NBA 06

NBA 06 E3 2005 Hands-On

In our last preview of NBA 06, the new basketball game from 989 Sports, we took a look at the game's central gameplay feature, dubbed "NBA Life Vol. 1," a mode that combined fast-paced court action with a cinematic, drama-filled storyline that took you through the ups and downs of an NBA rookie on the rise and on the road to greatness both on and off the court. Today, on the floor of Sony's E3 booth, we got a chance to sneak a limited peek at one of the components of this new gameplay mode: crunch-time scenarios.

As they're defined in the game, crunch-time scenarios are akin to the chapters of the storyline in NBA Life Vol. 1. To progress through the story, your skills will be tested in a variety of game-time situations. While that linear style of gameplay might sound restricting, it's important to realize that the producers of the game tend to liken this mode to a role-playing game game that just happens to revolve around basketball. Therefore, crunch-time scenarios might be considered specific boss battles you'll need to overcome to move your story along. Of course, variety won't hurt, and with more than 60 crunch-time scenarios to complete in this mode, you won't be at a loss for things to do.

As you progress through your NBA Life season, you'll enter these crunch-time scenarios over the course of the regular season and, of course, into the playoffs. In fact, because the game culminates in your team's entrance (and eventual victory) in the NBA Finals, as the season also culminates, the number of scenarios you encounter in a game will ramp up considerably. A regular season game might only feature one scenario per game, while game seven of the finals will have one scenario to pass per quarter. In light of this fact, many of the regular season games in this mode will be out of your hands, a move designed to keep the drama high and the plot moving. Producers estimate you'll be playing roughly 50 percent of the regular season games in this mode.

So what do you actually do in a scenario? The easiest way to describe one is to say that you will essentially be dropped into a game situation--sometimes in the middle of the game or sometimes with just seconds remaining on the game clock--and your goal will be to lead your team to victory. The example shown in the demo featured a Detroit Pistons-Phoenix Suns matchup in game seven of the NBA Finals. The game was tied, with 3:05 left to go in the half. Your goal was to have your team leading as it went into halftime. In addition to this team goal, however, there were also a number of optional and showtime goals to achieve. Optional goals will be things like scoring 10 team points, dishing three assists with your created player, or nabbing two steals for your team. Showtime goals, the ego-fulfilling "look at me" plays that can affect your player and your teammates either negatively or positively, included tossing two no-look alley-oop passes and nailing at least one "showtime" shot block.

In keeping with the cinematic feel of this mode, the game drops you into it after a short intro movie that helps set up the tension of the game situation. We also watched a portion of the pregame analysis for the game, which featured three NBA-on-TNT-looking analysts talking excitedly about the game and setting up the storylines of the day. As you complete scenarios on the court, a small check box pops up on the screen to note the completion of that particular goal. And once the game is over, a checklist shows which goals you completed and which ones you didn't. Producers told us that once you've finished the NBA Life mode, you will have the opportunity to go back and replay the situations you didn't fully complete to build up your created player for online games.

The actual basketball action we saw during our hands-on time with the game revealed a work that was definitely still in progress. Player models and animations looked OK, especially some of the tandem animations keyed off when one player charged against two defenders, for example. The shot meter doesn't seem changed from our last hands-on time with the game, and the more we played it, the more success we seemed to have with it. The computer-controlled players had a propensity for stepping out of bounds, and stripping the ball from a foe was simply a matter of pressing a button and watching the animation unfold. Still, with more development to go, obvious bugs like this should be well cleaned up by the time the game hits retail.

Beyond the crunch-time scenarios, Sony showed the game's trailer and the fun own-the-court minigame that we've already seen before. There's plenty more to talk about regarding this game, especially since we don't have many details on franchise or online modes, but rest assured that GameSpot Sports will be bringing you more information on this game as we approach its release.

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