Reviewed: January 3, 2005
Reviewed by: Richard Cross
Publisher
Grey Dog Software
Developer
Grey Dog Software
Released: November 1, 2004
Genre: Sports Simulation
Players: 1 (PBM)
ESRB: Everyone
9
8
7
10
8.7
System Requirements:
Trial Version Download
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Has anyone ever heard of Total Pro Basketball? It was a basketball simulation created by a man named Gary Gorski. At the time, he worked for a company named .400 Software Studios. The initial version was created in December 2003. The 2003 version was based on a great concept and it was fairly well received by the basketball simulation community. Although it did have some shortcomings, the game was very fun to play and produced fairly accurate statistics.
Fast forward to November 2004, and you will find that Gary Gorski has left .400 Software Studios and joined a new company called Grey Dog Software. Grey Dog Software (GDS) released the newest version of Total Pro Basketball on November 1, 2004. It is called Total Pro Basketball 2005 or TPB2005 for short.
Gary has long been known in the sports simulation community for his accurate statistical analysis and the immersive gameplay that he puts into his games. This is especially true for TPB2005. Gary has fine-tuned this latest version and it is even more impressive and statistically accurate than any other basketball sim out there.
In TPB2005, you take on the role of a general manager and coach in a professional basketball franchise. You are responsible for the hiring and firing of the coaching staff. You are also responsible for the well-being, the contract, and the overall success of your professional players. The one thing that I would note here, though, is that TPB2005 does not come with the real NBA rosters. The game includes all fictional players for your fictional teams. That’s not to say that the game will not work with the real NBA rosters, they just aren’t included with the game and you will have to take the time to find and download them.
There is a full NBA roster pack called NBAROSTER2.2 (hint: search for this word) that is available on the Internet and it includes all of the current NBA players with very accurate stats. This roster pack includes the instructions on how to install it and use it with TPB2005. I used this roster pack for all of the screenshots that you see here.
The one thing that I need to emphasize is that there are many more options available in TPB2005 than what I cover in this review. The good news is that you can download the demo from Grey Dog and you can actually try the game for free to see if it is worthy of your hard earned cash. I believe that you will find that it is and I encourage you to download it and try it out.
When you first begin the game, you have to create or load your own league. As I said before, you will be responsible for all of the GM and coaching decisions if you so choose. There are three GM modes that you can choose from when you create a league. You can select from Basic GM mode, Lite GM mode, or Pure GM mode. Each of these modes gives you a different level of control over your team.
Once you have selected your GM mode, you can then select any team and begin using the standard rosters. You can also do as I did and create a new league and do a fantasy draft. The fantasy draft is a great feature that basically puts all of the players from the league into a draft pool, and you get to pick each player just like in a real draft. I selected the first seven or so players and then I let the computer pick the rest for me in order to fill my roster. Once you have selected your team or drafted your players, you then begin the long road to the final championship game.
Now it’s time to begin your first season. The first screen that you will see is the General Manager’s Office screen. You will become very familiar with this screen during the game. This screen shows an overview of your team or any other team in your league. It also includes a listing of the individual team leaders, statistical comparisons with league averages, and a section that contains GM information. You are also notified if you have received any new email in your team’s inbox. Once you have visited the GM screen, you can continue on to any of the following screens:
- Financial From this screen you can set your ticket prices and also select which games you would like to be promotional games. You can give away trading cards or bobbleheads to name a few of the promotions that you can offer.
- Roster This is where the meat of the game is at. From this screen you can view player ratings, season stats, and contract info. You can adjust the team depth chart and adjust the team substitution matrix as well.
- Schedule This screen shows your team’s game schedule. From here you can view past days and future days in the team schedule. You can also view the boxscore and stats of previously played games.
- Team Info This screen shows general information about your team’s home city. You can also view the owner’s information and your team history. From this screen you can also select your team’s logo, banner image, court image, and jersey colors if you would like to modify them from the default settings.
- Coach’s Office Salary, contact, and career information about your head coach and his three assistant coaches can be found here.
- Email Emails regarding your team’s progress and league events are found here.
- Standings You will find the Eastern and Western Conference standings here. You can also find playoff race information and a graphical playoff tree here.
- Play Games! You can view each day’s games here. You can play your own game and control the depth chart and sub matrix yourself, or you can simulate your game and then view your game stats afterward. You are also able to simulate all of the computer controlled team games here.
- Leaders This screen gives you a breakdown throughout your league of the leaders in the following categories: points, assists, rebounds, blocks, and steals. There are many other user modified reports found here as well.
- News The News screen shows news from around the league. From here you can view league transactions, league rankings, injuries, rumors, and many others reports. You can also view the top college, development league, international, and high school prospects here. This is one of many areas where this game really shines. The statistical engine is really working overtime to give you these excellent stats.
- Finances Unlike the Financial screen above, these screens give you the breakdown around the league concerning league attendance and individual game attendance. You can also see team payrolls, income statements, and BRI statements here.
- History The history screens allow you to view any career, season, or single game records that have been set by any player in the league. You can also view the Hall of Fame players, past champions, team and player awards, and previous draft selections here. All of these screens can be selected from the game’s main interface. The overall menu structure and layout is designed very well. There are a few areas that the screen navigation could have been organized better, but overall it is a very straight-forward design.
The graphics are very well done for this really being nothing more than a sports simulation game. The background graphics, in-game graphics, and player graphics are exquisite for this type of game.
I found that at 1280x1024 the text was a bit difficult to read on some of the screens. There was also an alignment issue with some of the charts where the text on the far right side of the chart was cut off. This just made the text a little difficult to read but did not affect the gameplay in any way. I have had some discussions on the GDS online forums with Gary, the game’s developer, regarding this issue and he is checking to see if it is the game causing these issues, my system fonts or my graphics card drivers.
The technical support that I have received from Gary and the GDS crew has been second to none. The developers that are creating these types of simulation games are very tight with the gamer community. I have nothing but positive things to say about the entire GDS crew for the effort they put into monitoring the online forums and helping users to squash bugs. The developers also add some new feature here and there per user requests.
The sound effects in the game are well done. The background sounds and noises are good and the in-game sounds are done well. People generally don’t play these types of games for the sounds, but for the content. The sounds do add some realism to the game, but even if it didn’t have sound it would be an outstanding simulation game.
I am going to award the same value to this game that I have attached to Out of the Park Baseball in the past. This game is excellent. I am still playing a league in OOTP that I started two years ago. These sport simulation games are all about replayability. Due to the fact that each player draft class is different, each season of play is different as well. I am continually trying to reach the pinnacle of the sport by tweaking my team, drafting new talent, and releasing or trading old talent.
There are many online leagues available for TPB2005. With the ability to join online leagues and play in up to a 30-team league, the excitement and challenge of TPB2005 is never ending. You can offer trades, place players on the IR list, and much more. Each league requires one person to act as the commissioner. Each commissioner handles all of the actual simulations, but other than that, you control every aspect of your own team.
This game is the pinnacle of professional basketball simulations. I simply have not played one better. With all of the available options, team stats, player management, and coaching decisions, you will be hard pressed to find a better basketball simulation than this.
As I mentioned before, there are a few rough spots that could easily be ironed out in a future patch. If you play the game at a 1024x768 resolution, everything should look very good and all of the screen text should be readable. The only other item that I would like to see changed is the ability to have more information while signing new coaches and players. It is very difficult to bid on a player if you don’t know where the competition is bidding at. It would be nice to have a screen that shows the current high bid so that you have some idea of where to begin your bidding at.
The ability to use updated roster files from the NBA and other leagues is a great addition to this game as well. Playing in a game online with 30 professional teams is a blast and ultimately gives you unlimited replayability. I would highly recommend this game to any sports simulation player that wants a taste of the big time. With TPB2005 and Wrestling Spirit being the first games from Grey Dog Software, I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us in the future.