I'm still in the "I like College Hoops" camp but the lack of CPU 3 pointers is REALLY starting to get to me. Unless a team is very good at shooting the three they'll rarely take them and it's starting to grate on me. I played a game last night against a team with decent outside shooters and they took 2 3-point shots. That's not modern college basketball.
I have a $20 voucher for Media Play that I was considering using to get MM 2005. I am hearing so many mixed things about it and since I never trust a sports game review that I don't write or from a writer that I don't know, I was wondering if the game has any redeeming features that make it a better game, or at least a comparable game, that CH.
Does the Dynasty mode suck?
Does the CPU shoot 3's?
I like the Live 2005 engine; does it use that?
Are there fouls?
If anyone can throw me a life raft on this I'd appreciate it.
Is March Madness Gawd Awful?
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Bill_Abner
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Is March Madness Gawd Awful?
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dbdynsty25
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Bill_Abner
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If MM2005 is NBA Live 2005 with college teams and recruiting without any additional dumb s***, I'll prolly like it.dbdynsty25 wrote:I can't imagine it could be much worse than CH...I am liking Live better than ESPN this year (which is the first time that's been true since like 99). Jared seems to think that MM sucks, so I'd wait to hear from him.
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ScoopBrady
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I've had a lot of fun with March Madness. The Floor General is a blast to run but it's not as fun or easy to play defense as it is in Live. Of course sliders might fix this but I haven't really messed with them too much. There is some slowdown (mostly during camera transitions) but nothing too bad overall. I wish I could tell you about CPU 3 point attempts but I've been playing a lot of KOTOR II so it's not really fresh in my memory.
I am a patient boy.
I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait.
My time is water down a drain.
I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait.
My time is water down a drain.
Well I have not played Live or College Hoops 2k5. I got March Madness as a gift, so I took it. I've played two games so far with OKState with the default settings.
The first game I fell behind early in the first half but made a comecback to send the game to OT. I finally won 87-85 in double OT. The first thing I noticed was the amount of fouls, I fouled out my Center in the first half. I'm sure with some good sliders this could be a keeper.
I also noticed the fatigue factor is set to 0% by default. I'm not sure why but I put it to 25% just for the heck of it .
The Dynasty mode is pretty cool. There are recruiting violations, player suspensions and you can be put on probation .
The CPU does shoot 3's!
if anyone else has it and has sliders I would be interested in your input.
The first game I fell behind early in the first half but made a comecback to send the game to OT. I finally won 87-85 in double OT. The first thing I noticed was the amount of fouls, I fouled out my Center in the first half. I'm sure with some good sliders this could be a keeper.
I also noticed the fatigue factor is set to 0% by default. I'm not sure why but I put it to 25% just for the heck of it .
The Dynasty mode is pretty cool. There are recruiting violations, player suspensions and you can be put on probation .
The CPU does shoot 3's!
if anyone else has it and has sliders I would be interested in your input.
I'm just cutting and pasting from a previous post here....
March Madness doesn't hold a candle to College Hoops 2K5. Even though there are quite a few problems with 2K5 (pick and roll too easy, good teams sometimes play too well, ghost blocks, back of the backboard layups, legacy problems), it has a solid gameplay engine. MM doesn't have that. Some of the major problems:
Super-skatey players. If you're taking the ball upcourt and there's an AI defender on you with any speed, getting past him usually involves trying to skate past his force field into the frontcourt. If you try to get past him near the sidelines, you'll slide around his force field and often get invisibly guided out of bounds. Nearly every EA game uses the same momentum-based physics for player control (Madden, NCAA, MM, NBA, FIFA, NHL) that has its roots in the classic games for the Genesis. Unfortunately, every game also has some form of skating/force field weirdness (e.g. Mario running). Some deal with it better, but others (MM) don't.
It's difficult to "feel" the differences between players. In College Hoops, a good point guard can blow past a slower PF/C if they're one-on-one. You really don't get that with MM.
Floor general can easily be abused. Basically, just call a play that gets someone deep in the post. Pass it to them (it never gets intercepted) and they now have the ball 4 feet from the basket.
Using the dunk button, you can go from standing completely still to making a physically impossible leap towards the basket to make a layup. It's completely unrealistic.
And finally, the biggest problem with MM is this: When you pass the ball, the ball goes to where the receiver is when you initiate your pass, NOT where the player will be. So on a fast break, you can't lead the player receiving the pass. With CH, you've got the "through" pass that allows you to do this. But in MM, every single pass goes directly to where the player is. I think the first CH game had this problem, and I absolutely hated it. It renders fast breaks to be almost worthless, and also doesn't allow you to use any kind of offense that relies on cuts to the basket.
CH has its problems. But MM still isn't even in the same class.
March Madness doesn't hold a candle to College Hoops 2K5. Even though there are quite a few problems with 2K5 (pick and roll too easy, good teams sometimes play too well, ghost blocks, back of the backboard layups, legacy problems), it has a solid gameplay engine. MM doesn't have that. Some of the major problems:
Super-skatey players. If you're taking the ball upcourt and there's an AI defender on you with any speed, getting past him usually involves trying to skate past his force field into the frontcourt. If you try to get past him near the sidelines, you'll slide around his force field and often get invisibly guided out of bounds. Nearly every EA game uses the same momentum-based physics for player control (Madden, NCAA, MM, NBA, FIFA, NHL) that has its roots in the classic games for the Genesis. Unfortunately, every game also has some form of skating/force field weirdness (e.g. Mario running). Some deal with it better, but others (MM) don't.
It's difficult to "feel" the differences between players. In College Hoops, a good point guard can blow past a slower PF/C if they're one-on-one. You really don't get that with MM.
Floor general can easily be abused. Basically, just call a play that gets someone deep in the post. Pass it to them (it never gets intercepted) and they now have the ball 4 feet from the basket.
Using the dunk button, you can go from standing completely still to making a physically impossible leap towards the basket to make a layup. It's completely unrealistic.
And finally, the biggest problem with MM is this: When you pass the ball, the ball goes to where the receiver is when you initiate your pass, NOT where the player will be. So on a fast break, you can't lead the player receiving the pass. With CH, you've got the "through" pass that allows you to do this. But in MM, every single pass goes directly to where the player is. I think the first CH game had this problem, and I absolutely hated it. It renders fast breaks to be almost worthless, and also doesn't allow you to use any kind of offense that relies on cuts to the basket.
CH has its problems. But MM still isn't even in the same class.
Re: Is March Madness Gawd Awful?
Dynasty mode is kind of a carbon copy of Dyansty mode in NCAA Football 2005.Bill_Abner wrote: Does the Dynasty mode suck?
Does the CPU shoot 3's?
I like the Live 2005 engine; does it use that?
Are there fouls?
CPU does shoot threes, I haven't played Live 2005 so I don't know if it uses the same engine. And there are fouls.
I've played a decent amount of MM, so feel free to shoot any other questions at me.
I liked it a lot better than I liked last years March Madness, but that is not saying a lot.
I might have kept it as a pick up and play game, but I could not find a way to set auto substitutions and that meant too much thinking for a pick up and play game for me.
One other thing I did not like in dynasty mode is that you can only play your games. I like the way you can play all the games in ESPN (Or in NCAA Football for that matter).
I might have kept it as a pick up and play game, but I could not find a way to set auto substitutions and that meant too much thinking for a pick up and play game for me.
One other thing I did not like in dynasty mode is that you can only play your games. I like the way you can play all the games in ESPN (Or in NCAA Football for that matter).
I like MM a lot. No stupid ass bugs in dynasty modes and no freeze up's. This poster from OS sums it up best:
Originally Posted by bigeastbumrush
The game is fun as hell. Don't know why it has been so shunned here, but alot of people are missing out.
With all the simming that people are doing in CH2K5, the roster limitations of MM05 don't really matter after 4 years. The rosters that I got off codejunkies looks to have the Top 25 teams rosters pretty much correct and I just did the name editing for the team that I'll be using. You can't edit anything past that point or the game will freeze up. So you can have your team and the Top 25 teams 90% correct for 4 years.
In CH2K5, I would play maybe 5 games into a season and then just start simming as to speed up the Recruiting which is the core of that game.
I played an exhibition game in MM05 and my PG dropped 38. That would never happen in CH because it's much harder to manuever your Guards and the outside shooting just isn't as strong, almost non-existant in CH. It's too easy to just post up your C or PF and do a turnaround hook shot and have it go in every possesion.
In CH, you only get 4 offensive plays and 4 defensive plays.
In MM, you get 6 offensive and 6 defensive. (There may be more than 6 offensive plays because I believe Post Up is a Quick Play and Pick & Roll is a quick play- so it's really 8 offensive plays).
The 6 defensive plays is what makes the game feel like college b-ball to me because the defense is what the offense must adjust to. You have no other choice. You have to adjust/call your offensive play based on whether the defense is playing Man-To-Man or Zone. In CH, that "feel" is just not there.
My suggestion would be to lower the CPUs FG shooting sliders a a little to kinda offset the effectiveness of the "scripted" plays which are money way too often.
But all-in-all, this game is a blast. Catch & shoot, Rebound tip-ins, full court press (it's too easy to beat the press in CH), more offensive moves, being able to blow past a perimeter defender, etc. This game is great.
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Ditto.
Originally Posted by bigeastbumrush
The game is fun as hell. Don't know why it has been so shunned here, but alot of people are missing out.
With all the simming that people are doing in CH2K5, the roster limitations of MM05 don't really matter after 4 years. The rosters that I got off codejunkies looks to have the Top 25 teams rosters pretty much correct and I just did the name editing for the team that I'll be using. You can't edit anything past that point or the game will freeze up. So you can have your team and the Top 25 teams 90% correct for 4 years.
In CH2K5, I would play maybe 5 games into a season and then just start simming as to speed up the Recruiting which is the core of that game.
I played an exhibition game in MM05 and my PG dropped 38. That would never happen in CH because it's much harder to manuever your Guards and the outside shooting just isn't as strong, almost non-existant in CH. It's too easy to just post up your C or PF and do a turnaround hook shot and have it go in every possesion.
In CH, you only get 4 offensive plays and 4 defensive plays.
In MM, you get 6 offensive and 6 defensive. (There may be more than 6 offensive plays because I believe Post Up is a Quick Play and Pick & Roll is a quick play- so it's really 8 offensive plays).
The 6 defensive plays is what makes the game feel like college b-ball to me because the defense is what the offense must adjust to. You have no other choice. You have to adjust/call your offensive play based on whether the defense is playing Man-To-Man or Zone. In CH, that "feel" is just not there.
My suggestion would be to lower the CPUs FG shooting sliders a a little to kinda offset the effectiveness of the "scripted" plays which are money way too often.
But all-in-all, this game is a blast. Catch & shoot, Rebound tip-ins, full court press (it's too easy to beat the press in CH), more offensive moves, being able to blow past a perimeter defender, etc. This game is great.
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Ditto.
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I'll tell you what made me stop playing this game. The first game I loaded I had the CPU dribble in one spot and waste an enitre possession doing nothing. Okay so its one game, nope it happen again and again.
Plus I think its like live on crack. There's no real college style to speak of. If CH is too rigid where some teams never shoot threes and some teams only play one style. MM is different. Its just push the ball up the court and shoot away. That's great for live but if you play a team like Princeton they are going to pass the ball around not just shoot it when they feel like it.
Plus I think its like live on crack. There's no real college style to speak of. If CH is too rigid where some teams never shoot threes and some teams only play one style. MM is different. Its just push the ball up the court and shoot away. That's great for live but if you play a team like Princeton they are going to pass the ball around not just shoot it when they feel like it.
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Bill_Abner
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GridIronGhost
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Re: Is March Madness Gawd Awful?
1) no, works very wellBill_Abner wrote:Does the Dynasty mode suck?
Does the CPU shoot 3's?
I like the Live 2005 engine; does it use that?
Are there fouls.
2) yes
3) yes
4) yes, butt loads of them!
MM needs to be tweeked out of the box, you'll find some good sliders...I'm sure of it.
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GridIronGhost
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Fatigue is set to "0" by default. You need to set it between 25-50 for auto subs.kevinpars wrote:I liked it a lot better than I liked last years March Madness, but that is not saying a lot.
I might have kept it as a pick up and play game, but I could not find a way to set auto substitutions and that meant too much thinking for a pick up and play game for me.
One other thing I did not like in dynasty mode is that you can only play your games. I like the way you can play all the games in ESPN (Or in NCAA Football for that matter).
