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ESPN NFL 2K5 to launch @ $19.99!!!
Sega is taking EA on hard this year! They've reverted the name back to the 2K series moniker and are going to launch ESPN NFL 2K5 at $19.99!!! They have yet to "officially" announce it but gamestop and ebgames have already changed the price to $19.99! And if the great price doesn't grab you this in-depth preview will!
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/522/522092p1.html
The gang over at Visual Concepts (or ESPN Videogames, whichever you prefer) should be giggling like school girls right about now. When I sat down to write The Five Best Things About NCAA Football 2005http://xbox.ign.com/articles/521/521410p1.html, it was pretty easy pickings, no struggle, no debate, no feeling that something important was left off. But now, when it comes to ESPN NFL 2005 I'm hit with a very difficult decision. See, there are a lot of great things about Sega's gridiron game this season. A lot. Choosing five was not easy, because there are probably ten things, all worthy. In the end, I had to struggle to decide which five belong more than the others.
EA and Sega have been locked in a long and very one-sided football battle. Madden has cleanly thumped Sega year-after-year in terms of sales. However, when it comes to quality, games seem to be split. Which is better? Each year, that's the big question. This season, Sega's throwing a full blitz Madden's way. Will they outsell the best-selling franchise of all time? Not likely. Will it be the better game? Quite possibly. As much as I love NCAA Football 2005, each time I've played it over the past few days, it's been less satisfying than usual. That's because I also have a copy of ESPN NFL 2005 and that truly has been calling to me. From visuals to presentation to gameplay, it's shaping up to be one of the best sports games of all time. Yeah, it's really that good. So let's stop the preamble and get on with the real reason why ESPN NFL 2005 will own your soul this August.
The Other Five
Just a few sentences go I told you, a trusting reader, that I had to whittle a list of ten great things about ESPN NFL 2005 down to five. That's what I did. Then I said screw it, those other five deserve some attention. So here's a quick and dirty list of the other five, in order, of course:
#10 - Celebrities: I'm not a big fan of the celebrities in the game. Frankly, playing against some celebrity voice and having them try to talk smack over the sounds of the game is sort of annoying. But I know there have got to be some folks out there psyched for this. And the later celebrity appearances in Franchise Mode, when famous folks talk about their fave teams, should be cool.
#9 - Online Rosters: Online is nothing new for a Sega sports game, but this year there's a new twist. There will be a living roster online for league, meaning that you can trade players and sign free agents cut by other people. Very nice, indeed.
[size=-1]San Diego never looked so good.[/size]
#8 - Graphics: Holy Moses, this game looks stunning. Using Normal Mapping and a new technique of Triple Pass Rendering, you'll see muscles flex, the change of color in a uniform from dusk to night, the intensity on a player's face, and the crispest, cleanest, and prettiest sports game since, err, ever perhaps. The screens and movies do not lie. This is hot, hot, hot!
#7 - Celebrations: The No Fun League has always been against celebrations in video games, but somehow the kids at VC managed to convince the NFL to let all that slide. There are over 20 endzone celebrations in the game, and you can set six of them to the various controller buttons, allowing you to choose your celebrations as you play. These are cool and yes (sorry EA) they are better than what you've seen in NCAA. The Robot, the Fadeaway, two moves from Primetime? I'm in love! #6 - ESPN Presentation: Last year VC became determined to improve the somewhat lackluster presentation previously found in its titles. They've done so and more this year. Boomer's in the hot seat, Joe Namath's gal is on the field, and the weekly Sportscenter feature has tons of plays from a variety of games and loads of dialogue. Add to this over 200 new cut-scenes showing play and coach reactions and even fan's entering the stadium or looking distraught after a loss. Yeah, it's good stuff.
#5 - New Moves
Madden has always done a good job of adding some sort of new move or on-the-field feature each year. Sega has been a bit more conservative, keeping much of the controls and gameplay very much the same from year to year, with just minor tweaks. This year, however, ESPN NFL 2005 is adding two very nice additions to the arsenal, both of which work quite well.
The first is Maximum Tackle. This allows defenders to choose whether to go for a more standard arm-wrap tackle or to try and knock the flop off the ball carrier. The nice thing is that it uses the exact same button. The difference is, you hold down tackle for the standard arm tackle, while the quick hit requires just a tap of the tackle button. You risk a miss or having the player bounce off, but you can get some highlight reel hits this way, knock the ball loose, and even knock a player out of the game.
IGN's resident sports guru suggested that if you had quick enough fingers, you could wrap up the ballcarrier with a normal tackle, then switch to the nearest defender for a quick hit while they are defenseless. Lemme tell you right now -- that s*** works! You read that right, not only does it work, it's damn effective and a load of fun, just popping guys. It is not easy though, as you need to get lucky enough to have a tackle animation that holds the runner up for a moment and then the ability to get a defender over to the proper spot quickly. When it works, it's a beautiful thing. When it doesn't, it looks a little clumsy.
[size=-1]A perfect example of the QB Evade.[/size]
The other new move you'll be loving is one that's easy to neglect. The Quarterback Evade move is done by tapping the Right Thumbstick in any direction. The QB will try to duck and slide off a tackle, even if no one is around him. If you've got Michael Vick, he'll be more likely to slip through a lineman's grasp, whereas Kurt Warner will tend to crumple. I say that it's easy to neglect, because usually when a linebacker is about to throw down, the instinct is to run out of the pocket and throw wildly on the run. But that isn't a good option for pocket passers, so now you have the option of trying to evade and then get off a quick throw. It's taken me half an NFL season to train myself to use the QB Evade move, but now that I'm used to it, the Right Thumbstick has become my best bud. I just have to say, before moving on to #4, that ESPN NFL 2005 has some damn sweet animations this year, things that will almost fool you into believing you're watching a real football game. The QB Evade move is one, but it works in tandem with so many other nice animations that create a very fluid experience. Watching a running back stumble and plant his hand on someone elses back so he can stay upright, that's tight.
#4 - Classic Games
Taking a page from EA's NCAA Football, Sega's footballer now includes classic NFL games. Though it's offered as a celebration of ESPN's 25th Anniversary, the 25 games are really a celebration of NFL history, something that hasn't been very prominent in previous Sega offerings. Ranked are the 25 greatest moments in NFL history (though it's a bit debatable) and you get to hop into the key turning point for each game and try to recreate the magic anyway you can.
[size=-1]Don't worry Favre, it's 4th and 26 to go, no way they could...oh.[/size]
For the most part, you'll use the classic teams to play these games. So when you try and recreate the amazing Steelers win of 1972, you will have Franco Harris in the backfield and Bradshaw behind center. You don't have to get an immaculate reception, but you do need to drive for the winning TD. For a few matches that come from more recent times, things aren't quite as cherry. Last year's classic Fourth and Twenty-Sixth situation, where the Eagles shocked the Packers with a throw down the middle for a first down, is a prime example. Last year's Eagles are not a classic team, so the game uses the most recent roster, meaning you have TO at wideout, which makes things just a little easier on McNabb.
I don't know that I would list that moment in the top 25 in NFL history and I certainly would not have included The Botched Snap from 2003, when the Giants blew it against the Niners in the playoffs. That's #24. Oh-kay. The comeback was outstanding, but is it really that great of a game to relive? And this is from a Niners fan. In any event, you'll have the chance to relive some truly exceptional NFL moments from the Ice Bowl to the Bills sensational comeback against the Oilers in '93. The Catch and the Drive are included. So is one of the greatest games I've ever seen -- a Monday Nighter between Elway and Montana. You know the one. Yeah, it's there. I'm glad Sega's taking this route, because it's the way to go. Hopefully next year will see a continuation of these classic match-ups, perhaps this time flipping the tables with you trying to reverse history and make the losers of these classic matches winners instead.
#3 - Custom Music
It seems a natural fit to have custom music added to baseball games, so that you can create your own tracks for when batters step into the box, but no one was really clamoring for custom tracks for football games. Hell, I never gave it a thought until it showed up in ESPN NFL 2005 and now I can't live without it.
As with last season, ESPN comes packed with a variety of tracks right out of the box. These are at your disposal to cut and clip to any length. And if you have an Xbox, you can import as many songs as you can fit your hard drive (you read that right) to have as fully robust a music accompaniment as possible for football. Each clip, once cut, is then assigned over a dozen different occasions for use. Want a "byoing-oing-oing!" when the visiting team fumbles? If you put it on your hard drive, you can make it so. Interceptions, first downs, touchdowns, batted passes, and numerous other game events can be assigned different clips, which are then played randomly from the selections.
[size=-1]They may not be named, but those are all 'pac tunes.[/size]
I know that PS2 owners might be a bit dismayed by this, but there's a hefty number of tracks on the disc to choose from. But, to be honest, it's more interesting to talk about the stuff you can do when ripping music, so here goes. For my Xbox debug, I don't have much of anything ripped, simply because I have to reformat the hard drive from time to time and it's a drag to have to import everything again and again. But I do have a few tracks on there for racing games. I spent a good 45 minutes cutting up the choicest selection of Tupac and Public Enemy tunes.
I never realized 'pac had such slick beats behind him more often than not. You don't have any other tools to make music other than selecting a start and end point for your tunes, so you won't be able to add extra bass, for example or clean out vocals. Maybe for next year.
With a baker's dozen tracks in hand, I played some football. The first thing I should note is that your custom music always plays for the home team, whether it's the team you are controlling or not. So it can be a bit of a slap in the face to have some great tune playing it up when your opponent just scored a TD. Outside of that, it's incredibly gratifying, moreso even than celebrations, to hear that music kick in. It's a bit of my personality in the game. Sure, players have personality, the celebrations are fun, but the music is the one bit that is about me. One gamer may have country twang, some will actually go all out and create a robust and distinct selection of appropriate tunes, and others, like myself, will just have Tupac bumping. How could something so simple in concept trump the graphics and presentation of ESPN NFL 2005? You just have to hear it to understand. Though there is no ownership mode as in Madden, ESPN allows me to have some control over my own stadium -- yeah, I'm the guy the picks the music.
#2 - VIP
One thing the IGN lot have always wanted in sports games is for coaches to have specific tendencies, to coach the way they would in real life. Sega's gone one step beyond with the Virtual Identity Profile system, or VIP. Unlike the usual game profile which tracks some minor stats like wins and losses, VIP goes all out to offer the most comprehensive user stat tracking ever available. That's not hyperbole, I promise that you've never seen anything quite like VIP.
VIP tracks just about everything you could think of in terms of gameplay tendencies. How often do you spin or juke? How often do you put a man in motion? Do you ask for the Coaches Pick a lot? What side of the field do you run to? While all of this is cool to look at as a personal reference to your style of play, it also have value to other gamers. When your buddy plays against you and whoops your ass, you can now play against the CPU using your pal's VIP as a means of practice. Does your buddy call a lot of play action passes? Now you'll know just how often. VIPs will be tradable online as well, so you can try and beat the CPU version of the best in the country.
There are other VIPs in the game outside of users. There's a VIP for every real-life coach in the game, so you can study up before any match to see what the tendencies are. This means that the coaches in ESPN NFL 2005 are programmed to act as much like their real-life counterparts as possible, giving you a more realistic NFL experience. And that's part of what sports gaming is all about, isn't it?
[size=-1]How often do you flip?[/size]
As I'm the only one in the office with a copy of ESPN NFL 2005 (ha ha, suckers!) I didn't have a user VIP to test this out with. Or did I? That's right, I played against myself. Man, I do some dumb ass things. It may sound strange, but one of the best tools for improving your play may actually be to play against your own VIP. I realize I go for it on fourth down way too often, but seeing the CPU do it repeatedly and seeing first-hand how many times it played out in my favor instead of the CPU, I'm changing up my style to be a bit more conservative. By the same token, I found myself overloading the right side of the field, because only 10% of my plays are run to the left and I knew that. Well, if I can realize that, so will my opponents. EA has the EA Sports Bio, but Sega's new VIP is a far more creative and far greater tool for showcasing users. Hopefully it makes it into more ESPN Videogames in the future. I'd bet on that, so my real hope is that somehow the VIPs from football can somehow be integrated into hockey and basketball.
Sega is taking EA on hard this year! They've reverted the name back to the 2K series moniker and are going to launch ESPN NFL 2K5 at $19.99!!! They have yet to "officially" announce it but gamestop and ebgames have already changed the price to $19.99! And if the great price doesn't grab you this in-depth preview will!
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/522/522092p1.html
The gang over at Visual Concepts (or ESPN Videogames, whichever you prefer) should be giggling like school girls right about now. When I sat down to write The Five Best Things About NCAA Football 2005http://xbox.ign.com/articles/521/521410p1.html, it was pretty easy pickings, no struggle, no debate, no feeling that something important was left off. But now, when it comes to ESPN NFL 2005 I'm hit with a very difficult decision. See, there are a lot of great things about Sega's gridiron game this season. A lot. Choosing five was not easy, because there are probably ten things, all worthy. In the end, I had to struggle to decide which five belong more than the others.
EA and Sega have been locked in a long and very one-sided football battle. Madden has cleanly thumped Sega year-after-year in terms of sales. However, when it comes to quality, games seem to be split. Which is better? Each year, that's the big question. This season, Sega's throwing a full blitz Madden's way. Will they outsell the best-selling franchise of all time? Not likely. Will it be the better game? Quite possibly. As much as I love NCAA Football 2005, each time I've played it over the past few days, it's been less satisfying than usual. That's because I also have a copy of ESPN NFL 2005 and that truly has been calling to me. From visuals to presentation to gameplay, it's shaping up to be one of the best sports games of all time. Yeah, it's really that good. So let's stop the preamble and get on with the real reason why ESPN NFL 2005 will own your soul this August.
The Other Five
Just a few sentences go I told you, a trusting reader, that I had to whittle a list of ten great things about ESPN NFL 2005 down to five. That's what I did. Then I said screw it, those other five deserve some attention. So here's a quick and dirty list of the other five, in order, of course:
#10 - Celebrities: I'm not a big fan of the celebrities in the game. Frankly, playing against some celebrity voice and having them try to talk smack over the sounds of the game is sort of annoying. But I know there have got to be some folks out there psyched for this. And the later celebrity appearances in Franchise Mode, when famous folks talk about their fave teams, should be cool.
#9 - Online Rosters: Online is nothing new for a Sega sports game, but this year there's a new twist. There will be a living roster online for league, meaning that you can trade players and sign free agents cut by other people. Very nice, indeed.
[size=-1]San Diego never looked so good.[/size]
#8 - Graphics: Holy Moses, this game looks stunning. Using Normal Mapping and a new technique of Triple Pass Rendering, you'll see muscles flex, the change of color in a uniform from dusk to night, the intensity on a player's face, and the crispest, cleanest, and prettiest sports game since, err, ever perhaps. The screens and movies do not lie. This is hot, hot, hot!
#7 - Celebrations: The No Fun League has always been against celebrations in video games, but somehow the kids at VC managed to convince the NFL to let all that slide. There are over 20 endzone celebrations in the game, and you can set six of them to the various controller buttons, allowing you to choose your celebrations as you play. These are cool and yes (sorry EA) they are better than what you've seen in NCAA. The Robot, the Fadeaway, two moves from Primetime? I'm in love! #6 - ESPN Presentation: Last year VC became determined to improve the somewhat lackluster presentation previously found in its titles. They've done so and more this year. Boomer's in the hot seat, Joe Namath's gal is on the field, and the weekly Sportscenter feature has tons of plays from a variety of games and loads of dialogue. Add to this over 200 new cut-scenes showing play and coach reactions and even fan's entering the stadium or looking distraught after a loss. Yeah, it's good stuff.
#5 - New Moves
Madden has always done a good job of adding some sort of new move or on-the-field feature each year. Sega has been a bit more conservative, keeping much of the controls and gameplay very much the same from year to year, with just minor tweaks. This year, however, ESPN NFL 2005 is adding two very nice additions to the arsenal, both of which work quite well.
The first is Maximum Tackle. This allows defenders to choose whether to go for a more standard arm-wrap tackle or to try and knock the flop off the ball carrier. The nice thing is that it uses the exact same button. The difference is, you hold down tackle for the standard arm tackle, while the quick hit requires just a tap of the tackle button. You risk a miss or having the player bounce off, but you can get some highlight reel hits this way, knock the ball loose, and even knock a player out of the game.
IGN's resident sports guru suggested that if you had quick enough fingers, you could wrap up the ballcarrier with a normal tackle, then switch to the nearest defender for a quick hit while they are defenseless. Lemme tell you right now -- that s*** works! You read that right, not only does it work, it's damn effective and a load of fun, just popping guys. It is not easy though, as you need to get lucky enough to have a tackle animation that holds the runner up for a moment and then the ability to get a defender over to the proper spot quickly. When it works, it's a beautiful thing. When it doesn't, it looks a little clumsy.
[size=-1]A perfect example of the QB Evade.[/size]
The other new move you'll be loving is one that's easy to neglect. The Quarterback Evade move is done by tapping the Right Thumbstick in any direction. The QB will try to duck and slide off a tackle, even if no one is around him. If you've got Michael Vick, he'll be more likely to slip through a lineman's grasp, whereas Kurt Warner will tend to crumple. I say that it's easy to neglect, because usually when a linebacker is about to throw down, the instinct is to run out of the pocket and throw wildly on the run. But that isn't a good option for pocket passers, so now you have the option of trying to evade and then get off a quick throw. It's taken me half an NFL season to train myself to use the QB Evade move, but now that I'm used to it, the Right Thumbstick has become my best bud. I just have to say, before moving on to #4, that ESPN NFL 2005 has some damn sweet animations this year, things that will almost fool you into believing you're watching a real football game. The QB Evade move is one, but it works in tandem with so many other nice animations that create a very fluid experience. Watching a running back stumble and plant his hand on someone elses back so he can stay upright, that's tight.
#4 - Classic Games
Taking a page from EA's NCAA Football, Sega's footballer now includes classic NFL games. Though it's offered as a celebration of ESPN's 25th Anniversary, the 25 games are really a celebration of NFL history, something that hasn't been very prominent in previous Sega offerings. Ranked are the 25 greatest moments in NFL history (though it's a bit debatable) and you get to hop into the key turning point for each game and try to recreate the magic anyway you can.
[size=-1]Don't worry Favre, it's 4th and 26 to go, no way they could...oh.[/size]
For the most part, you'll use the classic teams to play these games. So when you try and recreate the amazing Steelers win of 1972, you will have Franco Harris in the backfield and Bradshaw behind center. You don't have to get an immaculate reception, but you do need to drive for the winning TD. For a few matches that come from more recent times, things aren't quite as cherry. Last year's classic Fourth and Twenty-Sixth situation, where the Eagles shocked the Packers with a throw down the middle for a first down, is a prime example. Last year's Eagles are not a classic team, so the game uses the most recent roster, meaning you have TO at wideout, which makes things just a little easier on McNabb.
I don't know that I would list that moment in the top 25 in NFL history and I certainly would not have included The Botched Snap from 2003, when the Giants blew it against the Niners in the playoffs. That's #24. Oh-kay. The comeback was outstanding, but is it really that great of a game to relive? And this is from a Niners fan. In any event, you'll have the chance to relive some truly exceptional NFL moments from the Ice Bowl to the Bills sensational comeback against the Oilers in '93. The Catch and the Drive are included. So is one of the greatest games I've ever seen -- a Monday Nighter between Elway and Montana. You know the one. Yeah, it's there. I'm glad Sega's taking this route, because it's the way to go. Hopefully next year will see a continuation of these classic match-ups, perhaps this time flipping the tables with you trying to reverse history and make the losers of these classic matches winners instead.
#3 - Custom Music
It seems a natural fit to have custom music added to baseball games, so that you can create your own tracks for when batters step into the box, but no one was really clamoring for custom tracks for football games. Hell, I never gave it a thought until it showed up in ESPN NFL 2005 and now I can't live without it.
As with last season, ESPN comes packed with a variety of tracks right out of the box. These are at your disposal to cut and clip to any length. And if you have an Xbox, you can import as many songs as you can fit your hard drive (you read that right) to have as fully robust a music accompaniment as possible for football. Each clip, once cut, is then assigned over a dozen different occasions for use. Want a "byoing-oing-oing!" when the visiting team fumbles? If you put it on your hard drive, you can make it so. Interceptions, first downs, touchdowns, batted passes, and numerous other game events can be assigned different clips, which are then played randomly from the selections.
[size=-1]They may not be named, but those are all 'pac tunes.[/size]
I know that PS2 owners might be a bit dismayed by this, but there's a hefty number of tracks on the disc to choose from. But, to be honest, it's more interesting to talk about the stuff you can do when ripping music, so here goes. For my Xbox debug, I don't have much of anything ripped, simply because I have to reformat the hard drive from time to time and it's a drag to have to import everything again and again. But I do have a few tracks on there for racing games. I spent a good 45 minutes cutting up the choicest selection of Tupac and Public Enemy tunes.
I never realized 'pac had such slick beats behind him more often than not. You don't have any other tools to make music other than selecting a start and end point for your tunes, so you won't be able to add extra bass, for example or clean out vocals. Maybe for next year.
With a baker's dozen tracks in hand, I played some football. The first thing I should note is that your custom music always plays for the home team, whether it's the team you are controlling or not. So it can be a bit of a slap in the face to have some great tune playing it up when your opponent just scored a TD. Outside of that, it's incredibly gratifying, moreso even than celebrations, to hear that music kick in. It's a bit of my personality in the game. Sure, players have personality, the celebrations are fun, but the music is the one bit that is about me. One gamer may have country twang, some will actually go all out and create a robust and distinct selection of appropriate tunes, and others, like myself, will just have Tupac bumping. How could something so simple in concept trump the graphics and presentation of ESPN NFL 2005? You just have to hear it to understand. Though there is no ownership mode as in Madden, ESPN allows me to have some control over my own stadium -- yeah, I'm the guy the picks the music.
#2 - VIP
One thing the IGN lot have always wanted in sports games is for coaches to have specific tendencies, to coach the way they would in real life. Sega's gone one step beyond with the Virtual Identity Profile system, or VIP. Unlike the usual game profile which tracks some minor stats like wins and losses, VIP goes all out to offer the most comprehensive user stat tracking ever available. That's not hyperbole, I promise that you've never seen anything quite like VIP.
VIP tracks just about everything you could think of in terms of gameplay tendencies. How often do you spin or juke? How often do you put a man in motion? Do you ask for the Coaches Pick a lot? What side of the field do you run to? While all of this is cool to look at as a personal reference to your style of play, it also have value to other gamers. When your buddy plays against you and whoops your ass, you can now play against the CPU using your pal's VIP as a means of practice. Does your buddy call a lot of play action passes? Now you'll know just how often. VIPs will be tradable online as well, so you can try and beat the CPU version of the best in the country.
There are other VIPs in the game outside of users. There's a VIP for every real-life coach in the game, so you can study up before any match to see what the tendencies are. This means that the coaches in ESPN NFL 2005 are programmed to act as much like their real-life counterparts as possible, giving you a more realistic NFL experience. And that's part of what sports gaming is all about, isn't it?
[size=-1]How often do you flip?[/size]
As I'm the only one in the office with a copy of ESPN NFL 2005 (ha ha, suckers!) I didn't have a user VIP to test this out with. Or did I? That's right, I played against myself. Man, I do some dumb ass things. It may sound strange, but one of the best tools for improving your play may actually be to play against your own VIP. I realize I go for it on fourth down way too often, but seeing the CPU do it repeatedly and seeing first-hand how many times it played out in my favor instead of the CPU, I'm changing up my style to be a bit more conservative. By the same token, I found myself overloading the right side of the field, because only 10% of my plays are run to the left and I knew that. Well, if I can realize that, so will my opponents. EA has the EA Sports Bio, but Sega's new VIP is a far more creative and far greater tool for showcasing users. Hopefully it makes it into more ESPN Videogames in the future. I'd bet on that, so my real hope is that somehow the VIPs from football can somehow be integrated into hockey and basketball.
