As far as the graphics go I am pissed. It's like I am working in Adobe Photoshop all throughout the game. By this I am talking about the constant drop shadow and inner glow on the all the players... WTH!!! Compared to how the people looked in 2004, the players look like crap, to me this looks like some sort of lower rended college basketball game. It seems they are atempting to compete with ESPN too much and for it the quality has suffered.

Pay attention to the crowd, the BS cardboard cutout looking crowd is back and I feel like I am playing back in 64-bit games because everything looks flat. Last year it was nice to look on the sideline see the coach and players on the bench doing their own little animated things depending on the intensity of the game. That's gone.

User Interface is horrible!! I mean horrible! The ease and navigation is no longer there. EA has removed the different types of lineups you can put in, no more Fast, 3-pt, Big Man, ecetera for that particular game time situation. It's all one by one now, click by dull click. You no longer have the option to create a user profile and save your defensive and offensive plays as well as desired skill level of play. Basically, you will never have your career stats of wins/losses, average scores, steals, ecetera. The interface is so dead and so empty there is no longer that HELP option to tell you what you all the things you can do. There is just ONE option.

On to gameplay. Never have I seen the computer so weighted. I decided to jump in on Superstar, no biggie. I found it frustrating that all the open jumpers and inch layups by myself happened to fall short while the computer double and triple teamed from difficult angles dropped shot after shot. There is competition and there is ridiculous, this definitely stretched to ridiculous. The great thing about 2004 was that the defense actually swarmed in on opponents driving the basket instead of playing OLAY and just letting them run past them. Well, for the user that OLAY style of defense has returned, it's not hard to stay with the offense, what they did was make it difficult for a person to attempt to steal. Instead of the stationary attempt to steal while having the option to move forward with the control stick, the player now lunges forward leaving you in a state trying to recover from that lunge forward, by that time the opponent is gone so you're best not attempting steals. Blocking has also dropped, lets all just jump in the air with Yao Ming against Baron Davis and never block his shot... EVER. Because he jumps straight up for the most part and no longer takes those swipes in the air like before.

Offense. On offense, it's best to just attempt to shoot the lights out, if you don't get a open break chances are something is going to go wrong. CHARGE. DROP THE BALL. There no longer seems to be the ability to jump stop to the left or right, only up and down, WTH! The lost form of the hook shot, there isn't one so be prepared to be blocked. I also have to love that slow motion when crossing over between the legs, why? The spin move and drop back is still there though. I haven't attempted to see if you can pass the ball while attempting to dunk, last year that was the only thing I disliked among the mid air foul calls that ended up still having you take the ball out, there are a few others but 2004 blows 2005 out of the water.

In all EA did a good job hyping the game by covering a turd with a shiny new slam dunk contest. If I could remove the slam dunk contest to get back all of last years gameplay I would be all for it because this isn't worth it as I wanted to literally stomp on my Xbox and throw it against the wall as EA rated this game so well, I was pumped up and let down at every moment. Finally, I turned off the Xbox with a forceful push of the power button before either slamming my controller into pieces or breaking my Xbox.

Cliff notes: Pre-excitement to excitement to disappointment to anger to lost hope.

I cannot EDIT.. so here is the beginning of that reply:

I took the hour drive to go get it... compared to NBA LIVE 2004, this game sucks. I am greatly disappointed. I will admit, I am sucking horribly at this game, killing at Superstar on 2004 and playing on Allstar I can't get $#@! Ever time I drive no matter what, the computer gives me a offensive foul and rightful rebounds magically go over my head and the opponent gets them when I'm the one actually jumping??? I can't be more disappointed so I had to post. I wish I could just play 2004 online and I would be satisfied.

Oh, in regards to the question, yes both NBA LIVE 2005 are out as well as ESPN, I saw both at the EB I went to. Maybe it's time to change and try out ESPN instead