989 Sports got the jump on EA Sports this fall in its effort to land a spot in the college basketball video-game Big Dance by releasing NCAA Final Four 2000 a few weeks before March Madness 2000. Well, 989 and game developer-designer Killer Game could have used a few more months of practice or even would have benefited from a year of probation.
Final Four 2000 shows no improvement over Final Four 99 and is filled with flaws in nearly every area. This game isn’t ready for the NCAA Tournament. It’s not even ready for the NIT. In fact, it’s Division II all the way. Read on to find out why. Gameplay:
Quick trivia question: Which is a higher number – the number of Ricky Martin records sold in 1999 or the number of gameplay flaws in Final Four 2000? It’s too close to call. Seriously, Final Four 2000 is riddled with gameplay problems that ruin any chance of realism or fun.
Let’s start on offense. The shooting percentages are ridiculously high in this game, especially at the lower skill levels. I played a game as my beloved Syracuse against Princeton in season mode at the Sophomore skill level, and the Orangemen made 27 of 30 shots from the floor. That’s 90 percent. The only shots I missed were three three-point attempts by my center and power forward. I don’t think I missed a shot in the second half. No NCAA team even shoots close to 90 percent from the free-throw line, let alone the floor. That game may sound like an exception, but both human and CPU teams routinely shoot 70 percent or better, especially at the lower skill levels. Shooting percentages tend to level out at the Senior skill level, but that’s only because of the insanely high number of blocks that human and CPU teams register in this game. For example, I shot 21-for-36 (58 percent) from the floor as Syracuse in a game against Missouri on the Senior skill level. But Missouri had 14 blocks, so I really only missed one unblocked shot from the floor. That’s ridiculous.
The offensive AI is brutal. Players stand around on the floor until a play is called or an Icon Cut is requested. No players set picks without manually requesting one. In fact, the nice Icon Cutting feature – one of the few positives in the gameplay of Final Four 2000 – is about the only mechanism that keeps players moving on the court once a team enters the half-court offense. The lack of player movement was only magnified by my recent review of NBA Live 2000, which features good player movement on offense even when a play isn’t called.
989 Sports promotes the Touch Shooting function as a breakthrough feature in basketball video gaming. I think it’s a game-wrecker that was better left in the mind or desktop PC of a programmer. With Touch Shooting on, a vertical meter is activated when a player shoots. A green “sweet spot” sector appears in that vertical meter. The human player must release the shot button inside the green sweet spot to get the most “touch” on the ball. In theory, it sounds great. In reality, shooting when the meter is in the sweet spot guarantees two points. Touch Shooting makes the game way too easy. Sure, the size of sweet spots varies according to the skill of each shooter, but I’ve still had many long bombs fall from the fingertips of centers and power forwards who have no sweet spot from the outside. With touch shooting on, every shot basically is going to go in the hoop if the meter is stopped inside the sweet spot and the shot isn’t blocked. That’s unrealistic and no fun.
In the rare instance that a shot is missed, the rebound physics are flawed. Missed shots usually rotate at least one full trip around the rim before hurtling nearly straight up in the air. There are never any long rebounds or rebounds to either side of the hoop. Centers and forwards will snare nearly every rebound unless a guard happens to be cutting under the hoop in a man-to-man defense. The only place in which the silly rebounding physics are appreciated is during free throws. Slightly errant free throws will roll around the hoop and either fall in or out, creating suspense, unlike the “swish-or-brick” physics model of the free throws in NBA Live 2000.
The defensive gameplay in Final Four is a mess. First, the matador defense that plagued Final Four 99 returns, especially at the lower skill levels. CPU guards controlling the ball at the top of the key will have an uncontested trip to the hoop for a dunk if they gain a step on his defender. There is absolutely no help defense programmed into the AI of this game.
But the lack of help defense might not be a huge flaw because it’s so easy to steal the ball from CPU opponents, even at the Senior skill level. Hammering the steal button, picking up the ball rolling on the floor unrealistically like a grounder to shortstop and hitting the turbo button is a recipe for easy victory in this game. And that recipe is a lot like cinnamon toast – really easy to make. Another unrealistic, arcade-like aspect of the game is that every player – even the smallest guard – dunks after a steal. Lay-ups are non-existent. And guards will score a disproportionate amount of points because steals and the subsequent dunks are so easy.
Blocks also occur much too frequently. I was watching a Stanford game on FOX Sports Net one night before continuing my analysis of this game when the announcer said that Stanford had set a school record with 11 blocks in a game. Well, Auburn blocked 14 of my shots in a game of only 10-minute halves. That’s a joke.
The core of any successful defensive strategy in this game is blocking and stealing balls with regularity. Strong positional play on defense isn’t rewarded nearly enough. That’s very, very unrealistic.
In fairness, there are a few positive aspects of the gameplay of Final Four besides the Icon Cutting system. The fouling frequency is accurate, and players are fouled in the right situations, with one glaring exception. Too many big men are fouled while attempting a three-point shot, which is wrong. Very few centers or power forwards are guarded closely when handling the ball outside the three-point arc. Substitution rotations are also realistic, even in the automatic mode. But it’s too bad that sometimes you’re not even aware that a sub has entered the game. More on that in the sound section of this review.
Longevity:Final Four 2000 only has one longevity aspect going for it: It includes 314 NCAA Division I teams and 31 conferences. That’s almost double the amount of teams available in March Madness 2000. And everyone knows that one of those “nobody” teams always sneaks up to win a first-round game or scare the bejeezus out of a top seed in the first round of the Big Dance. So it’s nice to have those small schools in the game.
Otherwise, this game offers nothing but standard fare when it comes to longevity. There is no practice mode. There is no classic teams mode in which players could take the 1990 UNLV powerhouse and challenge one of the great teams from John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty in the 1960s and 1970s. March Madness 2000 has this feature.
There are five modes of play in Final Four 2000: Quick Start, Exhibition, Season, Tournament and Arcade.
The computer randomly selects two teams for a quick-and-dirty exhibition game in the Quick Start mode. In exhibition mode, a player or players can pick two of the 314 schools in the game to play an exhibition. The tournament mode features a complete, 64-team NCAA Tournament bracket. Human players can lock on to one team, and games or entire tournament rounds can be simulated by the computer to reduce the amount of time needed to take the road to the Final Four. The Season mode allows players to pick one school and play their season. Individual games can be simulated so players can skip some of the early, non-conference cupcake matchups and dive right into the meat of the conference schedule. That’s a nice touch, but it’s one that’s standard in the season mode of nearly all sports video games these days. The Arcade mode features games with no rules, no fouls and players that look like bobbing-head dolls, with oversized heads. Otherwise, the arcade game doesn’t look or feel that much different than the other modes.
A major problem is the lack of freshmen on the default team rosters. Every school’s default roster only contains upperclassmen, which leads to unrealistic lineups. For example, only four of the seven Syracuse players on the bench actually exist in reality on this year’s edition of the Orangemen. Some gamers simply want to sit down and play a realistic game of NCAA basketball without getting involved in the intricacies of recruiting. Well, 989 Sports and Killer Game don’t let gamers do that. To have a roster that includes freshmen, it appears that gamers must enter the recruiting mode. That’s inexcusable for two reasons: First, high school seniors commit to schools in the spring. That provides more than enough time for 989 and Killer Game to research incoming recruits and attempt to include them in the game. Second, 989 and Killer Game are shoving a round peg into a square hole by ignoring the needs of gamers who have no interest in recruiting.
And those who are interested in recruiting will lose interest very fast after investigating that mode of Final Four 2000. Recruiting is the biggest flaw in the longevity department, hands down.
First, the recruiting mode is shallow. Players can choose from one of 12 abstract recruits, and changes can be made to each recruit’s attributes. That’s a joke. In reality, college coaches can’t change the skills of a player who is still in high school. That happens once the player commits to the school and the coach begins the development of the player. There is no regional recruiting and no recruiting visits, unlike the incredibly deep and fun recruiting mode offered in EA Sports’ NCAA Football 2000, which has set a Gran Turismo-like benchmark for recruiting in a college sports video game.
If that part of the recruiting systems seems bad, it only gets worse. Teams have 12-man rosters, which is a flaw in itself. This isn’t the NBA, which has 12-man rosters. College teams usually have between 14 and 16 players on the roster, counting walk-ons. But when a freshman or junior-college transfer is recruited and added to either the bench roster or starting lineup, the player that he replaced disappears from the team’s roster! Talk about Wally Pipp Syndrome -- that’s insane.
Controls:There are some nice aspects to the controls of Final Four 2000. First, the menus are easy to find and navigate. Every step seems logical. The game has a variety of adjustable options, too. Half length can be adjusted to five, 10 or 20 minutes. Game speed can be adjusted from 25 to 100 percent at 1-percent increments, with 50 percent as default. That adjustable game speed is a nice plus that EA Sports should implement in its games. But that deep level of game-speed tuning only magnifies the shallow nature of the half length adjustment mechanism. The half length should have been adjustable from between five to 20 minutes at one-minute increments so gamers could balance their ability with desire for realistic stats. There are four different skill levels: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior. Injuries, fatigue, fouls, touch shooting and the 6th Man feature can be turned on or off, and substitutions can be manual or automatic.
Final Four 2000 supports analog control of players, and the Dual Shock vibration is well supported, with effective vibration on hard fouls and dunks. The controller buttons are mappable, but there are limitations. Certain offensive and defensive tasks are paired to one of the front icon buttons, and they can’t be separated. So if you switch passing to the X button and shooting to the circle button from the default settings, X also will become the defensive player switch button and circle will become the jump button. NBA Live 2000 allows for independent setting of offensive and defensive controls, and Final Four 2000 should have included the same function.
Some of the control functions are downright awkward. For example, the 6th Man feature is a nice idea, in concept. When activated, the crowd will boo an opponent lustily while shooting in hopes that it will affect his psyche and shot. In reality, a human player must press all four shoulder (L1, L2, R1 and R2) buttons simultaneously to activate the 6th Man. That’s ridiculous. Removing your fingers from the joystick and front icon buttons prevents human players from getting into position for good defense or a defensive rebound. An even more glaring example of dodgy control is the play-calling function. Human players must hit the Select button and one of the front icon buttons to call offensive and defensive plays. That creates a huge problem, as CPU defenders often swat the ball away from human offensive players in the split second they’re calling plays, or CPU offensive players blow past idle human defenders calling the play. The shoulder buttons should have been used to call plays, as it would have prevented the momentary and sometimes fatal loss of control of the human player. Killer Game blew it with this function.
But Killer Game does a very nice job with the use of icons to accompany players. When a human player activates Icon Passing, Icon Cutting or Icon Defensive Switching, the icon appears beneath the player’s feet in a large, white-shaded screen. It’s much easier to see than the small, unshaded icons that appear above players’ heads in NBA Live 2000. Those icons sometimes get lost in the crowd or other players’ graphics, while the icons are very easy to spot in Final Four 2000.
This game also contains deeper player statistics than NBA Live 2000, considered by many as the benchmark so far this year for PlayStation basketball games. Statistics are divided into every conceivable category: Minutes played, points, total rebounds, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, assists, personal fouls, blocks, steals, turnovers, made shots, and attempts and shooting percentages for field goals, free throws and three-point shots. It’s nice to see that Killer Game kept deep stats while EA Sports strangely trimmed such details as minutes played and turnovers from the stats in NBA Live 2000. All stats can be sorted by category in Final Four 2000, which is a smart touch, too.
Final Four 2000 also contains standard player control actions, such as pump fakes, protecting the ball, a turbo button, special moves, taking charges, cherry picking on defense and intentional fouls. There’s nothing really special in this scheme other than the Icon Passing, Icon Cutting and Icon Defensive Switching.
Graphics:In its press materials for Final Four 2000, 989 Sports touts a new “state-of-the-art 3D player model using the latest ‘skinning’ technique.” The player models in Final Four 2000 might barely be considered 3D, but they’re not state of the art for 1999. The players might have appeared cutting edge in 1997. There is very little definition or shading on players’ arms or legs, and the school names are illegible on the front of jerseys. There is no face-wrap technology like in NBA Live 99 and NBA Live 2000. NCAA regulations possibly prevented 989 and Killer Game from using actual player facial images, but reasonable renditions should have been created.
Arena floors look good. The hardwood gleams under the glare of arena lighting, and all on-court logos and school logos appear realistic. The addition of full-motion coaches pacing the sidelines and officials and media members sitting at the scorer’s table courtside also is a nice addition. The frame rate also feels quite smooth, even with 10 players gathered near one basket. There is very little stuttering or jerky movement like in NBA Live 2000. Props to Killer Game. The first few rows of spectators also are dynamic, with fairly detailed fans cheering nice shots and plays by the home team. Those fans also wave their arms when a visiting team’s player is shooting free throws and applauds when a home team’s player makes each free throw. That’s a nice touch that complements the accurate crowd noises well.
The manual instant replay feature is also sweet. The camera angle can be moved anywhere on the court, up and down or zoomed in or out. That provides superb flexibility. And the neatest touch of the manual replay system is the addition of the game clock to the display. Players can actually see how much time was left on the clock when their game-winning basket drained through the hoop. Very nice.
But the positive aspects of the graphics end there. While the courts and benches look good, the actual arenas are unrealistic. For example, the grandstand setup and mezzanine sections of the Carrier Dome look nothing like the real thing. Another example: There are only about four rows of seats behind the baskets at Texas Tech’s arena. I’ve never seen Texas Tech’s arena in person, but I’m guessing that it’s bigger than a high-school gym, which is what it looks like in Final Four 2000. If 989 Sports can create accurate stadium models in such titles as NCAA Gamebreaker 2000 and Supercross Circuit, then why can’t they force Killer Game to be accurate in Final Four 2000? Sure, accuracy for 314 gyms is a tall task. But Digital Polyphony just rendered more than 500 cars in perfect detail for Gran Turismo 2. It can be done.
And while the frame rate is smooth, the animations for dunks are exaggerated. Sometimes half of the player’s body rises above the rim on a dunk. That’s unrealistic.
The transition of camera angles after missed free throws is also awkward. The view toward the basket during free throws comes from over the shooter’s shoulder. When the final free throw is missed, the camera angle shifts from over-the-shoulder to the default high-sideline angle while the ball is in play. It’s very awkward, making it hard to tell which team has grabbed the rebound. And the angle renders quick putbacks on an offensive rebound of a missed free throw nearly impossible by a human player because it’s so hard to tell who grabbed the rebound.
There are seven overall camera angles in this game. The default angle is the Sideline High, which offers good depth perspective and a wide view of the floor. Other angles are Overhead, Three Quarters, Sideline Low, Upcourt High, Upcourt Low and the Action Cam, which is a combination of a variety of angles. The default Sideline High, Upcourt High and Action Cam are the only useful angles. The others create depth-perception problems or have limited field of vision. Still, the choice of three decent camera angles is a plus and provides solid options for players.
Sound:The sound in Final Four 2000 is mediocre. Starting with the positive, the crowd noise is solid. Cheers and boos rain on the court at appropriate times, and there is a steady ebb and flow of crowd noises depending on the activity on the court. It’s a refreshing change from the endless loop of droning cheer present in EA Sports’ NBA Live 2000 and 989 Sports’ NFL Gameday 2000 and NCAA Gamebreaker 2000.
Other nice touches in the crowd noise include a chorus of “whoosh” when a player makes a free throw and a cacophony of “you, you, you” yelled at a visiting-team player when he commits a personal foul. The on-court sounds also are crisp. Sneakers squeak on the floor, the net makes an accurate swish sound after successful shots from the field and free throws, and officials’ whistles sound realistic.
But that’s where the good aspects of the sound end. For example, the rim sounds like a rickety peach basket on missed shots and completed dunks. Someone needs to tell Killer Game that James Naismith hasn’t hung a peach basket in a gym in many, many years.
The most glaring omission in the sound department is the absence of a horn to signal substitutions. Since there are no cutaway graphics showing players entering the game like in NBA Live 2000, subs simply magically appear on the floor. And the only indication that subs are entering the game is a small green notification graphic that’s flashed for a few seconds under the score graphic at the top left corner of the screen. Sometimes announcer Quinn Buckner will indicate that subs are entering the game; sometimes he won’t. A simple horn would have solved that problem, but Killer Game inexplicably left it out of the game. It’s a startling omission that affects the realism and gameplay of the game.
Noted television analyst Buckner is an acquired taste as the announcer in Final Four 2000, even if he was accurate 100 percent of the time in his calls in this game. His strange intonations – “We’re about ready to tip things AWWFF” – return this year. So do his annoying cliches such as “String music!” after a swished shot. It almost seems as if Buckner didn’t return to the studio this year, as his audio tracks are nearly identical to those used in Final Four 99.
Buckner does a solid job of keeping up with the play, but he offers absolutely no insight or information about the teams or schools. There’s no way that Killer Game could have taxed the limits of the PlayStation’s processor speed or memory with the weak graphics and gameplay of Final Four 2000, so there must be room left for additional, insightful audio from Buckner. Why wasn’t that memory used?
The programming of Buckner’s audio is mixed. At times, he will utter a funny one-liner. For example, after some blocked shots he will exclaim, “Get that shh … ot out of here.” But programming gaffes in the audio sink those infrequent funny moments. For example, Syracuse entered the bonus situation after an Auburn foul, and Buckner said, “Auburn is in the bonus.” Later in that game, Syracuse led Auburn by 18 with less than a minute remaining in the game. Auburn’s point guard brought the ball upcourt, and Buckner said. “This is an important trip for the Tigers.” What? Why? So they can cover the spread and avoid allegations of point shaving? That’s just bad programming.
The suspect programming also continues with the school fight songs. I was playing a game of Syracuse at Providence when I decided to access the pause menu to explore some options. The Notre Dame fight song started to play in the background. Very peculiar, indeed.
Fight songs sound chintzy, in general, too. They were composed with synthesizers and electronic instruments instead of real brass instruments. 989 was guilty of this sin to a degree in NCAA Gamebreaker 2000, as some of the fight songs in that game were synthesized. But some sure sounded like they were performed by a real brass band. Why couldn’t that touch have been added to Final Four 2000? The menu music is synthesized hip-hop. It’s the run-of-the-mill soundtrack for nearly all basketball games these days. Just as every driving game must feature a techno soundtrack, hoop games must have hip-hop. I’m waiting for a company to break that mold, but I’m not holding my breath for 2001, that’s for sure.
Overall:Many savvy sports gamers criticize both 989 Sports and EA Sports – fairly or unfairly – for releasing new editions of sports games that only include a few small enhancements over the previous year’s versions. There are exceptions, such as the vastly improved Knockout Kings 2000 from EA Sports, but the recent industry trend is to make a few changes, package the game with a new year in the title and expect gamers to devour it like free hors d’oeurves at a holiday party.
Well, 989 Sports has taken that philosophy to a new low with Final Four 2000. This game feels almost unchanged from Final Four 99. All of the flaws that plagued that game remain in this new edition. The sound isn’t any better. The graphics aren’t any better. The gameplay still is riddled with AI flaws. The controls and longevity still are suspect.
989 Sports’ attempt to pass off Final Four 2000 as an improvement over Final Four 99 is somewhat insulting to hardcore sports gamers. This game isn’t improved, and it isn’t very good. Final Four 2000 would have been cutting-edge in December 1996 or 1997, but not in December 1999. 989 Sports and Killer Game must be capable of more than this. If not, then all sports video-game nuts are the losers.
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