> Sports Games That Will Get Your Balls Bouncing

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NBA 2K1
Visual Concepts / Sega


A Dreamcast SlamDunk

No, we're not only choosing NBA 2K1 as sports game of the show because we saw it demoed by Ice T and a SegaNet exec from a club in Los Angeles versus two Sega employees in San Francisco over the internet just after Peter Moore had fake-mistakenly referred to their competitor's product as the "Piece of Shit 2" and just before Filter played a concert so loud that our brains are still scared into hiding, we're genuinely intrigued by the concept of online sports gaming.

In a videogame sports world of repeat incarnations: Big Sweaty Guys Still Chasing a Rubber Object Exactly One Year Later Than The Nearly Exactly The Same Game, Last Year +1, where the rules of the sport have never significantly changed and only the makeup of the teams has altered with a few new animations added (oh look, he scratches his cup and spits, ain't that fun) and a little better graphics complete with one or two minor gameplay tweaks that you probably won't notice anyway and perhaps a few better management options included every year since sports games were invented (dream teams of Hall of Famers if we're really lucky), anything new makes us sit up from off our boredom-couches and take notice.

And, oh look, sure enough, NBA 2K1 does so have updated rosters, new animations, AI and gameplay tweaks as well as added general management options, better facial animations and more motion capture, all of which was to be expected and means nothing towards the game's selection of Sports Game of E3.

What the Sega 2K1 games have that is new and exciting is network play over SegaNet. Networked sports gaming is relatively new; even EA Sports has only very recently (as in last year) added solid head to head network gaming to their PC sports titles. The living room consoles have never seen such a thing. Untried as the concept may be, it's exciting and has our competitive juices flowing.

Not everyone is sold on networked sports gaming, especially considering that very few games even get the multiplay right when all of the players are sitting at the same console. The AI has to be better in multiplayer games than it does for single player games to make up for the gamer being out of predictable position and internet games will lack that same-couch, finger-pointing proximity to your rival that has been such a large part of the fun of sports gaming for years and years. But just imagine you and a buddy taking on all comers at SegaNet. This will give the world the chance to prove just how much virtual game they've got.

Whether or not it turns out to be the snot, internet sports gaming 2K1 is definitely something we're dying to try from the comfort of our living rooms.

-Jules Grant

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