ESPN College Hoops Preview

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if you talked to me on aim about sports games, then u already know how muck i loved ech2k4


and now a preview of 2k5

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/554/554895p1.html

October 07, 2004 - Sega's College Hoops series has never been the "little brother" of NBA 2K as some may think. In fact, developer Kush Games has offered numerous innovations over the past three years and with ESPN College Hoops 2K5, the series takes some awesome steps to set itself apart from any other bball game on the market -- college or pro. This is not some weak follow-up. Hoops 2K5 uses the NBA 2K5 engine to create incredible visuals while boosting the sound elements for even better atmosphere than last season. Gameplay and control have been tweaked, AI rewritten to make the game smarter from tip-off to the final buzzer, and Legacy Mode has been turned into one of the most promising franchise modes out there. college Hoops 2K5 is definitely not shaving points -- it's come to win and win big.

The Play is the Thing
Last year, College Hoops was a little drive happy and just a bit too superstar for its own good. For that reason, IsoMotion is being de-emphasized this year. That's not to say you won't be able to dribble, fake left, drive right, and throw it down, but you won't have as many over-the-top animations this year and IsoMotion will be completely based on a ballers skill. Team play and proper execution are the emphasis this year, but there's still plenty of flash and some new controls that will promote the pass and superior court vision.

Controls have been remapped, which means you'll need to spend a little time adjusting, because a few options are now on different buttons and some things have been removed all-together. On the removal list, there's no longer defensive control with the Right Thumbstick, with Hoops 2K% relying on better scripting to help you to properly defend. On offense, the Left Trigger is no longer used for posting up. Instead, you'll have a different post-up button. The Left Trigger is now a shift button, similar to NHL 2K5, and is meant for more advanced moves.

To limit the effectiveness of hop step (which is not as powerful as in NBA 2K5), you'll need to use the shift and the IsoMotion button. Want to do a spin step? It's turbo, IsoMotion, and shift at the same time. It's not difficult to do at all, but the added complexity is meant to keep you from relying to heavily on these moves and it works pretty well.

Lead passes have their own button and can often lead to some fancy passes and allow for some great fast breaks. This helps with drives to the basket and you can also perform the give-and-go by shifting and passing to another player or you can tell a player to head for the hoop by shifting a lead pass. If your player can dunk and there's a clear lane to the basket, he'll go for air, snatch the rock, and slam it down. This doesn't work very often in the half-court, but can be great on a fast break and the variety in alley-oop and dunk animations is impressive.

Throw down a good offensive play and you'll often be rewarded with a replay from multiple angles. You may also inspire the motion-captured cheerleaders to do any variety of cheers or you may even be treated to a little mascot dance. Who doesn't want to see the Syracuse Orange doing the running man?

Good Charity
While I do enjoy the controls changes this year, with games having a proper flow based on the way teams play, my favorite alteration is the ingenious change to freethrows. Let's face it, the old way of shooting freethrows in previous versions of Sega hoops games was, well, total crap. Just plain terrible and it seemed each year actually got worse and worse. Finally there's a solution. Forget meters or adjusting triggers or using thumbsticks or any of it. College Hoops 2K5 gets rid of all those things. Instead of a timing meter, you hold down the shoot button and watch as your player goes into his shooting motion. You then must release the shoot button when it feels like the right time for release.

It may sound a little strange, but from the very first time I shot, the new style was instantly comfortable. You won't be able to easily figure out the timing for free throws, because players shoot differently. Just like Shaq shoots from the charity stripe unlike anyone else, you'll find a variety of different shooting animations that require different timing. But it feels natural. The better a shooter, the wider the margin for error.

The ability to shoot and make free throws and not hate any of it, is actually pretty crucial to Hoops 2K5, because you can work for fouls. Sure, you may not get every call, but if you try and draw contact, you have a good chance of success. Tough I've only had College Hoops long enough to play eight games, so far fouls feel pretty accurate. There aren't many charging calls and you can often hack shooters on defense. With the realistic ball physics kicking the rock around the rim, you get some dramatic moments where you're holding your breath on defense, hoping the ball rolls off the rim to avoid the chance for a three-point play.

Floor General
Control is only part of the gameplay equation. There's AI to consider as well and this year sees some genuine scripting improvements. Zone and transition logic have been rewritten for more accuracy and for more depth. Defenders fill the lane and in transition you'll now get a trailer and sometimes an outside shooter who sets up at the perimeter for the kick out.

This year on defense, things happen when you expect them to happen. AI teammates react properly, especially if they have good ratings, and there are lots of subtle touches that help improve the overall feel. For example, if you beat a man with a spin move, instead of standing still, he'll react like a real defender and try to step back to set up for the block. Players don't give up on plays that often, so be ready to bring your A-game.

Even substitutions have been rewritten if you choose to auto-sub. Your depth chart now equals the order you want to sub players. In the past, the AI would take out a point guard and replace him with another guard, even if that guard was your tenth man. Now the AI looks down the list. If your sixth man is a small forward, the AI will shift the lineup to accommodate.

Build Your Legacy
The new 40-year Legacy mode shares only some minor elements from last season. It's been completely revamped and reworked to be as comprehensive as possible. The focus this year is about your coach and taking them from a first-year newbie with little skill to an institution at a prominent college. Legacy isn't just about winning games, it's about evolving your coach, building his skills and climbing the college ranks, gaining prestige as you improve yourself.

Your coach has five vital stats: Teach, recruit, scout, offense, and defense. You begin with C- ratings in each, with five points to distribute. You also begin at a low-end college and will need to work your way up to a premiere school. Not only will your ratings matter for improving your players and team, you will hire two coaches who will be equally instrumental.

These other coaches start off just as mediocre as you because, frankly, no quality coach would join your staff at this point in your career. You'll then be able to set a variety of modifiers that will affect how you recruit and your team's focus on the court. This includes setting first and secondary recruiting priorities (I went for skills and potential), primary and secondary defenses, pressure type, offensive pacing, your fast-break ratio, and a few other settings. Not only will these be used in games you play, but are also used for all of your simmed games.

Where things get really interesting is in the daily and weekly preparations. Each week you and your coaches will have a set amount of points, which are used to train your team, scout opponents, and recruit. Yes, recruiting is a factor from day one, as there is an early signing period pre-season and a signing period after the Tournament. So now you can get letters of intent early -- but so can every other team. Yes, all 320+ teams will be recruiting just like you all season long. It can get pretty intense.

The more points spent on training and scouting, the less you have for recruiting that week. And all recruiting travel is equated by distance, so if you are a small team with less budget and time than a big school, pursuing kids on the other side of the country will eat up all your time. Each recruiting option must be delegated to a different coach, eating away at their time. Results are then based on their recruiting skill and the info they bring back is dependant on their scouting skill. The thing is, if you send a coach to see a recruit, they aren't on campus that day. So send your defensive guru on a trip and your own gym rats won't have a chance to learn from them that day. This can become crucial later in the season, especially when you are about to face a powerful team that requires a lot of practice and scouting.

You'll also want to stay in contact with potential recruits throughout the season. Some kids may not decide to sign a letter of intent until the last possible moment, so you'll have to continue to email and visit so they don't feel neglected. At the same time, you will want to be sure that your bench players get some good playing time. While they won't complain about playing time or anything dramatic like that, the more court time a player gets, the more of a boost they earn to their court awareness. If you don't play, you basically lose your feel for the game.

The entire season is a balance of time and as any college coach can tell you, there's never enough time. While it may be a bit daunting for some, to those who want a great franchise experience, College Hoops 2K5 will offer quite a lot of off-the-court decisions.

The Coaching Carousel
At the end of each season, following both the 35 in-season tournaments (minus the official names), numerous conference tourneys, and the NCAA Tournament, it's time for you to look at job offers. But not only will you have job offers, so will numerous other coaches throughout the NCAA. Welcome to the coaching carousel.

You can watch as coaches are fired or leave and head to other teams. One coach leaving means a spot opens at a college which means another coach may leave for that school. Each coach takes their playbook and play settings with them, so that teams evolve around the coaches philosophy, which is a pretty cool idea.

Once the season is officially over, your coach is judged on performance and awarded for different performance goals. These career goals include things like having a winning season, winning a berth in the big Tournament, earning 500 career wins, and nabbing a lifetime contract from a college. Each goal earned equals a point you can spend to increase a coaching attribute by one point (say for from C- to C). You may earn five points one year and none the next. Should you achieve all goals (which is no guarantee) you'll have A+s across the board.

This is College Hoops
For the past two years, Visual Concepts has focused on presentation and College Hoops 2K5 is no different. A nice new touch is ESPN News. This generated news story can be viewed after every single game played and is ten pages long. With each section featuring over a dozen variations, you'll have a great deal of variety in each story, plus highlights of your game to view. That is damn impressive. While you may not want to read the news, you should, because it's pretty good stuff and often quite funny.

During the game, you'll see cut-scenes of players pointing at one another in congratulations, pumping their fists, pounding their chests, and arguing with refs. The mascot will try and pump up the crowd and as always, the crowd sounds are key to creating some great atmosphere. I love hearing the individualized school cheers, the chants for victory, and the countdown as the shot clock winds down. There's a great spirit here that will please hoops fans for certain.


A couple of new modes have also been included this season. Instead of simming games, you an choose to enter Coach Mode. This mode has you on the sideline, watching the action and basically calling plays, substituting players, and doing everything a coach would do. As for online, tournaments and leagues will be added this year, though it's not certain if they will be 16-player or 32-player. Sadly, no giant 64-team tourneys are going to happen, so you can't recreate the true NCAA Tournament experience.

The Buzzer Beater
Phew, that sure is a lot of new stuff for ESPN College Hoops 2K5. Guess what, I've actually glossed over some stuff and even omitted some other improvements -- like the ability to use the Right Thumbstick in Legacy Mode to open a sidebar menu to access any part of the game you want instantly! There's quite a lot of game here, a number of improvements, and I'll give you a deeper look at some of these in the coming weeks. This is, after all, just our first look at College Hoops 2K5.

Will this be the best basketball game of the year? It's hard to say right now, because the AI still needs to stand the test of time. What will Legacy mode be like 20 years in? It's hard to say, but I'm looking forward to finding out. I certainly have some concerns, as there are still some small issues with gameplay that may or may not be resolved before Hoops 2K5 ships in mid-November. It's looking very, very good and I'm hopeful that no major issues arise, because this could easily be the hoops game of the year.

Look for more on ESPN College Hoops 2K5 over the next month. Until our next piece, be sure to click the link below and check out the new screens and movies of College Hoops in action.



one thing i noticed is it didnt mention much about online play, now i dont kno about x box but on ps2 everytime i went online nobody was there!!!

[pretty crack]

[Journey Mics]

this the espn college basketball?

i like those breakdowns and shit, thats nice. just hope the gameplay is good.

[pretty crack]

live and espn gameplay has humngous fuck ups in them
cant get any worst

[pretty crack]

more info

October 25, 2004 - One of the nifty new additions to ESPN College Hoops 2K5 is ESPN News. Following any game -- whether you played or simmed the game -- you can check out a news story about your team's latest triumph or defeat. Each story is between 300-500 words long. How does it stay fresh game after game? Each paragraph is a section and each section has about 15 text variables, meaning that you have hundreds of possible combinations. The news is always focused on your team, as if it's from your local town, which makes it a bit more personalized.

Sometimes it's the little touches that make a game just a tad more special than others. Rather than talk you to death about ESPN News, we're going to shut up and let you read two examples from the game itself that we've encountered during our Legacy. The first game comes early in IGN's Coach Hollis Minnieweather's career as coach of the UC Davis Aggies and the second comes five years later as coach of New Mexico State. Enjoy.


UC Davis Romps and Stomps Trojans 81-57

Berkeley, CA -- It is said that in College Hoops, the difference between the winning programs and the losing one's can often be found in the quality of the coach at the helm. If this is indeed a truism, then the eminence of coaching UC Davis as provided by Coach Minnieweather must indeed be of a superior tenor. With his input, his Aggies rolled to an impressive 81-57 victory in play against the USC Trojans that virtually bordered on the implausible.

Minnieweather's players were organized to near perfection, continually frustrating their foes with flawless execution and brilliant decision-making. The team was truly an extension of the coach's considerable hoops savvy and that was the resounding difference in their dominant play.

"Everything about last night was big," stated Coach Minnieweather pursuant to his team's dismantling of their opponent. "Big game. Big effort. Big blowout. So, what I'm thinking is, don't sweat the small stuff. Bigger is better. Tonight was the super-sized burger with the mound of fries and the vat of soda. Suck it back and remember that one day you'll be starving for a bite and all you'll have to chew on is the memory of nights like this."


Markus Crumbley married effort to an intense determination in scoring 10 points, ripping down 10 boards and powering the Aggies attack.

The Aggies seemed intent on proving that the best defense is a good offense as they kept the Trojans occupied with pulling the ball out of their own net, thereby preventing them from even getting a sniff of anything resembling a transitional game. The centerpiece of the Aggies attack was the ability to get the most out of their shot selection, which yielded a sparkling 52.5 field goal percentage on 21 of 40 shooting. The offensive fireworks continually allowed the Aggies to set up their defense, which helped frustrate the Trojans.

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Late 92-90 Defeat a Bitter Pill to Swallow for Aggies

Las Cruces, NM -- Back in the days when O.J. Simpson was more famous than infamous, he once said that, "The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that's the day you start to the top."

As his team walked off the floor following their 92-90 defeat at the hands of the Huskies of Washington, Coach Minnieweather smiled and noted that, "That wasn't the result we wanted, but that game just taught us how to be a real team. Our kids just learned a lesson in personal accountability that will need to become routine if we want to be the team we know that we can be."

Throughout this game, the Aggies competed with tenacity, but more than that, there seemed to be a dawning realization on their part that they were in this one together as teammates, and that should bode well for the future of this program that has begun to show signs of moving forward in the right direction, regardless of the implications that could be drawn from an observation of simple wins and losses. This is a team that is starting to come together.


In addressing the media, Coach Minnieweather's heart remained cradled in his hands, with his shoulders rounded in defeat. "My head hurts, my throat is raw, my stomach is churning like a Mixmaster and I think my left foot is fractured in several places from kicking a chain at the buzzer. That was more frustrating than watching my wife drive. I was watching my kids and I could tell that I was doing the air brake on the sideline in the same way I do in the passenger's seat with my wife.

"Sometimes you have to fight the urge to try and sub yourself in the game. I'm told the NCAA would frown on that," said Minnieweather, surely providing many observers with a frightening mental image of him in shorts. "At the end of the day, I'm encouraged, even in defeat, that what we're doing is starting to show some results. From here, I think it'll be about continuing down this path and seeing where it takes us."

Had Kashien Broermann cleaned any more glass last night against Washington, the local Janitors' Union would likely have filed a grievance. In vacuuming up 9 boards, Broermann provided a tidy example of how to maintain an orderly key through the applications of some motivation and elbow grease.





DOOOOPE

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Its Coming

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here is IGN's

October 21, 2004 - ESPN College Hoops 2K5, coming mid-November for a mere $20, is one of IGN's most anticipated sports games this year. Using the NBA 2K5 engine, College Hoops 2K5 offers up realistic visuals, the awesome realization of the college experience, refined gameplay, and a superior Legacy mode.

Some may roll their eyes at the thought of a college game being superior to either of the pro hoops games available this year. Believe it. From everything we've seen and experienced (assuming Visual Concepts irons out a few bugs here and there) College Hoops 2K5 may just raise the bar on bball games of the future, both pro and amateur. To help illustrate why we think College Hoops 2K5 is so dandy, we've compiled a list of our top five favorite things about Visual Concept's upcoming hoop dreams game.

Sometimes we have to stretch a bit to find five things to love about a game, but there are actually a number of items that could have made this list and did not. The entire college atmosphere, which has always been a big part of the Hoops franchise, doesn't get a nod this time out. It remains great and is actually better than before with more team songs, dancing mascots, and 3D crowds, but the other new additions are just too cool to leave off the list. However, that would have been our #6 if this were a Top Six list, which it is not.

While we could really make a Top 10, even a Top 15 list, this is about the very best of Hoops 2K5. Online leagues, the new Coach Mode, and even the improved use of IsoMotion didn't make the cut. Keep reading to find out what did.

#5 - ESPN News

Since the licensing agreement with ESPN two years ago, every Sega game has seen some serious integration with American's major sports network. While NFL 2K5 remains king in this department, College Hoops 2K5 is also stepping up to the plate. In Legacy mode, you can check out some of your standard fare, such as the ESPN Coaches Poll, team and player stats, and conference leaders. The one area that sets Hoops apart from the rest is ESPN News, an ingenious daily newspaper story that chronicles the triumphs and travails of your team in words and video.

Following each played game, you can head to ESPN News and watch highlights of that game, along with a generated headline and full news story. The stories, which tend to run about 10 pages long, are broken into sections. Each section have about 15 variables along with fill-in-the-blank areas for score, team names, players, etc. Reading one of these stories, which are often good for a chuckle, is never the same experience twice. Sure, there will be times when you will recognize a chunk of text, but thanks to the Mad Libs aspect of the design, things aren't as repetitive as you might think.

Not only are the stories of played games accurate, with video highlights you can pause, slo-mo, rewind, and pause, but there are non-game related stories as well. At the start of the season, you man get a two-page blurb about your coach and the program's outlook. It's impressive stuff and helps add some context to the season.

When you blow out an opponent, where's the first place you go? Or when you come back from 15 down at the half and win, where's the first thing you check? Or when you win your conference championship, where do you go? That's right, to ESPN News. It becomes a habit after each game.

#4 - Pass-N-Go

The give-n-go is nothing new to basketball games, but it's seen some changes with Hoops 2K5. It's not just the alley-oop and give-n-go that have been refined. Pass controls in general are a little different this year and they all tie in together to make for an easy way to chuck the rock.

Lead passes have their own button this year, allowing you to easily get the ball ahead on a fast break. But this can also be used in the half-court to get the ball to the player closest to the basket. A lead pass won't always be a Hail Mary. It's dependant on the position of the passer, receiver, and defenders. You may get a skip pass or a lob, it's all relative to positioning, but if you are careless, you can easily give away the rock. Don't pass indiscriminately and you'll have no problems. The AI, even on crappy teams, isn't going to allow you to throw into a clogged passing lane without contesting the pass.

he Left Trigger now acts as a shift for control, similar to what's used in NHL 2K5. Shift the pass button to perform a give-n-go where the passer gives up the rock and then heads to the basket. The runner keeps a passing icon over his head for a few seconds, making it easy to quickly give back the ball. The more exciting option is shifting the lead pass button. If you have a clear lane to the hoop, this will perform an alley-oop and some of the passing animations are downright dreamy.

If the lane isn't open, the receiver will still move towards the hoop. They won't go for air, but they will catch the ball (assuming it isn't stolen) and their momentum will be heading hoopwards. This is a good way to draw fouls and with the new free throw system, you'll actually want to go to the line.

#3 - Free Throws

Let's be honest here, the NBA 2K series and subsequently the College Hoops series has suffered from the worst free throw system out there. Amazingly the free throw system has actually gotten worse in the past few years. Finally, VC has a solution. Hoops 2K5 scraps that garbage system and does something truly unique, something that betters the complex analogue mess of NBA 2K5 and the simple but unrealistic meter system of NBA Live. While it doesn't have a name that we know of, we like to call it the "Natural System" and it is a beautiful thing.

The Natural System has no meters whatsoever and requires only that you hold and release the shoot button. As you hold the button, the free throw shooter prepares for the shot. Your release needs to match the natural feel of when the shooter would release that shot. It's an intuitive thing and your margin for error depends on the talents of the shooter.

To make things more interesting, there are a variety of shooting styles, each with their own rhythm, forcing you to learn to shoot with the individual and not off of some nonsensical meter system. It does take time to get used to the new method, but it feels very natural and when you miss, you can almost always understand why.

VC has even found a way to simulate the pressure of a big free throw shot. The controller vibrates violently with the rhythm of your player's heatbeat. When the game is on the line, you can really feel the tension in your player as the fans scream and wave banners trying to distract you. No other free throw system feels real. Sure, some work well, like NBA Live's, but this is the first that actually makes sense. For once, you will enjoy going to the line in a Sega hoops game.

#2 - Non-Stop Recruiting

In the past, recruiting in college hoops games came at the end of the season, after the NCAA Tournament. You had a few weeks to convince high school kids to sign a letter of intent with your school. Sure, there was some scouting during the season, but it wasn't representative of how things really work in college.

Hoops 2K5 offers up non-stop recruiting from the first day of preseason right on past the final game of the season. You'll have a chance early on to sign kids to your program. And, in fact, you'll see a lot of big name high school kids sign letters of intent in the early signing period. Then, throughout the year you will assign recruiting tasks to your three coaches. Stay in contact with your big prospects, scout their games, invite them on to campus, and do your best each week to build a relationship the kid can't turn away from.

All of this must be balanced with coaching your current team and winning yourself some games. Time spent off campus visiting recruits is time away from your team. They can't coach themselves, so you need to choose the right time to travel.

Fortunately, the highly sortable lists return, so you can easily see which local center has at least a medium interest in your school. This helps a lot, because you will talk to and scout dozens and dozens of kids every year, far more than you did in previous College Hoops games. You'll need to determine who is worthy of your time and then work to prove your school is the best fit. It's not an easy task, but it's the most robust recruiting system we've ever seen and it really never ends, even when the season comes to a close. It's non-stop, which is just the way we like it.

#1 - Grow Your Coach

Previously in College Hoops, you created a coach and followed his career from school to school. That idea remains in 2K5, but now it's much more dynamic. Your coaching ability was once completely based on your own talent, making it a little easy to hop up the ladder to the biggest schools. This year, you start as a crappy coach. You have five attributes, each initially set at C-. You also get two coaches to help you out, each one pretty mediocre in their own respects. Add to that the fact you will be coaching a low-tier school and you can see that you really are starting at the bottom of the NCAA ladder.

As a coach with a 40-year career, you have a large set of goals to meet. Some are very difficult (500 career wins), some are more manageable (earn an NCAA Tournament berth). At the end of a season, each goal met that year earns you one point to develop your coaches attributes. You may earn three or four points one year and none two or three years in a row, as it becomes more difficult to amass goals as you go deeper in your career.

As your coach improves, you'll get job offers. But it's not like before, where some random text shows up telling you that another job is available. Instead, each season ends with the Coaching Carousel. There are a number of coaches in the carousel and with each round a coach may be fired, opening up a position. When a position opens, another coach steps in, meaning they leave their old school behind. This is the yearly shuffle and it's fascinating to watch and even more interesting to participate in.

Added in with the year-long recruiting, growing your own coach helps to emulate the true essence of a college legacy. Will you become famous or a failure? As you grow, your assistants grow too -- or can be fired with better coaches hired in their place. Your coaches can even leave to take the reigns at another school, depending on his ambition. It's a robust system that, so far, has performed very well for us. The Legacy mode is great because of the choices you make with your coach and your team. Your coach now has a real value to the team and leaving for another job isn't just a matter of clicking a button -- it's a process and we dig it big time.




DONT BE GAY, DROP 20 ON COLLEGE HOOPS

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dope

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hot