ESPN NFL 2K5

One morning, the good folk at Sega Sports awoke and realized that they were sick of being second.  EA Sports dominated sales in the sports videogame genre and Sega is simply tired of it.  They soon hear that several competitors are dropping their football games this year, choosing to forgo this year to catch up to both Sega and EA.  Hooray!  They also hear that EA is negating the biggest advantage Sega had last year – they’re going to support Xbox Live.  Boo!  With a chance to scoop up some loyal NFL Fever fans and a desperate need to gain an edge on EA’s Madden series, Sega decided to go for it on fourth and long and made a gutsy call – slapping a mere twenty dollar price tag on their quality game. 

If you’ve ever had the chance to play a twenty dollar game, you know they’re twenty dollars for a reason.  Many of them look like the handiwork of a summer intern at computer camp and play like the LCD games of years past.  These twenty dollar games are made by small publishers looking to make a quick buck with a sub-par game, but ESPN NFL 2K5 is more than a twenty dollar game worth buying, it’s a twenty dollar steal that would easily be worth a fifty dollar price tag. 

The easiest thing to say about ESPN NFL 2K5 is that it’s the best Sega football game ever.  Even die-hard Madden fans are taking notice of this year’s title as they wait another few weeks for Madden 2005’s release.  Every facet of the game has improved from last year’s version, and any gamer who loves tossing the virtual pigskin should pick up ESPN NFL 2K5 faster than a goal line fumble.

ESPN NFL 2K5 has all the game modes that sports gamers have come to love.  Quick Game for the patience-impaired, practice for the fun-impaired, and Franchise mode for the social life-impaired.  There’s nothing exciting going on in the first two, and chances are most of you put your social lives on hold during the release of great sports games, so let’s talk a little about the deep franchise mode that ESPN NFL 2K5 offers this year.  It should be no surprise that the franchise mode offers gamers a chance to lead a football team towards the ultimate gridiron goal, The Super Bowl.  Gamers can compete with fantasy drafted teams, negotiate contracts and say good-bye to geriatric retirees, and even be fired from their coaching position if things aren’t going well.  With all the day-to-day processes that need to be addressed, franchise modes are beginning to get a bit ridiculous, and the new weekly preparation addition to the franchise mode is icing on the cake of ultimate ridiculousness.  The days leading up to the Sunday can be used to prepare certain facets of your team.  Monday, for example, can be used to help your linemen gain more stamina through workouts sans football pads, or used to build their strength with workouts with football pads, but may make them more injury prone.  These daily activities range from light workouts to watching game footage and significantly affect your players’ ratings for that week.  It’s a risk/reward system that can come in handy if you’re trying to even out a certain team’s advantage.  The obsessive football fan will relish calling team meetings on Thursday to boost morale and concentration, but just about everyone else will want to turn this option off as it takes up a bit too much time.

Perhaps the coolest addition to this year’s title is the advent of VIPs.  No these don’t get you behind the velvet rope or lead to drinking Cristal with P. Diddy, these VIPs are Virtual Identity Profiles.  Every user can set up his or her VIP and play with them like an ordinary profile, but instead of just keeping track of stats, the VIPs also record how you play.  The VIP will remember such things as which direction users prefer to run and what defensive packages they like.  This information is then saved to the hard drive and can be used to simulate user’s playing tendencies.  For example, say your buddy continually waxes you at NFL 2K5 because he’s always blitzing and running left.  Wait for him to go to sleep (or induce it with a well-placed sleeper hold) and play a single-player game with the computer playing using his VIP.  The VIP will play his style, allowing gamers to practice against their buddies… even when they’re not there.  A few B-list celebrities (Jamie Kennedy, Carmen Electra, Funkmaster Flex, Jackass’ Steve-O, and David Arquette – Okay, C-list celebrities) have lent their VIPs to ESPN NFL 2K5, and their VIPs will challenge you to games, heckling gamers with their All-Pro teams and yielding unique items to victors. 

The overall gameplay has been vastly improved.  The game is now more user-friendly, and it shouldn’t take long for Madden fans to march downfield in NFL 2K5.  Running, passing, and defense have all been balanced out for a more pick-up-and-play experience, something that was lacking a bit in the past.  A myriad of special moves can be unleashed with normal buttons or a flick of the joystick, but the real joy comes with powering up moves.  Repeatedly tapping the A button gives the ball carrier a speed boost, but holding the A button charges up the player’s power meter.  Once the meter is fully charged, any of the special moves will have an extra boost.  A dizzying spin move, a devastating spin move, or a bulldozing shoulder charge all become extra effective when used in conjunction with a fully charged meter.  Sega uses the system fantastically, forcing players to decide to sprint for yardage or store up for that big juke that will make SportsCenter. 

There are a few fumbles in the gameplay, however.  The AI on the defensive backs is spotty (at best) as they tend to over--commit to the ball.  By taking poor routes to receivers, they often give up the big play too frequently (on my first play from scrimmage against the CPU I threw a fifteen yard pass to my tight end that turned into a 50 yard sprint for a touchdown).  There are also an unusually high amount of dropped passes.  Quarterbacks can hit receivers right between the numbers, but the only thing he can do is cross his fingers and hopes Butterfingers keeps his grip.  When your receivers aren’t dropping passes, they’re often watching deflected passes bounce around with beachball-esque physics.  These minor flaws are small annoyances in the game, but don’t take much away from the overall experience.

The online portion of the game is an absolute blast.  It’s simple to jump onto Xbox Live, find a game, and jump right into competition.  The usual ranking system exists, and people with way too much time on their hands have already found ways to exploit it and improve their records to ’72 Dolphins-like proportions.  NFL 2K5 even has a great system for setting up leagues, tournaments, and complete seasons online.  Your league’s info will update on a webpage and looks and operates very much like CBSSportsline’s great fantasy websites.  During online play lag does occasionally come into play, but it isn’t often for more than a few plays per game.  Overall, the online experience is awesome.

Perhaps the most noticeable addition to the game this year is the improvement in the ESPN presentation.  No longer is the biggest sports network’s representation limited to a few logos and idle chatter from the broadcasters themselves.  This year’s game takes the ESPN style and crams it so far down your throat that you actually love it.  From the 3-D rendered Chris Berman and Suzy Kolber to the weekly SportsCenter highlights from around the league, the presentation will blow away even casual fans of the sports show.  Tons of new cutscenes add life to the stadium experience and updated stats are presented ala ESPN Sunday Night Football’s charts and graphs.  Replays have a variety of angles, but the best is ESPN’s own SkyCam, which Sega recreates very well.  Sega has a huge step up on the competition with its ESPN license, offering a game that mimics sports television like no other. 

Many critics have said much about the graphics of this year’s game, claiming ESPN NFL 2K5 to be the best-looking football game ever.  Add me to that list, in fact, put me right on top of it.  Sega built NFL 2K5 specifically for the juiced-up Xbox, giving up nothing in the way of graphics just to make it easier to port over to the puny processor of the PS2.  NFL 2K5 looks awesome – both on the field and off.  The same detail put into the uniforms of ESPN MLB 2K4 (the best looking fabric in any game) has also been put into NFL 2K5, making these ballers look incredibly realistic out there.  Add to that a steady helping of fluid animations, and you can believe the critics.  The only flaw in the graphics is the lack of lip-synching from Berman and Kolber. 

On the audio side, Sega does a decent job with the sounds of the game, and really excels with the audio features.  The barking by the quarterback is pretty generic, but the on-field chatter and talking between the gridiron gladiators is incredibly entertaining and player-specific.  Tackles and stadium sounds are fairly good, but the crowd noise could really have been taken up a notch.  There are some fluctuations depending on the game, but not enough when the game is on the line or the home team makes an important third down.  The most amazing part of the audio is the ability to play certain portions of songs during specific events.  For example, if you want to hear Snoop Dogg scream, “Yeah, and you don’t stop!” every time your team makes a first down, just go to the stadium music editor, clip out the portion of the imported song from your Xbox’s hard drive, and check the box next to ‘first down’.  It’s the next step in stadium customization, and it ROCKS.  The included soundtrack is decent, featuring mostly up and coming artists, including two from my favorite label, Definitive Jux.  There’s one major miscue in the sound – the commentary.  Even though this is an ESPN licensed game, there are no ESPN broadcasters in the booth.  It’s a travesty, really.  No Ron Jaworski?  Instead, Jaws is replaced by two voice actors that go by the names of Dan Stevens and Peter O’Keefe and they are a real drop from other ESPN games. 

ESPN NFL 2K5 is the most playable football game from Sega Sports, period.  With all the great improvements, abundance of customizable features, and online play that makes me want to hole up in my living room, NFL 2K5 is quite simply the best football game of the year.  Well, at least until Madden 2005 comes out. 

Gameplay: 9.0

Aside from the dropped passes (which can be customized to your liking), NFL 2K5 plays like an All-Pro in a contract year.  A definite improvement over the last two editions of NFL 2K, and worthy competition to EA’s Madden series. 

Graphics: 9.8

The game looks great and is a real benchmark in sports video games.  But then again, I’ve been saying that about Sega’s underrated baseball games for the past two years. 

Sound: 8.8

True, the commentary is just plain bad, but the ability to customize stadium sounds is just too awesome to ignore. 

Difficulty: Medium

Completely customizable.  Individual gameplay elements have sliders that can range from mind numbingly easy to insanely difficult.   

Concept: 8.5

Hey – it’s football. 

Multiplayer: 9.8

Too much fun to play against someone, either in person or online.  No other type of sports games requires such strategy while under pressure.  Online leagues and tournaments are an improvement over XSN’s online leagues, but are still in their fledgling stage.   

Overall: 9.5

The first football game of the season is a doozy.  A great accomplishment by Sega Sports and ESPN Videogames.  I can sit here and list off all the great things about the game, but in the end I come back to one thing – IT ONLY COSTS TWENTY BUCKS!  And that’s all you need to know.  Buy it… now!