[Sundown]

Finally tried the demo, partially out of morbid curiousity, partially because I wanted to see bounce-tek in action.


Well the graphics were bad... we already knew that-- but I was shocked at how HORRIBLE the gameplay was. Nevermind comparing it with the competition. It wouldn't even pass muster as a decent game in and of itself!


First, I busted up laughing seeing "Steph Curry" with a tiny head and huge body in pre-game warmups. So bad graphics, confirmed. Courts look okay. Even passable, but not great. There's a deadness about the presentation all around-- now some crowd models look good, but that just makes it seem even more ridiculous that so many players look terrible in comparison.


Controls were sluggish. Wasn't this the main complaint guys who championed Live had against the other franchise? Everything moves in slow motion. There doesn't seem to be much change in speed or explosiveness anywhere in game.


Bounce-Tek is... pretty crappy in practice. The controls are not intuitive or responsive at all. A flick right does not actually move the ball to the right. And it's really weird that you just hold RS down to get the slow cross. Feels like you're fighting animations rather than initiating them. Sure, the foot planting is okay, but it's not hard to do foot planting when your player isn't moving. That goes for the game in general-- everything moves in slow motion so there isn't as much sliding. Anyway, you have none of the responsive dribbling control or freedom the other game affords. This is Live's biggest feature?


Presentation is... really underwhelming. Kind of terrible. The commentators sound bored or like they're casually chatting on sports radio. Everyone sounds like they're mailing it in, including Jalen. But that's partially because Jalen's delivery is made robotic and choppy through poor splicing of sentence fragments. There is almost nothing that this game does as well as the other game, including presentation. The only thing that's better is the score bug.


Overall gameplay, again, sluggish and robotic. AI is barely existant. Durant just dribbled an entire possession in place with the clock winding down at the end of the first instead of attempting a shot. Defense doesn't attempt to swipe at the ball wall you dribble incessantly. It barely cares you're there. Just sub-par, barely last gen gameplay overall.


There are a few positives. Occasional fragments of dribble animations look very life like-- even if the actual dribble system it's part of is poorly put together. I liked that players would tilt a little when rounding a corner or turning. It looks a bit more realistic but isn't nearly as well implemented across the board as Live marketing makes it out to be. It's almost like everytime they add a decent mo-cap sequence to the game, they try to sell it as a bullet point feature.


Other positives-- occasionally you see some nice contextual pass animations, and the game almost looks kind of good in transition. It confirms what I saw earlier-- that it looks like they're at least trying to make it look like basketball, even if they're doing it poorly. It's better than the debacle that were the last three games.


All I can say is that they have an engine they can build from, but the game looks and plays like side-job pet project. They've got a ton of work to do before it's a respectable basketball game, but at least what they've shown is they're making the right game, albeit very, very badly. I'm just not sure if they have the vision and EA's backing to truly execute.