Pumpy_Tudors's Full Review: NBA Inside Drive 2000 for Windows
To me, Microsoft has been hit-and-miss with its games. I found NBA Inside Drive 2000 to be its best effort. Inside Drive has the absolute best AI of any basketball game I've played. I've tried a couple of the EA Sports offerings, and it just got too easy to slash through the defense for a dunk. Granted, I haven't played NBA Live 2000, so I don't know if that's still the case, but I haven't heard of any AI improvements.
Anyway, back to Inside Drive, I've found very few problems. Some of the good things are even groundbreaking. The AI plays extremely tough defense. You'll have to work for your shots. If you play tight D, the computer will work for its shots, too. Sometimes, it gets to the point where the computer will just wear you down with its passing, shooting, and defense. The game has four skill levels, and I've only played on the highest two. On both levels, the game was incredibly challenging. In fact, that may be the downfall. The game can be too hard unless you're patient. You have to learn to play computer basketball differently if you're going to beat this game. Depending on how you look at it, that may be good or bad.
The announcers, Kevin Calabro and Marques Johnson, get a lot of flack from some reviewers, but I think their commentary is revolutionary. I'll admit that they make some mistakes, and they will eventually get repetitive. Still, I get a kick out of hearing the two guys actually talk to each other. I fell out of my chair when I heard them debating whether a player was old enough to have a collection of vinyl records or 8-track tapes. They do a pretty good job of covering the game, too, if you're into that sort of thing (but, come on, 8-tracks!!!).
The graphics are good, and I think the animation is especially fluid. It's hard to find a camera angle that's perfectly suitable for play, but it gets tolerable. Regardless of the camera angle, a long view of the court really looked like a television broadcast. It looked awfully good.
The game has a single-season mode (no career play) with various season length settings, and you can make trades and free-agent signings during the season. There are also lots of coaching settings (tempo and defensive pressure sliders, for instance) which you or the computer can handle for your team.
Overall, the game truly is incredible, and I got it for $20 the day it came out, so it's priced right. I can't find any reason that NBA Inside Drive 2000 would be a bad buy.
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