NBA Inside Drive 2000

NBA Inside Drive 2000 is a video game in the sports genre developed by High Voltage Software, Inc. and published by Microsoft Corporation originally released in 1999. It is currently playable on Windows.

I can't wait for the NBA season to start (one week barely counts) for the simple reason that I want to get a better idea of how the actual teams are doing. With a great experience in Microsoft's NBA Inside Drive 2000, I want to watch some games on TV to see and feel the difference between this game and the real thing. Computer basketball fans who have played incarnations of the NBA Live series may wonder why bother. The answer is simple: because Inside Drive plays the best basketball ever seen on the PC and this is the first time in years that I've had to see the real game up close to know if there's any difference.

To the technical lab we go. . . . The developers of Inside Drive have obviously decided to focus on the core of the game. And this sums up the whole package, as the on-court action is very good and detailed. What there isn't are features. Things like career mode and player editor are non-existent, as is the online/network multiplayer mode. These design issues may scare a good number of potential customers away from this title. To those people I can do nothing but tell them that if they are interested in drafting players or playing with friends over the internet, don't buy this title.

The menu screens in Inside Drive are very easy to navigate, but at least gambling fans won't have to compromise. From a technical standpoint, the game offers solid Direct3D hardware acceleration. Players look good, even if they don't resemble their real-life counterparts, and the ground, stadiums, and crowds are good, even if the game lacks the mind-blowing sheen of EA Sports titles. Hardware-wise, the game seems pretty flexible: I played it on an older system with a K6-300 and a Voodoo at 640x480, and while the sound was a bit wonky, the game was totally playable. On my new system, a Celeron 400 with a Riva TNT video card and SB Live! sound card, I can play the game at 1024x768 with no problems.  This may be old hat to some of you, but my advice to all sports gamers is this: PCI audio works wonders for both play commentary and framerate. And speaking of commentary, I have to make special mention of how good it is in Inside Drive. While it's been available in sports games for the past three or four years, the quality has been spotty. Some titles do it creditably-FIFA 96, for example-and other games suffer from serious problems or just boring commentary-FIFA 97, NBA Action 98, NFL Blitz. The quality improved only gradually and without much change. Well, until now. The developers of Inside Drive have raised the bar on the competition, as this play-by-play is a vast improvement over any other sports game available at this time.  Kevin Calabro, the Seattle Supersonics commentator, and Marques Johnson, the color commentator, provide superb voices. They comment on both the game and the players. They joke and have fun in the box. They have great lines to offer: 'Nobody does voodoo like you! 'John Stockton's not old. He's just a guy with a big record collection. ' The duo offers a lot to the basketball scene and is an example for the rest of the sports game designers to follow. This is how it should be done.

The gameplay doesWhile Inside Drive is mediocre at best in terms of features and only slightly above standard graphically, it is very strong in terms of gameplay. If you're looking for a sports game that offers a tough fight for victory, this one is for you. It's very, very hard to beat Inside Drive. Especially if you're expecting a dunk fest with turbo buttons a la NBA Live. Of course, you can give the ball to Karl Malone, hit turbo and hope for the best.  The problem is that Malone will get a charge call, lose the ball or score with the attached price of going to the bench too soon due to fatigue. You have to play basketball, not another computer game, to beat Inside Drive, even at the Rookie level. In reality, the developers probably should have included a true rookie mode for beginners, as the game is borderline too difficult for beginners.

It is difficult to describe the merits of Inside Drive's gameplay, as it is a complex ball game never seen before on the computer. So I'll just list a few things that pleasantly surprised me. First of all, the computer deals the ground. That means the CPU actually goes back and forth and uses the time given on the shot clock to set up a play.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.