Graphics

Eye Candy

NBA Inside Drive goes to great lengths to make each players' face match what he looks like in real life. Overall they do a good job, and you'll be able to notice Greg Ostertag's constant blank "huh?" look, as well as Latrell Sprewell's thuggish glare. There's also an obvious effort to make the players in the game have the same height/physique as they do in real life. You'll easily see that Sean Bradley's a beanpole while Shaq looks like a walking tank, and Muggsy Bogues looks like he disappears out there with the trees. The environments are nicely done also, with up to three referees running around the court and reflective surfaces on the polished wood floors to further immerse you into the game. I did have a couple of complaints here: one is that sometimes you'll see a player's head looks like it's out of proportion to the rest of the player's body. Yes, a lot of NBA players have huge egos but usually it doesn't reflect in a physical sense!

Penny with the finger-roll

Ewing tips it in

Jesus Shuttlesworth approved

The animations in NBA Inside Drive were done with the help of Ray Allen (Milwaukee Buck shooting guard and star of "He Got Game"). Obviously, doing motion capture on such an athlete makes the dunking and crossover dribble animations in the game look spectacular and believable. Stopping and replaying a good dunk or drive to the basket is tons of fun to watch, and it adds a lot to the immersiveness of the game. Adding to the detail in NBA Inside Drive are wrap around bounce passes into the post, lob passes over the top, and more.

Houston with the reverse jam

Yeah right - GP over Shaq?

Motion capture is good and all, but…

Where Inside Drive misses is how they utilize these animations. Yes, it works well when you transfer Ray Allen's moves to similarly built, athletic machines like Kobe Bryant or Michael Finley. But it completely throws me out of my state of disbelief when I see clumsy Luc Longley hammering down a thunderous "one handed, flare two legs out, and dis your opponent" jam. I'm sorry but that just doesn't happen in real life. No offense to you Aussies, but when Luc jumps in real life, you'd have a hard time sliding a sheet of paper under his feet.

Longley doesn't dunk like that

Vlade doesn't tomahawk either

Shaq does not lay the ball in

And then the kicker - I took Shaq O'Neal to the open basket and he….gracefully laid the ball in?!?! What the heck? The Diesel is no George "Iceman" Gervin, ok? He doesn't toss in a pretty finger roll. Shaq does one thing and one thing only when he goes to the basket. Dunk. Even if he has to go through you and knock you flat on your arse, he'll throw it down on you. Just ask Chris Dudley. I wish Inside Drive had more sets of animations for different types of players. Weak, prissy centers (Rik Smits, Luc Longley, etc), aggressive power forwards and centers, wily little point guards, etc. It doesn't make any grievous errors like letting 5'3" Muggsy Bogues dunk, but it takes more than that to satisfy a hard core basketball fan.