Everyone

According to ESRB, this game contains: Mild Animated Violence

Game Description: K. Rool has ape-napped the Kongs! Now, only Donkey Kong is left to rescue and stop K. Rool’s evil plan. You must rescue the Kongs and take back your famous collection of Golden Bananas from the evil clutches of K. Rool! Play your way through the single player adventure or duke it out in Battle mode against your friends. As you play through Donkey Kong 64 you’ll learn new special moves for each Kong and gain new and devastating weapons.

To anyone whos played Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64 (DK64) can give you a serious case of déjà vu. First off, the two games look strikingly similar. In some instances, it looks like worlds were plucked right out of Banjo-Kazooie and pasted into DK64. The textures and colors of the landscapes, although a bit more detailed and abundant, seem familiar and barely changed.

I think Chi made some good points, but not many of them were important enough to require a similar rating from me. The fouling is an issue, but it adds a bit of realism to see the computer try to get back into the game late and I was happy to actually see a 4-point-play in a console game. Admittedly, I wouldn't have minded if the computer made a few quick trips downcourt and launched some 'threes' to get close, but it wasn't a big deal. And the little bugs Chi mentioned just looked awkward but never really forced me to get up and scream at the TV screen or anything.

Game Description: Instant replay, player editing, and performance adjustments contribute to the true-game feel of NBA Courtside 2. More than 300 NBA players, including Kobe Bryant, are accurately modeled after their on-court counterparts. Each is rated for shooting percentage and range, foul tendency, dribbling, passing, speed, jumping, rebounding, strength, dunking, stealing, blocking, and stamina. In addition to the standard moves you'd expect from a video game basketball player, NBA Courtside 2 adds tons of new, user-controlled actions, such as spin moves, first-step fakes, changing hands on the dribble, post-up moves, calling for the pick, and boxing out opponents. As coach for your team, you'll also be able to call plays using the digital control pad. Moves that you can control include box, perimeter, low post, high post, isolation, motion, inside triangle, and outside triangle.

The main problem is that Courtside 2's attempts to improve upon the original either do not alleviate the old flaws or end up unearthing entirely new ones. For example, foul calls were extremely unbalanced in the original Courtside.

The whole 'Live' franchise is already a legendary one in this industry; every year, no matter how bad or unimproved the new version was from its predecessor, NBA Live is annually proclaimed the basketball game of choice by video game players and critics. So much so that newer and more revolutionary titles like Nintendo's NBA Courtside and Acclaim's NBA Jam (64-bit version) were consistently overlooked. I, for one, was never swept up in the 'Live' hysteria so I've always been a bit more objective and with this latest release, I am even more disheartened seeing the amount of praise already being showered on EA Sports.