is no player to player interaction ā“ every player seems to be inside an invisible box and youāll be hard pushed to get close to any player for defence; it truly feels like a very old sprite-based game and itās such a pity. Reinforcing this is the terrible lack of fluidness ā“ reverse the direction of your character and he barely animates, but instead the player model just swivels. Some may say that this is just visual not gameplay, but itās both ā“ we found ourselves shouting profanities at the screen as our wooden players skated around the court bumping into each otherās invisible walls.
Of course, this game is not without itās merits; the shooting animations do look slick and the clever use of the d-pad to set formations is very well implemented, making teamwork a dream. On another plus, the commentary is spot on; the commentators interact with each other and fit seamlessly with the gameplay - a true gem, yet let down by rather bland sound effects on the whole. Graphically this game has great character models ā“ you couldnāt mistake one player for another and the reflections are superb - yet they are fatally flawed by the terrible low-colour crowd sprites as well as various glitches that you just wish would go away.
