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Basketball fans will have a new game to look forward to. Too bad the game created jointly by Sega and Visual Concept will be the only basketball game for at least a few months after the release of the long awaited Sega Dreamcast. NBA 2000, the working title, is set to hit shelves in October. The game was orginally due to come out with the release of the Dreamcast, but I'm assuming Sega pushed it back for marketing reasons.

With the background info out of the way, lets move on to some of its features! Sega is claiming the game will run at 60 frames per second. If they can fulfill their promise, the game, in terms of speed, should be something to see. More than 1,600 motion-captured moves will be implemented in the game. Sega claims the 1,600 moves are more than 4 times the number of the current highest number of motion captured moves to date. Playbooks designed by actual NBA coaches are built into the AI to ensure that a team's strategy will reflect its real-life tendencies when the pressure's on.

The coaches, bench, and scorer's table in the game will be fully-animated, which Sega says is a first. There will be 29 NBA teams playing in 28 individually modeled and architecturally correct arena interiors. For some reason, 29 and 28 aren't the same number. Am I missing something? The last time I checked, all NBA teams play in their own arena. We have been told that the Lakers and Clippers will be playing in the same arena next year. Too bad, the Lakers have been through so much at the Forum.

The advanced AI will create true-to-life game situations, such as play-calling and accurate individual player reactions. The game will feature more than 400 individually modeled players, with bone structures, head shape, hairstyles and facial features matched perfectly. Some of the facial features include frowns, smiles, and bitter disappointments. What is it with facial features and game companies now? They seem to think facial features are a lot more vital to a game than the game's AI or gameplay. That isn't to say facial expressions are bad, but the feature should be secondary after the AI and the gameplay have been tweaked till they are near perfect.

The polygonal crowd will wear the home team's colors, wave banners with players' names on them and respond to on-court action. This is one of those little things basketball gamers will love. The game will also allow player trading, of course. Sega did not mention anything about drafting your own custom team in a league or any sort of a career mode. Time will tell if those features are included. We will update this preview with more info as it comes.