Wednesday, March 03, 2004
The funny thing about games is that even the worst one can be redeemed with a multiplayer mode. It doesn't even have to be a GOOD multiplayer mode, but just having one in anyway will cause two things to happen:
1) You allow a second person to experience the same crap you're experiencing, and thus you can both make fun of the game together.
2) You start getting competitive, and thus drive each other to actually try and ride roughshod over the flaws to master the game as best you can as soon as possible to beat your opponent into submission.
This is true of NBA Inside Drive on the Xbox. I played a game with a co-worker on his last day and it was an intense experience. The game itself is pretty poor, full of odd quirks, stiff controls and just plain STUPID things (uh, Dikembe from downtown? I don't think so), but none of that mattered. We had only played it once before -- he won, after a close encounter -- but given that we talk NBA all the time, there was a little rivalry going on here. Especially since I was my beloved Lakers, and being an East Coast guy he hates LA.
He picked the East All-Stars to counter my West All-Stars (otherwise known as the Los Angeles Lakers -- last year's model though, sans Payton and Malone) and we went at it. No matter what happened, the game stayed close. I went up big early. Then he caught up and it stayed tight. Then he went up by eight, got an odd charging call (honestly, how do they come up with charging fouls in games?), and then saw me go on a 10-2 run to tie it up. It went on through to the last two minutes, when he went on a simply ridiculous streak of five 3-pointers in a row (one of which was the aforementioned Dikembe Mutumbo Bomb) to pull out a six-point lead... only to see Fisher (3) and Kobe (3) tie it up before Shaq's dunk with 1.8 seconds left to give LA the lead. It was (near) the end of a long game, and we were starting to realise that we had taken quite a break and it really was time to go back to work. Naturally, he manages to inbound it, get it to Jordan, get the shot off, see it roll around the rim and trickle in to send the game to overtime.
We mulled abandoning the game, but realised that this was actually going to be THE last game anyway, so we had to finish it. And you can't have a game like that without having a winner, right? So, overtime it was. Same story. It was close again until his All-Stars finally busted ANOTHER ridiculous three-point streak (Antoine Walker with four in a row, which given his FG% is arguably as ludicrous as Mutumbo's trey) to lead by three with 4.6 seconds left. He joked that we should get back to work, and so I should just give up now. Yeah, right. I need a three. Clutch time. Inbound to Kobe. MJ's guarding him. Juke left. No dice. Pump fake. MJ buys it. Release the jumper. Hear the buzzer. Swish. Game tied again! Time for DOUBLE OT... right?
Wrong. At this point, we realised that there was never going to be a winner in both a literal and more meaningful sense. On the one hand, we were heading into 2OT and there really was no winner in sight. On the other, having someone actually lose such a great game would probably only detract from the experience and the fun (as fun as they are for the winner and the neutrals, those dramatic last-minute victories -- like the Superbowl or the Euro 2000 Final -- are no fun at all for the losers, no matter how much commentators prattle on about how they should be proud to have participated in a great match). So, much like the famous Ryder Cup Concession between Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin... we left it at 89-89 and called it a draw. Sportsmanship and fun ruled the day, and that was that.
(Of course, we were already late for work and figured that "We were in a really, really close game!" wouldn't cut it as an excuse, so that DID play a part in our decision... but it was mostly sportsmanship and For The Love Of The Game, honest)
Posted at 11:01 PM
