A unnamed player (M. Guard, or whatever) can have his likeness
"copied" onto a to-be-created player, which is how you can name Jordan
and Shaq while still keeping what looks more like them than anything
I've ever seen in a basketball game before.

Some of the countenances are really odd, though, seemingly modeled
after the inaccurate in-game pictures (they pop up when the player's
accumlated points are displayed) which frequently only *vaguely*
resemble the intended player.

Kevin Garnett looks like he's some guy down the street -- and Kevin
has a *very* distinctive look, with his long, lean jaw and long nose
-- that guy has gotta have one of the most marketable faces in the
game, next to Shaq's, yet the in-game picture looks like some nobody
guy's.  I know the same is true of many of the other players.  My
question is WHY?  You have the actual faces at your use, being that
you have a player license!!  I know you may be dealing with limited
RAM but the faces frequently only barely resemble the player -- that's
NOT the fault of limited pic quality due to space issues.

But there are still other really, really bothersome quirks with this
otherwise neat game.

1)  No stat tracking ACROSS seasons, only within single game (note
that the memory card only holds 2 slots for this game -- which is
different still from the 1 which they claim on the package - it's
really 2).

2)  The load times are simply OUTRAGEOUS.  This is really painful and
UNACCEPTABLE at the in-game substitution screens.  And you can only
sub. players in and out by calling a time-out.  Going on, the waiting
time must be something on the order of (and there are multiple menu
button pushes to get to the actual sub screen -- more lunacy) 35-45
seconds just to get there and then get back to the game without even
making adjustments.

Konami, sometimes I wonder whether you *play* the sports games you
make.  If you did, you'd fix these unbelieveably GLARING yet
correctable PROBLEMS (too late now, though).  Your MLBPA baseball was
so darn good, IMO, yet it had problems which left is nearly unplayable
in 1 player mode -- more foolish menu madness.

The memory load/save sequence is also similarly painful to MLBPA
Baseball by Konami.  It takes a *long* long time to load/save.  About
45 seconds to 1 minute.  Just wait til you try to save created player
for the first time -- you'll question whether you're just an idiot,
then you'll realize that this load/save screen is really just the
product of 100,000 monkeys randomly programming for a couple of
days....

Why the problem with the substitution screen loading times?  Because
they made sure there was continuous music (awful and choppy, too) and
big, fancy, pretty, unnecessary, even dorky, backgrounds.  Take out
the glitz so the darn menus are navigable and not infinitley
time-consuming, huh?  "If I only had a brain..."

It basically throws out stamina, because if you leave it on, it's
impractical, what one has to do to properly manage player status (of
which you give us no in-game indication, either, Konami -- one has to
look at the sub. menu, spending 15+ seconds to *get* there, then more
time to get back to the game).

One other major problem:  the ball passing is unbelieveably SLOW.
Really, it's so bad that a player can pass the ball and keep up with
it if he's running after it (L1 button pressed and held, I believe).
Isn't this seriously disturbing, Konami Programmers of this game?  Or
did you model the ball physics after underwater basket-ball-ing?

The game is much like the last one, but with better textures, better
commentating, better crowd cheering, MUCH better AI, many many more
dunks!, bare-minimum on-the-fly play adjusting, better instruction
booklet, player create (but only about 14 slots, and most of them must
be taken up by filling in the rookies and unlicensed players, doggone
it), full season mode (only full -- no partial), playoff mode, and a
lot of superfluous pre-game fluff which is actually not impressive
enough to be included, IMO -- things like national anthem and pre-game
player flybys -- takes about 12 seconds to load up, making it just a
darn waste of time - maybe they could've streamed the data instead of
loading it all at once.

Recap:  Dunks are unreal, esp. the Jordan-esque step-climbing slam
from the free throw line -- GORGEOUS;  gameplay is improved;  play
rules and management features still leave a whole lot to be desired;
facial textures are much improved on many of the players;  commentator
and sounds are better;  game is harder (variable levels), with better
AI;  the create player feature is *limited* -- cannot really fix how
GOOD the player plays!!!!!;  no season stat tracking (idiots), only
in-game; and, finally, the 'triangle' button has now become more
situation variable...sometimes pressing it will switch ball to other
hand, sometimes will post up, sometimes will pivot, sometimes will
move hard to the basket.

Now, given that NBA Live '97 is right around the corner, and the game
LOOKS and SOUNDS about 2 X's better than the garish yet detailed ITZ2
(in my opinion), I suggest waiting and getting Live'97 if you aren't
going to do a comparative rental of the two first.

Believe me, Live'97 looks to be the best basketball game of all time
from the movies I've watched, while ITZ2 seems to be made by people
who *don't*  A)  appreciate gaming (note ITZ2's glitz-over-
loading-time issue which is so out of hand in this game that I'm
FLABERGASTED by it), and who don't B)  know much about basketball, or
simply ignored including accurate rules in the game.

Mind you, a whole lot has been improved in this game, but it's still,
sadly, just an arcade game (being that you'll crank up stamina to max
because subbing in and out is so damn painful and time-consuming) with
a bit of flair, and given that there's still a conspicuous absence of
SEASON stat tracking -- unless SOMEHOW I've missed it and it isn't
referred to in the manual.

BTW, 2 multitaps can be used with this game for a total of 8 players.
Nice deal.  Hey, it's gotta be a lot of fun to play exhibition-style
with 2 or more players, just like the last game.  It's *fun*, leaving
out the pain of the excessive loading times, the lack of playcalling..

I'm keeping it because I love sports game and buy most of them, but I
wouldn't recommend this game over what I expect from Live'97.  No way,
no how.  And I wonder what Sony Ent's product will be for this year,
if there will be one -- last year's was soaked with potential.

P.S.  In this year's version, one can now press the button to skip the
replay, thank GOD.  You can also choose to have every score result in
a replay, or just one's which the computer considers impressive -- who
knows what the computer is thinking of, though -- it misses all my
great drives to the basket into dunks....


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Rick Brown
brow0130@gold.tc.umn.edu
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