NBA Live 2001
EA's famous basketball series hits the psx2!!


Review by Vigilante

Upon first starting this game up, you take a gander at the back of your game's case and become a bit confused. The great close up graphics you see on the back are not what you end up playing in. So, I decided to change the camera angles to match that. MISTAKE! Though the game looks incredible, you loose all means of playing the actual game. To play this game, you have to play in the traditional Live camera angles which defeats the whole purpose of the graphic models in the first place. In fact, once using the traditional camera angles...the players look more like NBA Shootout players on a NBA live court.  The little cut screens that appear when shooting a free throw, or contesting a foul are nice little additions. Although they show that the people of EA did not use the actual NBA players to do character models, cause 90% of the people here don't match their real life counterpart. And is just funny to me, but I love it when the players argue a bad call to a referee that DOESN'T EXIST!!!! (There are no refs or coaches in this game folks).

Once you get past the camera angles (there is only like one or two you can ACTUALLY play in), you realize this is the same ol live. Whether this is a good thing or bad depends on how you felt about the franchise. The touchy controls are still there, this time with a very bad lag time (I've pressed a button and about a half of a second later the player moves). The commentators still suck, and wish that somehow Sony could find out how Sega does it right. The loading times are about average, and the game still has that beloved realism over arcade feel.

My major problem with this game is that EA rushed this game so much that they removed the Three-point contest that was in NBA live 2000, and the Franchise mode that makes the pc version and ps1 version vastly superior. This makes the replay value loose TRILLIONS of points because once you finish a season...you have to do it all over again without any stats or acknowledgment that you just won a championship. Luckily, EA didn't remove everything as you have the great one on one game that is almost better than the 5 on 5 itself. Here, you can pit your favorite stars of today with great stars of the 80's, 70's, and 60's. Call up your friend, and take it out man to man.

Seeing how EA Sports has single-handedly kept the PS2 from swallowing its own feces, one would think Live would be the next game to keep the EA standard of excellence. But when you get right down to it, unlike Madden or Nhl...Live 2001 for the psx2 is nothing more than the ps version of live with slightly better graphics and NO franchise mode. If you're a die hard fan on Live, or you absolutely need a basketball game on your next generation system. Then pick this one up, otherwise rent this one until you grow tired of it.

80%
Way Pimpy

• The graphics are a vast improvement over previous Live's.
• One on One game is awesome!
• Its NBA live

• Like most Live's, the control becomes haphazard when doing special moves like crossovers or spin moves.
• Camera Angles=Death
• Commentators need the death penalty.

• Where the hell is FRANCHISE MODE?!?!