Espn Nfl 2k5, :: damn you funkmaster flex:: Options

[Mr. Blonde]

Okay so that is really weird topic description but we will get to that in a moment. You ever watch those really crappy reality shows? Like that one where Carmen Electra marries Dave Navvarro and your all like WTF? How did that happen? Well that's what I thought when ESPN "married" SEGA to start producing the ESPN NFL 2K series. However I had a blast with last years offering and I am currently even more in love with this years game.

Gameplay/Control

Now Madden 2005 is not out yet so basically I am comparing this game to NCAA 2005 which I am currently playing also (Go Univeristy of Texas) as they stack up NFL2K5 is easily the champ. With all the added features it really blows NCAA out of the water. You have everything in this game from "The Crib" which is a larger house than last year where you can store in game trophies as well as "buy" things that match to pimp out your place. Such as posters of your favorite football team or a new media center, etc. ANother great feature is you can edit your own team, players or even take on the whole establishment in franchise mode. Hell need to fire your owner and hire a new coach, you can in NFL2K5. Now let me get you tell you something, this game isn't some micro-manage bore fest. It has all the arcade flashiness of the origianal for Xbox. With the ability to charge up the a button to activate huge plays, juke opposing players and customize your victory dances. Great stuff with a ton of features that I can't even begin to cover here.

Graphics

This is where NFL2K5 really shines. Althought the player models are not the best looking compared to Ninja Gaiden or Psi-Ops. It's the amount of graphic detail the game covers. You see everything you would in a ESPN broadcast, from that fatty Chris Berman introing the game to a complete game wrap up after the game. Even the half-time report is 100% accurate and runs down all the cool stuff that has happened so far. You also get a ton of shots of stuff going in the bleachers/stadium as well as excellent play by play from the announcers. They must of had to record 100s of lines for the game to sound this good. And of course their are about 10 different camera angles that you can choose to play from including the ESPN field camera that fly's on wires across the top of the field...

The Story

Yo Mr Blonde "The story? " wtf? It's a football game. Yeah I know that but the story of this game is building and adding things to your crib. Which you do the more you win and the more you play the game. I mean I know it's not that novel but it's just so cool and a great way to show off all you have done. My favorite new feature this year is that you have a phone in your crib. So everyonce in a while the game says "You have a call" and you go to your crib in the menu and answer it. The first time I did it was Funkmaster Flex. Who challenged me to a game. Of course he had his own custom team. (All ranked at 100%) and he proceeded to whup my ass 13-3. The other cool part (or annoying) is that after good play in the game Funkmaster photo will pop up and he will taunt you, kinda like he is right there playing against you on Xbox Live or something. A cool feature indeed. I wonder who else will call me next?

All in all this is a great football arcade game. Not as deep as NCAA but not as
light as NFL Blitz. It's great to play on Xbox Live as well and a must buy for only
19.88 . GO out and get it today and let's send the message that SEGA and ESPN rock and that this is a good price for a game. Screw that 49.99 price on other games....

8.5/10

[Spency234]

[Sai1002]

I Can't believe you gave only 8.5 .... well i give it a 9.9 out of 10 because of it's amazing graphics and gameplay... AND IT"S PRICE... 19.99!!! ESPN rocks! and they'll keep selling their new games for 19.99

[DuDeR MaN]

It looks like some sites are already scoring it higher than madden and it seems there reason for doing so is the price (on top of the great gamepla). I got a chance to play this yesterday when I picked up doom 3, I've been waiting for madden to come out since I am a fan of the series and it's now online enabled (which I've had live hooked up for a couple months now). Anyway this game visually blew me away, it is definatley the best looking football game I have ever seen. I had no problem telling who the players were by merely looking at their face, instead of their name or number. Control wise, I only played it for about 10-15 minutes and it was on a ps2 which I'm not use to. so I had some trouble there but it seemed easy enough to catch onto.

Anyway, that $20 price tag is still hangin over my head making me want to get it but I have to at least wait for the release of madden to see how they stack up.

[Sai1002]

[ronetone]

playing sports game you have to go with a ps2 controller but for graphics the xbox wins and as for espn for $20 you can't complain but yes ea sports do have better games but for $50 a game it better be good

[myronc]

always xbox. always.

anyway this game owns and i'm not ashamed to give it a 9.8ish. depth and gameplay are key here. and the price makes it so much easier to love. i had run ins with few people that thought the low price suggested low quality, but honestly Nfl2k5 is worth more to me than last year's madden.

[LordOfChaos]

Well, I will add my 2 cents.

First let me acknowledge that I am a huge Madden fan. So my opinions are definately biased. I am also a PS2 sports guy, so playing football games on the Xbox does take some getting used to (for me). I have also played NCAA 2005 on the Xbox, and I agree with everyone that the Xbox graphics kill the PS2.

My initial impression of 2K5 was lackluster. I don't really care for the controls that much (again biased by the Madden games) so I was constantly fumbling around trying to get the basics down (I did check out the training portion first). I think passing is way too easy. I destroyed the Colts with the Broncos, and just about every ball I threw to Lelie was caught no matter what the coverage.

I do like the extras that 2K5 offer over Madden - sports center stuff, weekly prep, etc. but the desire to go back to NCAA 05 just keeps lingering. I will give it a more in depth shot this weekend, but I am pretty sure I will be a Madden guy again when it is all said and done.

A giant Kudos goes out to Sega for the price on this game! It is about time companies got agressive in their marketing against the status quo. EA better watch out!

[Sai1002]

[DuDeR MaN]

yea I heard the default difficulty was fairly easy. I don't know though, I still got to wait to the madden release to weigh them out.


P.S.- Doom 3 is by far the best survival horror game I have EVER played, It is also the most realistic (graphically) I have ever played. And it plays just like the original doom, so fans like myself will have a blast. I'm not one to get "scared" from video games but with the lights off and the volume up this game can freak you out a bit and make you jump at times, you'll also be stopping to view your surroundings alot. But if you going to play it, put it on the hardest difficulty, I've been playing on the second hardest thinking that it would be freaking hard as the original doom was but it's too easy for the most part. Oh yea and the multiplayer pretty much sucks. Well since this is the review forum I guess I should give it a score even if it's an off-topic game. I'd say it gets 9.5/10.

[handrill]

default is definitely designed to get the newcomers in to the game. the $20 price tag is going to bring in a lot of people who haven't played much in the past. definitely got to move up a level to get rid of the easy passing issue. then it gets to be a great game.

i think the price/along with the quality of the game is great for everybody. hopefully a lot of people buy espn cause it's a great game and hopefully that puts some pressure on ea to lower the price of madden. doubt they'll do it cause they dont really need to but it would be nice. i don't want to buy three games: ncaa, espn and madden. i think this year it will be espn which i have already and then one of the other two. rent and see and then pull trigger.

[riverboy24]

I cant believe they are selling this for $20. The jerseys look amazing, and the gameplay is much better than ncaa.

[Mr. Blonde]

Glad to see so many people ranked it even higher than I did!

[luv2trade24]

great game and i got it for $15