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March Madness 2001
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Graphics & Sound:
The visual presentation in March Madness 2001 is very well done. You've got players that differ in size and weight. The uniforms look exactly like the real teams' uniforms. The players move very life-like, which is captured almost as perfectly as the aged PlayStation will let them. EA boasts over 100 new animations including new dunks, but the ONLY dunk I ever was able to do or have done to me was a one handed dunk. Granted, it was great as it totally rattled the rim and backboard, but after 5-million times of the same dunk, I just wanted a simple two-handed stuff! The arenas look spectacular, with every team's logo emblazoned perfectly across half court. March Madness 2001 is definitely no slouch in the looks department. From the shiny hardwood, to the follow-through of your point guard shooting the rock, the graphics are as good as PlayStation basketball gets. MM 2001 has some great sound! The fight songs are simply well done! There's nothing like getting trounced at LSU's Pete Maravich Assembly Center while the band plays a perfect rendition of 'Hold that Tiger.' Bill Rafrety and Verne Lundquist provide this year's commentary, and although it is well done, it becomes very repetitive. Still though, it wasn't grating enough to turn it off... The only weak point in the sound department was the opening music that sounds like a cross between an Atari 2600 and a dying donkey. Basically if you can get past the demon screech of the opening music of MM 2001, then you get to some respectable commentary with some amazing arena sound, official fight songs included! |
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Gameplay:
Becoming a great coach doesn't happen overnight. For this reason EA has added a great feature this year called the Coach K Mode. You start out as an 'up-and-coming' head coach. As a new head coach, you can coach only the worst of teams. MM 2001 gives you a set of goals to accomplish with your new school such as 'Get 3 wins over higher ranked opponents,' or 'Have a winning season.' If you accomplish the goals, you get prestige thus enabling you to coach a higher seeded (and better) team. Of course, this feature is automatically set to 'Junior' mode (the third-hardest difficulty), so it's not very easy at first. If you find that you need a little practice, then you can try your hand at Exhibition Mode (where you can take on a friend), or Season Mode, where you can manipulate the difficulty level, steal and block frequency, etc. You can also create players to use in the Season Mode, which is always fun because I can create myself and oddly, my created 'me' ends up averaging 75-90 points a game. I guess I'm a ball-hog. For those looking for the added twist, you can play as one of the top 16 women's teams in Tournament Mode. I tried my heart out to make Tennessee's center dunk but to no avail. She just didn't have the hops I reckon. After you choose what Mode you want, you then cycle through the lush 115 team field and decide which team you want to lead (except for in Coach K mode, where only an allotted amount of teams are able to be chosen). If you're feeling a bit nostalgic, then pick one of the 64 'Greatest of All-Time' teams and play a time-spanning tournament. (My favorite is 'LSU '70;' they have Pete Maravich and boy is he good!) Once you step on the hardwood, you can choose from 11 different camera angles, but you'll probably end up sticking with one, since half of them are almost useless because you can't see the whole court and therefore who to pass to. MM 2001 also has an unlock feature that lets you unlock new moves if you do certain things in a game or season situation. These goals range from making three 3-pointers in a row to taking Howard University to the championship game. From tournaments to seasons, and stats to season awards MM 2001 has a plethora of options, all of which make the game extremely fun.
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Difficulty:
I am always in awe of a game that can reproduce a semi-fair AI. Unfortunately MM 2001 has AI which reminds me of an African predator which roams the Serengeti, the 'cheetah.' The AI cheats so horribly. If you turn the block and steal frequencies all the way down, the computer still swats everything remotely in its reach. That's not so bad, except that the computer dunks almost everything while its 5'9 point guard consistently swats my 7'1 center. I just don't feel comfortable about that. Another cute thing the AI does is force you to miss all of your dunks. I counted that my power forward (who had a super high dunk rating) missed 7 dunks in a row... The controls are fairly well done except that it's highly irritating that the 'steal' and 'crossover' button are the same thing. Confused? Well, when you steal the ball and gain possession, you're often still pushing the 'steal' button. If you stolen the ball successfully and you push the now 'crossover' button, you go into some kind of graphical epilepsy and more often than not go out of bounds. I did eventually get past all this and started winning by 60 or more points (on 'Junior' level). It's a decent challenge, but not a fair one, mind you. Last but not least, while using a few of the camera angles, the computer would dunk it, show a replay and then the camera angle would mess up! It would only show half of the floor, so you had no idea what was going on on the other side of the floor! You can fix it by turning 'Auto Replay' off, but then you never get to see your awesome slams again.
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Game Mechanics:
March Madness 2001 will eat up a whole memory card which is fairly standard in most of the extensive EA Sports games of this day and age. The load times are surprisingly tolerable and the controls, with few exceptions, are smooth and comfortable. There's no huge flaw in the game, although you can find 'hot spots' which you will make the ball 80% of the time. Riot Rundown: Don't get me wrong, MM 2001 IS fun. It just has cheating AI, and the perennial EA bug which showcases itself this year in the form of cutting off half the court after a replay (which by the way cannot be fixed until another dunk is performed and replayed). If you can get past all that though, the game maintains it's fun. It's a highly addictive game, and probably one of the best basketball games on the PlayStation. I just wish a few of the AI and programming errors could have been worked out, because they are noticeable and hurt the game's final score. EA always has beautiful looking games that are fun, but are crawling with bugs that really take away from the game, and MM 2001 is no different.
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-Sydney Riot, GameVortex Communications AKA Will Grigoratos |
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