NBA Live 2000 is yet another installment in the long running Live francise. It is easily the best Live yet, but is it the best basketball game to date? Read on to find out.
Graphics
 Well let me start off by saying that the graphics for this basketball game are the best we can expect from the playstation. Until the PS2 hits we can't expect better graphics than this from a B-ball game. Now the engine in Live2K pretty similar to NBA Live 99 but they upgraded it slightly. The stadiums and jerseys are right on the money. They even included the tight cut off shorts for the legend players. This isn't really a good thing cause it may cause you to think of Larry Bird in his skintight tiny little shorts. Anyway, there is one big draw back in the graphics department and that is terrible framrate! Folks it is pretty bad. At some points while playing the game will actually stop for about 3 seconds. With the slow framrate it causes the game to slow down when you pass and make it a little hard to see. Another gripe I have is the knuckle touches and so on when you are shooting free throws have to be loaded. This gets kinda annoying because they are pointless anyway and you just have to keep pressing start to get past them. Now this all shouldn't be a problem for NBA Live 2001 because of the power of the PS2 in which we suspect it will be on. Now one cool thing EA added is a little "swish" in the net when you make a basket which is pretty sweet but doesn't make up for the framrate in anyway. So overall the graphics have a great look but the framrate brings the quality down a bit.
Gameplay
 The gameplay in Live2K is much improved over Live99. The AI is pretty difficult in this year's version. Say your on defense and you leave a man open, well this year the computer will find the open man and he is gonna put up a shot and they usually make them. It is also very hard to drive the lane against the CPU this year. It is actually to the point where it is almost impossible. Being a 76ers fan I have been playing with them. Now what I have found is that no matter what moves I do I can not even drive the lane with Allen Iverson who is arguably the hardest one on one match-up in the NBA. Now when I talk about all this difficulty I mean in the two top levels of gameplay because well, the two lower levels are ungodly easy. So easy you can beat the Spurs with ease while using the Clippers. Another thing I should mention is that if you have played past Live's and remember you would make very hard shots when you were fouled, well that is no longer. When you are fouled in Live2K the ball usually misses the basket all together which isn't very lifelike but neither is making a fadeaway three pointer while being fouled. Now the controls in Live2K are tight. You still sometimes do a crossover out of bounds but it still doesn't get any better than this.
 Now on to the best part of the game which is the huge amount of options. This game is simply loaded with options such as 3 point shootout, 1 on 1 with Michael Jordan (yes he is in this game) and the biggest addition, the teams of NBA legends ranging from the 50's to the 90's. A good addition this year is the franchise mode. This let you play up to 10 seasons with any team you choose. Though not nearly as deep as Madden2000's it is still a good option. The only big flaw here is that the menus are horrible. There are small icons in a sidebar representing the options. EA needs to fix this for Live2001. Well that's about it for this part of the game and I must say EA did a pretty good job in the gameplay category, yet it could have been better.
Sound
 Oh what can be said about Live2K's sound department, well I can say that it isn't very good. First I'll start with maybe the only good thing in this department and that is the music. There are some pretty good jams here such as "Hip Hop Hooray". Most of the other music is old school rap.
Now onto the bad parts and there are a couple:
This year's commentary is done by Don Poier and Reggie Theus. Sadly Reggie Theus is mostly quiet throughout the game. Don't ask me why EA only used him sparingly because I just don't know since he is such a good commentator on TV. Don Poier does an ok job but it is nothing we haven't seen before. I think I would have liked the commentary better if it didn't get cut up all the time when the framrate slows up. However the 1 on 1 trash talking is pretty good and clear.
So overall sound isn't Live2K's strong point by any means.
Value
 Now we get to the replayability of the game. This is one of the strong points of Live2K. There are tons of options in this game from 3-point shootout to 1 on 1 with anyone you choose. I mean, think of the match-ups you can have, Iverson vs. Kobe, Jordan vs. Bird, the possibilities are endless. So with all the options and players you will just keep coming back to this one.
Overall
 Overall this is a really fun game. There is so much to do, like the arcade mode that is close to NBA Jam and you can even take control of one player in a game so that you play with him and all the other players are drones. Pretty cool huh. And we can't forget the franchise mode. Anyway if you want to know if you should buy Live2K well I think I can give you the answer to that question. It is a simple as this, if you liked the other Live's in the franchise then you will simply love this game. And yes people this is the best basketball game on the playstation. Well that just about does it I hope I cleared up some things and I hope you read my future reviews and previews. |
 Reader Reviews
- N/A
| Score: |
| 8.9 |
| Gameplay |
| 8.0 |
| Graphics |
| 8.5 |
| Sound |
| 7.8 |
| Value |
| 10 |
| "Overall this is a really fun game. There is so much to do, like the arcade mode that is close to NBA Jam and you can even take control of one player in a game so that you play with him and all the other players are drones." |
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