Wayback Wednesday: ESPN NBA 2Night Retrospective
This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at ESPN NBA 2Night.
Although Konami has produced some classic releases that earned them a reputation as one of the most iconic video game developers, the virtual hardwood was never their best genre. That’s not to say that their basketball games have all been terrible. Indeed, their sim-arcade hybrid titles that include Run and Gun, NBA Give ‘n Go, NBA in the Zone, and NBA in the Zone 2 are nostalgic favourites for many long-time basketball gamers. They provided an experience that found a good middle ground between the more serious approach of NBA Live, and the over-the-top style of NBA Jam.
However, as sim-oriented basketball games were improving and becoming deeper and more realistic in the late 90s and early 2000s, Konami’s releases were soon outclassed. From gameplay and graphics to modes and features, they fell short of NBA Live, as well as new contenders in the space such as the emerging NBA 2K series. At the same time, Konami’s NBA games did find an audience, and some of them had their good points; or at the very least, a few interesting ideas! For better or worse, ESPN NBA 2Night is a great example of that. Let’s take a look back…way back…
While ESPN NBA 2Night followed the release of NBA In The Zone 2000 and is set a season later in 2001, the games don’t officially share a lineage as is the case with EA Sports’ NBA Playoffs and NBA Live series. However, it does have similar gameplay to the later In The Zone releases, retaining traces of a sim-arcade hybrid style while leaning more sim than the earlier games did. As the name would suggest, it features ESPN branding. It isn’t the first basketball video game to partner with the network, as that distinction belongs to Sony’s ESPN NBA Hangtime ’95. However, Konami still managed to beat both EA Sports and Take-Two to the punch on authentic branding.
To that end, Konami went all out on incorporating ESPN presentation throughout the game. As you’d expect, the score bug and in-game overlays mimic an ESPN broadcast circa 2000-2001. Brent Musburger and the late Stuart Scott provide the play-by-play and colour commentary. An ESPN wipe appears during instant replays. The frontend menus also resemble the graphics packages seen on NBA on ESPN broadcasts and SportsCenter. On the team selection screens, their strength is represented by an ESPN Power Ranking. Even the main menu reflects the branding, displaying the three game modes of Exhibition, Season, and Playoffs, followed by NBA 2Night underneath.
That last detail may seem a bit corny, but I appreciate the creativity of finding a way to work the branding into the main menu options. Integrating the ESPN presentation throughout the game in general is a nice touch, resulting in a consistent aesthetic and giving it a certain charm. NBA 2K took a similar approach while they were partnered with the network from NBA 2K3 through to ESPN NBA 2K5, but again, it’s worth noting that ESPN NBA 2Night did it first. Meanwhile, although the eighth gen NBA Live games did an excellent job of replicating ESPN presentation during gameplay, they didn’t incorporate it into the frontend as Konami and Visual Concepts both did.
With that being said, ESPN NBA 2Night reminds me of Fox Sports NBA Basketball 2000 in that it has some excellent and authentic presentation that the gameplay simply doesn’t live up to. I don’t like to be snarky or bash old games just because they show their age – that’s not the tone I want for my retrospectives – but some games are indeed bad. More to the point, they were recognised as being bad when they were new. It isn’t a case of applying modern standards and expectations, as they also fall short of their contemporaries. And so, I won’t mince words here. ESPN NBA 2Night is one of the absolute worst basketball games from a Triple-A developer that I’ve ever played!
Where to begin? It feels like the wrong decision was made with every design choice, even for a game released 25 years ago when the genre was still experimenting with a few of its staples. Pass/Switch and Shoot are the opposite of their usual buttons. Shoot is also used to jump for rebounds and blocks, which was an outdated approach by that point. Instead of dribble and spin moves buttons, there are vague “power move” and “dodge move” buttons. There are two buttons for offensive and defensive playcalling, but no sprint control. That last issue is the most egregious, as the inability to boost our speed can’t be alleviated by familiarity with the controls or customising the buttons.
There’s a fake button that can used to perform (awful-looking) stutter steps, jab steps and other fakes in the triple threat, and pass fakes. That wouldn’t be so bad – clunky animations aside – but it’s also used to pump fake on shots. Instead of just tapping Shoot to fake a shot, you need to hold down the fake button and press Shoot to try to get your defender in the air. This is a recurring issue with ESPN NBA 2Night: basic moves require multiple button presses that aren’t necessarily difficult to pull off, but are undoubtedly contrived. It certainly doesn’t feel natural or intuitive, and moves don’t chain together as smoothly as they should, disrupting the flow of gameplay.
Players screech to a halt and get locked in place when they touch each other, which is why the dodge button is so important. The problem is that unless you get lucky with spacing or you make a wide turn, it’s impossible to get by a defender without using it. It’s even necessary to blow by defenders on pump fakes! Your man can bite on the fake and leap for the block, but as long as he’s within arm’s reach, you’ll run into the same force field that stops you dead in your tracks unless you use the dodge button to drive past him to the basket. You can make it work, but it’s very clunky. It feels like a bandaid fix for the lack of a sprint control, and the subpar collisions and physicality.
Post moves run into the same problem. The power move button is basically just the back down control, though it doesn’t seem possible to actually move and overpower defenders. Spinning to the hoop requires holding power move to turn your back to the basket, then releasing it and holding the left stick or D-Pad towards the hoop while pressing the dodge move button to get by your man. It’s very contrived compared to NBA Live, where spinning off a defender while posting up is as easy as releasing back down and holding the stick or D-Pad in the desired direction. Again, ESPN NBA 2Night’s method isn’t difficult per se, but it’s needlessly complex for a basic move.
As such, these clunky, poorly-designed controls are not conducive to a fun time on the virtual hardwood. It also dumbs down offensive strategy to pump fake, dodge button to slip past the force field, and then drive to the hoop for a dunk or layup…assuming that one triggers properly, of course. Sometimes you’ll be left performing an awkward leaner from three feet away, which bricks way more often than it should. Occasionally you can make successful drives without a pump fake, though the crossovers and spins using the dodge button aren’t nearly as effective. They also have a tendency to send you falling to the floor after colliding with a defender, usually resulting in a turnover.
Jumpshots are viable, though too many open shots are missed or blocked. The latter is the result of your players seemingly jumping in slow motion, while CPU defenders leap into the air like they have springs for legs. They also tend to hang in the air, thus allowing them to get the swat or force you to land and travel while trying to avoid it. The same thing happens on defense too, meaning that jumpshots are tough to send back, while dunks and layups are practically impossible to stop. Without a sprint control, being a step behind your man might as well mean being at the other end of the floor. It really discourages you from making an effort to recover on defense.
Granted, players do automatically accelerate to some extent, but it’s nowhere near as effective as a manual sprint control, and CPU opponents appear to move faster. It doesn’t help that the game feels unbalanced in general. The CPU will drain contested shots, so even if you can time your jump adequately or get in front of them with the hands-up defense (confusingly labelled “Hard Check”), if you don’t get the block, they’re making that shot more often than not. CPU players also have far less trouble triggering dunks and layups, as well as coming up with steals. Meanwhile, our steal attempts tend to just put defenders out of position, or commit a careless reach-in foul.
It is possible to grow accustomed to the janky design to some extent. I definitely had to consult the manual for some of the more esoteric mechanics, though unfortunately it does a poor job of explaining some of them. Certain buttons are mislabelled, or the description doesn’t line up with the in-game function. For example, the “Ball Check” button only jumps to block or rebound, while the supposed “situational defensive action” button is just the Steal button. As an aside, there is icon passing (though no switching), but the button assignments are unusual and awkward. Notably, R2 is used for icon passing while R1 is one of the buttons for the recipients, which is clunky.
Despite having two playcalling buttons for different sets of plays on offense and defense, strategy is minimal. The CPU tends to just rapidly pass the ball around and run down the shot clock until it’s in a position to make a cheesy play, whether it’s getting into the paint for a virtually unstoppable dunk or hitting a contested shot. It’ll even turn and dash back to the three-point line for wild turnaround fadeaway treys that go in way too often. You can force it into three-second violations, shot clock violations, and the occasional careless out of bounds turnover, though. Of course, your CPU teammates will also make silly mistakes, and often stand around on D.
Superstar players don’t feel like superstars, especially in the user’s hands. You won’t break too many ankles with Allen Iverson, and Shaquille O’Neal might as well be Travis Knight when he gets the ball down low. The CPU’s shot distribution isn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it frequently has a weird idea as to who the go-to guy is. Mind you, with all the ways that the user is disadvantaged on defense, it doesn’t matter if the CPU decides that Brian Skinner is the first option on the Los Angeles Clippers; he’s going to get the job done! There are player ratings and I won’t say that they don’t matter when it comes to shooting in particular, but the stars don’t shine as they should.
As I mentioned, there are lingering hints of the sim-arcade hybrid style from the early In The Zone games. This means that pretty much every player can dunk, and all of the dunks are big, exciting slams. They’re not completely over-the-top, NBA Jam-style dunks, but you’ll still see Reggie Miller randomly bust out a windmill, or Ron Mercer soaring through the air for a Michael Jordan Jumpman slam. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I’ve come to appreciate the sim-arcade hybrid style, but it’s jarring since other aspects of the game are trying to be more realistic. It also further encourages the repetitive “pump fake, dodge button to slip by, and then dunk” strategy for scoring.
Too many rebounds are flat-footed, though in all fairness this was a common issue in basketball video games through to the early 2000s. On a more positive note, we’re able to make substitutions that will take place at the next dead ball; a feature that NBA Live didn’t add for a couple more years. I also like that we have the ability to make substitutions at a pause screen between quarters, and that we’re given the chance to pause the game to make subs when the CPU calls timeout. Both full and 20-second timeouts are accounted for, with the correct number of each. The rules and game style (arcade or simulation) can be customised, and up to eight people can play at once.
Sadly, ESPN NBA 2Night is yet another game that tried to reinvent the wheel with free throw shooting. In the PlayStation 2 version, you first hold down on the left stick or D-Pad to stop the rotating target. The “shooting point” then begins to move, and is stopped upon releasing the stick/D-Pad. The position of the target and the timing in stopping the shooting point determines the accuracy of the result. It’s basically the T-Meter‘s two-step concept of aim then distance, only far more convoluted; especially since it doesn’t use the shoot button! I know I say this about a lot of games that tried to revolutionise foul shooting, but they should’ve just copied NBA Live’s T-Meter.
You’ll notice that I mentioned the PS2 release specifically, as it’s the version that I own and am focusing on here. However, the Dreamcast version simplified the process as it cycles through target zones displayed on the backboard, with the goal being to shoot when the green zone in the middle of the glass is displayed. I’d have preferred that method in the PS2 version as well, though as this retrospective notes, the timing can apparently feel off for poor free throw shooters, forcing you to anticipate a delay on the button press. It’s still better than the PS2’s approach – if only because it’s more self-explanatory – though it sounds like both versions were plagued by subpar design.
On the subject of the Dreamcast version though, it has an All-Star game option that’s missing on PS2. In fact, the PS2 version doesn’t even include the East and West All-Stars for regular exhibition games. Considering that several older games allowed us to play with the All-Star teams – even without a dedicated All-Star Weekend mode – it’s certainly disappointing. Admittedly this is far from the biggest issue with ESPN NBA 2Night, but it underscores its weak design and overall lack of depth. The PS2 version does appear to be the inferior release, though again the aforementioned retrospective confirms that the gameplay in the Dreamcast version has many of the same problems.
I don’t like to throw around words like “terrible”, “awful”, and “dreadful” too readily. They’ve overused, and often in an extremely snobby manner to boot. However, I do have to say that any one of those adjectives would be an appropriate description for the gameplay experience in ESPN NBA 2Night! I can make the controls work and win games – this isn’t a matter of “getting good” – but the strategies are repetitive and there’s so much frustrating sloppiness outside of the occasional satisfying sequence. It’s trying to be a fun sim-arcade hybrid that leans towards realism and authenticity, but the end result is one of the worst Triple-A basketball games ever in my opinion.
Honestly, it’s given me a whole new appreciation for NBA Live 2001 PC! That game does have its issues – in no small part due to a smaller development team and a shift to a new programming language – but it’s far and away a more competent and enjoyable release than ESPN NBA 2Night. That doesn’t invalidate all the criticism of it, but it does put the overall quality of NBA Live 2001 into perspective. Frankly, anyone who was brutally harsh on NBA Live 2001 back in the day owes EA Sports an apology, as ESPN NBA 2Night makes NBA Live 07 look like NBA 2K14! Alright, that’s slightly hyperbolic, but I’d definitely place it in the same class of disappointing Triple-A titles.
My gripes with the frontend pale in comparison to my criticisms of the gameplay, but there are some unorthodox choices there as well. As I said, I enjoy the aesthetic of the frontend and the way it incorporates the ESPN branding, and navigation is fine for the most part. However, I do sometimes get tripped up by the use of L1 and L2 to cycle through teams and other options, as most games would use the directional controls or two opposite shoulder buttons. R1 brings up a help menu, and some screens have an additional Tips window that’s brought up using Square. Again, I don’t have any huge complaints here and I generally like the menus, but some of the controls are awkward.
Gameplay is ultimately paramount, but for what it’s worth, ESPN NBA 2Night doesn’t blow you away with its modes, either. Its single Season mode doesn’t compare to the multi-season play of Franchise mode in NBA Live 2001. You can choose the Playoff format, disable the trade deadline, and switch player condition on or off depending on whether you want players to be fresh every game or feel the fatigue of a long season. Oddly, there’s no option for a shorter season, though you can simulate games. The sim engine isn’t great though, with incredibly inflated stats. I’m talking around 40 ppg and 20 rpg! On top of that, the League Leaders include names that shouldn’t rank up there.
While nothing can be done about the wrong players putting up big numbers, the stats can be reduced by lowering the quarter length. The catch is that there isn’t a separate setting for gameplay and simulated games, so whichever length you choose applies to CPU vs. CPU games as well. The League Leaders display is also restricted to the top six, making it more like a quick update that you’d see on SportsCenter rather than a detailed listing. On the plus side, you can view box scores, and graphics packages will pop up to spotlight players who recently had a big night or a disappointing game. The calendar will also highlight a team’s recent performance, such as their current streak.
This an excellent use of the ESPN presentation to keep you informed of what’s going on around the NBA without having to dig into the menus. Unfortunately, the calendar interface is slightly awkward as far as advancing through the season. When a day’s games are complete, you need to scroll back to the top and then manually navigate to the next day. It’s not too complicated, but it’s another design choice that’s a bit clunky. Much like the Season modes in early NBA Live games, you can manage the rosters for every team, making trades, signing and releasing players, and changing their lineups. Notably, the default rosters don’t include any free agents for teams to sign.
In short, it’s a serviceable old school Season mode. There are no salaries or other restrictions on trades and free agency, nor any in-depth management tasks. Some of the staples could’ve been designed better and the sim engine leaves something to be desired, but it’s functional. Playoffs mode is likewise straightforward, offering the ability to change the format and customise the teams and the brackets as well as enable and disable player condition. Established features such as multi-team control and a shorter season schedule would’ve been nice, but as basic and outdated as they are, the modes in ESPN NBA 2Night are at least passable for a game of its vintage.
You’ll also find some features and options that weren’t always common back then. ESPN NBA 2Night offers ten camera angles for gameplay and instant replay: Press, Classic 1, Classic 2, Endline, Sideline, Follow, Overhead 1, Overheard 2, Wire, and Bird View. It’s a good assortment of TV and video game-oriented cameras, with the Classic 1 view resembling the isometric angle from NBA Live 95. Each angle can also be further customised by altering the zoom, height, and field of view. Auto zoom and reverse angle options are available, as well as a rotation setting for the Endline camera. Not many games from that era boasted as much flexibility in that regard.
Roster customisation in ESPN NBA 2Night has some rare features as well. The trade interface interestingly allows you to select every single player on a team to include in the swap. The numbers need to be even, or a team must have enough spare roster slots to accommodate receiving more players than they’re trading away, but it’s pretty cool that you can swap entire lineups in one move. Up to fifteen players can be created, and new players can be added to a Season in progress. Funnily enough, you can enter draft information for created players; a feature that NBA Live and NBA 2K have yet to implement! School names are also entered manually rather than selected from a list.
The facial customisation options may seem primitive by modern standards, but they’re great for a game released back in 2000. Between the face and head models, and styles of hair and facial hair at your disposal, you can do a decent job of adding a player that blends in with the originals. To that point, these facial customisation options are also available for original players! It’s possible to give Shaq cornrows, or Jason Kidd an afro. Even their face models can be changed! Indeed, sticklers for visual fidelity may be tempted to do this, since some players don’t look quite right with their default face model. In any event, it’s cool that original player faces can be customised like that.
As far as the quality of the face textures themselves, they’re hit and miss. Some look decent in gameplay or the menus, but for some reason the renders that are used during the game introductions are hilariously bad! Overall, ESPN NBA 2Night’s graphics are fairly decent for the time, at least as far as models, textures, and environments. It’s the awkward animations and clunky controls that’ll bother you, not those aesthetics! After all, NBA Live 2001 and NBA 2K1 also look similarly dated now, and even at the time there were details that we could nitpick. Both games are more responsive and fun on the sticks though, with deeper modes that went a long way in keeping us entertained.
There’s not much in the way of extra content in ESPN NBA 2Night. There are some cheat codes to unlock cartoony effects such as big heads, an oversized ball, and so on. Secondary road jerseys can also be unlocked via a code, though it’s a toggle that will have the visiting team always wearing their alternates (if they have one) rather than an array of jerseys that we can manually choose to sport. Of course, most games didn’t allow us to manually select jerseys at that time, and the option to force the use of an alternate uniform was rare. Apart from that, there’s no extra content such as Legends, historical teams, or throwback jerseys, nor any other substantial secrets to unlock.
However, there is some interesting roster trivia! As ESPN NBA 2Night is set in the 2001 season, it captures some examples of familiar faces in strange places, including Patrick Ewing on the Seattle Supersonics, Isaiah Rider on the Los Angeles Lakers, Anthony Mason on the Miami Heat, and Christian Laettner on the Dallas Mavericks. There are phantom stints, such as Dale Ellis in Miami. Mark Karcher, a second round pick of the Philadelphia 76ers who never played in the NBA, is on their roster. Joe Smith is still with the Minnesota Timberwolves, as his contract was not yet voided when the rosters were finalised. A few retirees, such as Rex Chapman, are still active.
Since we’re talking trivia, it’s worth mentioning that Alonzo Mourning was the cover player for the NTSC release. Although Zo was a five-time All-Star by that point, he stands out as being a less exciting choice than Kevin Garnett (NBA Live 2001), Allen Iverson (NBA 2K1), and Chris Webber (NBA ShootOut 2001). The timing was also unfortunate, as he was sidelined for most of 2001 after being diagnosed with a kidney disease that eventually led to a transplant and temporary retirement. Meanwhile, the PAL version of the game has an entirely different cover that features Elton Brand, Jalen Rose, Gary Payton, Steve Francis, Latrell Sprewell, and Stephon Marbury.
ESPN NBA 2Night is a frustrating game in many ways. The gameplay is massively disappointing, falling well short of the standards of the era from the controls to the mechanics. So many design choices are bewildering, differing from the norm in all of the worst ways possible. The modes are decent, but lacking the depth that their peers offered. Graphically, it’s not as good as the other sixth generation basketball games. There’s no extra content such as Legends, and once again, the PlayStation 2 version doesn’t even have the All-Star Game mode, or provide the East and West All-Stars for regular exhibition play. It was panned when it was released, and quite deservedly so.
And yet, it has some really cool features! The ESPN presentation is extremely well done, authentically replicating an NBA on ESPN broadcast and spicing up Season mode. True, the commentary is limited, and the late Stuart Scott’s interjections are repetitive, but it’s not vastly inferior to most of its contemporaries here. It has some unique player customisation features, from draft information for created players to being able to change hairstyles and even head models for original players. The option to punch in a code to force the use of alternate jerseys was a nifty idea. It went the extra mile with its camera angles, as well as the ability to further customise them.
It’s also set in a classic season with memorable rosters, from a handful of big names in weird late-career stints to some iconic lineups that are a blast to use in video games. That’s basically where the positives end, though. It’s one of the interesting staples of mediocre or downright bad basketball games: they’ll have these awesome ideas, some of which we’ve never seen in the brand leaders, but that’s about all they have going for them. Like Fox Sports NBA Basketball 2000, ESPN NBA 2Night draws you in with some unique ideas before ultimately letting you down on the court. Instead of being impressed, you’re left wishing that those concepts were in a much better hoops title!
I’m sure that some gamers did enjoy it, but if you did, I’d respectfully suggest you’re in the minority. Whether you’re hoping for a realistic style or more of a sim-arcade hybrid approach, ESPN NBA 2Night lacks the polish and competent design principles to deliver enjoyable basketball gameplay. Dee and I did have some fun connecting to play a co-op game over Parsec, but I’d suggest it was ironic enjoyment; the novelty of playing a curiosity with a few strong or interesting points that’s capable of producing the occasional satisfying sequence, rather than the discovery of a hidden gem. It didn’t make me wish that I’d played it all those years ago, and it didn’t inspire a retro kick.
Nevertheless, I’m glad that I was able to add it to the collection and delve into it after all this time. It’s always interesting to see what NBA Live’s competitors were doing when it was the game on top; particularly NBA Live 2001, as it wasn’t one of the best releases in the series. It’s leaps and bounds better than ESPN NBA 2Night, though! I won’t say that ESPN NBA 2Night doesn’t have any fun moments. If nothing else, big dunks are always a blast to throw down, and I was able to figure out how it needs to be played in order to beat the CPU and enjoy it as much as possible. Unfortunately, there are too many annoyances and not enough incentives to want to play it for long.
If you think that I’m being too harsh on ESPN NBA 2Night, then I must point out that the contemporary reviews deemed it a “sloppy, painful experience” (IGN), “a prime example of how not to make a good sports game” (SegaWeb), and a “dreary effort” (NextGen magazine). Ouch! While I’ve tried to be slightly more diplomatic, those reviews and the general negative reception to ESPN NBA 2Night are certainly fair. Reviewers suggested NBA Live 2001 or NBA 2K1 as preferable choices, and they remain the more desirable retro gaming options today. They’re not necessarily my first choice when it comes to retro titles, but I’d easily take them ahead of Konami’s game.
Once again though, despite being a flop, there are some commendable features in ESPN NBA 2Night. I was surprised to find the extra bio data in Create-a-Player, and the integration of the ESPN branding is as good as any other basketball game. With better controls and polished mechanics, it could’ve been a solid alternative as a sim-arcade hybrid. Still, it represents a time when we had multiple developers providing us with different choices in the basketball gaming space. Such a concept feels novel and nostalgic in an era where we only have the one game! And so, while ESPN NBA 2Night failed to measure up to its peers, I appreciate that Konami was willing to try.
The post Wayback Wednesday: ESPN NBA 2Night Retrospective appeared first on NLSC.