NBA Elite 11 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (PS3, 360)

[sportsnation]

Quote: Originally Posted by ultralow

@reanimator..................what up playa... I see were y'all are headed with this game the control is nice alittle arcade flava......but its all good ..hoped the gfx was better but there ok not great not bad........the one thing I had playing this demo was just pure fun......now I don't know if ill drop 60 bones on it yet..but it was fun.......Have we all forgot why we started playing games in the 1st place....it was to have FUN.....

that is true

[DaveDQ]

Quote: Originally Posted by fatleg3

shoot when i went into overtime with the lakers and they kept feeding kobe the ball and he was killing me it surely felt like i was playing kobe lol But yea besides some sig shots and the players ability there is not a lot of sig feel or moves but that has always been the case with this series

There's a difference between guarding Kobe and guarding a highly rated player. It just doesn't seem like I'm guarding the star player that is Kobe. That's what I mean by it lacking signature. The players seem generic and not fully representing their counterparts.

On the camera view, I'm willing to go with the default view because I see what EA is doing here, but something I think is evident is they were counting on what they did with NHL to transfer over to NBA and it's just not their yet.

[fatleg3]

Quote: Originally Posted by DaveDQ

There's a difference between guarding Kobe and guarding a highly rated player. It just doesn't seem like I'm guarding the star player that is Kobe. That's what I mean by it lacking signature. The players seem generic and not fully representing their counterparts.

yea thats what i also meant in the second little paragraph. there are no sig moves or sig feel. Just some sig shots`

[fatleg3]

Are you trying to get banned?

[HoosierDaddy]

I'd like to start off and say I'm actually pretty disappointed. I love the control, I really do, but you can not play a game that doesn't feel authentic in regards to animations. From leaning jumpers with no regard to a defender's position to the excessive skating due to the game speed globally. The game, as a whole, is just too fast on 5-vs-5. The combination of factors is just too much to look past. If the speed was right, the skating would be less noticeable and I believe I could honestly get beyond the depth of animations issue. The difference in speed from the practice mode to 5-vs-5 is night and day. If any of you recall, many of our recaps about the community event were based on 1-vs-1, and we hardly got to see, let alone play any 5-vs-5. Many of you are sharing the same type of feedback we all had, the practice mode is actually pretty fun and personally I thought the rest of the game would play out this way. I will definitely be spending a majority of my time editing sliders to get the game to feel like I think it should out of the box. Speaking of which, one of my simple requests was to have numbers on the actual slider bars, the demo does not have this, I sure hope the retail version does. It gets very annoying to count clicks and have the bar move 3-4 clicks when you only push the arrow once.

Many of my issues are well-known due to the flaws videos I've posted on YouTube, so I won't go into much detail about any of this stuff, as I've already covered most of it. I do plan on making videos with video evidence of such issues in the near future. I see the potential in the control, if the dev team is serious about making the game feel life-like they will focus their attention to animations, contextual and signature, and overall just provide more depth which will immerse people in the game for a longer period. It does feel very beta or vanilla right now, and that's a shame. Here's to hoping sliders can actually make this game more enjoyable and have the playability factor last longer than a month.

Presentation is great, loved the opening video. Love the screen wipes and the announcing. Easily the 2nd best feature of the game, outside of the control. Add to the library here and EA has something special.

[ctu130]

Ah, just found it when i got on the marketplace..

Played 1 game and realised how easy it is to score and block, is this because of the difficulty settings or something?

I like the controls, but it's taking a while to get used to. I keep pressing damn RT for turbo, it lead me to throw an oop off the backboard with derek fisher on a fastbreak lol, didnt work though.

[ceej989]

I just have a silly question/suggestion, why not next year or whatever have some sort of beta? I think getting as many people to play it and give feedback right off the bat I think would definitely help development of it. I'm not saying EA doesn't do their own play testing, but especially since they are doing a lot of tweaking and such, it might be something to look into.

[turftickler]

Quote: Originally Posted by brezz2001

I'm sure one of the reasons they went to RT passing in Elite was because of the success of the NHL series. It has worked fine there. But I am in agreement, for some reason it doesn't work quite as well in basketball as in hockey. Brian

Please keep in mind that I was playing on Superstar mode.

It feels very good to have a second option this year. I don't know which basketball video game to choose now. There are a lot of positives in NBA Elite 11.

Positives:

1. The cheese factor of playing off the scripted animations is completely gone.
2. I can actually travel and feel good about it when I don't release the ball in time.
3. The shooting mechanics in this game are great. Gives you total control.
4. Ball/rim physics are better. If you stink at shooting, it will be reflected as so.
5. Ball handling is fantabulous; will take some getting used to though.
6. Overall sound of the game is good.
7. The feel of the controls is very good, especially dribbling. Definitely through the tutorials, because none of us will be pros right away.
8. The A.I. defense is tougher than I expected.
9. Shot blocking is my favorite part of this game. It's very realistic and you see Pau Gasol and Garnett power smashing shots all over the court, but it is not excessive.
10. Gameplay is much better than NBA Live 10, because you will not be restricted by scripted animations.
11. The menu system is a lot smoother and quicker this year.

What needs work:

1. Signature shots are in, but signature motions don't look like they feel.
2. The gameplay is too fast. It does feel a bit arcadish when players like Garnett almost dunk from the free throw line on a one step and jump. I like the length of the jumps, but some of the players are not able to dunk from very far (those should be layups). Please slow it down for online play and give us an option to slow it down offline.
3. Please tone down the rim noises and net swishes are too loud. We should barely be able to hear them during Broadcast camera mode.
4. Offensive fouls might be rampant this year because of the Euro-step move. That can be fixed by allowing the players to body up (make contact) with defender and then sliding off of him, unless he is directly cutting your path of to the basket.
5. There is no easy way to say this one. The graphics are decent, but the player models look like they got fired from the Wii version and landed a job on the PS3 version.
6. I noticed that there was no switching on defense. When I want to change defenders up during a bad match up, the CPU should recognize that I am putting Kobe on Paul Pierce. Derek Fisher should then switch to the player Kobe was guarding. Also, player switch on screens would be a welcome addition.
7. Please, next year, give us an option to challenge someone online in the demo. That will set your game apart from all other challengers.

Well, for me, the good outweighs the bad. Gameplay goes to NBA Elite 11 this year for me. Animations that mimic a persons playing style in real life is great, but when you are locked into those animations with limited control over the outcome of basic fundamentals of a game, that can ruin the experience. This is not so with NBA 2k11 this year. That is why I love what EA Sports has done this year. No, the game is not perfect and never will be, but it does have great potential.

Unfortunately, I can only choose one game this year and it will be a tough choice. Both NBA games have a lot to offer this year. I might have to flip a coin to determine how many times I am going to flip the coin that I need to flip.