If you keep trying harder, sooner or later you'll reap the rewards. Each season, Sega's ESPN NFL series has been making steady progress in its quest for video-game-football stardom. This year, the design guys at Visual Concepts have turned ESPN NFL 2K5 into the most entertaining show in video-game football.
NFL 2K5 shows off some excellent touches off the field and some tough moves on the field. Last year, the introduction of the Crib build-a-a pad feature and the first-person view was a little bit "Hollywood for sure. This year, all the highlights are right where they should be.
Football ESPN Style
The razzle-dazzle hits you first. The game makes excellent use of its ESPN license to pump you up from the "get" with all the familiar sights and sounds from the televised presentation, including cool in-game info graphics and ESPN personalities. Announcer Chris Berman is all over 2K5 with pregame and halftime shows based on teams you're playing and your gameplay. ESPN sidelines reporter Suzy Kolber gets face time, too, by actually interviewing your star player during the postgame show. The audio overall for both Playstation 2 and Xbox versions is topnotch. The crowd sounds are firce, and Berman and crew call the game according to your button presses without missing a cue. The game's graphics presentation on the field is killer. ESPN NFL has aways had the best player close-ups around (and characters on the sidelines and in the stands aren't too shabby either). The gameplay character models have been revamped to produce ultra-realistic movement that's almost like watching TV. Moreover, the game features 200 plus cutscenes in 2K5. Last year? Forty. The whole show looks impressively sharp on the PS2 and Xbox, but the PS2 visuals are a standout.
All the Right Moves
Armchairs coaches will find some cool tools to use to prepare for games. In Franchise mode, you can study an upcoming opponents tendencies and then develope a game plan accordingly. You can even improve your ability to exploit their weaknesses during the week before practice.
At game time, the tight controls do a great job of commanding a slick array of player moves and on-the-fly scheme adjustments. For instance, the faster you tap the run button the more quickly your ballcarrier moves, but when a defender wraps you up, you can both jam buttons to see who prevails. This year, you can make individual defensive assignments at the line of scrimmage, and it's a snap to use the right analog stick and shoulder buttons to make group adjustments with linemen, linebackers, and defensive backs. The PS2 controller responds a tad more quickly than the Xbox's in this regard. Moreover, both offensive and defensive playbook menus are cleaner this season and easier to read. You can also quickly change your audibles on the fly from the play-call screen.
The Push Up-Front
This game has championship season written all over it. There's even a nice signing bonus to entice you into 2K camp-the $19.99 price tag. ESPN NFL 2K5 could...go...all...the...way.- Brother BUzz
GamePro Editors Choice: Scale of 1-5
PS2:
Graphics: 5.0
Sound: 5.0
Control: 4.5
Fun Factor: 5.0
Xbox:
Graphics: 4.5
Sound: 5.0
Control: 4.0
Fun Factor: 5.0
Madden 2005 Got This Just incase you wanted too know:
PS2:
Graphics: 4.5
Sound: 4.5
Control: 5.0
Fun Factor: 5.0
Xbox:
Graphics: 4.5
Sound: 4.5
Control: 5.0
Fun Factor: 5.0
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