Other than the new All-Star Weekend gameplay modes, this is virtually the same game from last year.
In the new Slam Dunk contest mode, a panel of judges consisting of former NBA legends score you on how impressive your dunk is. Performing a dunk involves performing a gather by moving towards the hoop and pressing one of four buttons, each for a different type of gather, then holding another button while the game goes to slow motion to perform the dunk attempt. Timing is important here, as holding the button until the last moment makes the dunk more dramatic. The left and right triggers serve as modifiers for the gathers and dunks, giving you more variations. But that's not all. The right thumbstick allows you to toss the ball, allowing you to add an alley oop to your dunk attempt. As with the gathers and dunks, there are many alley oop variations, including tossing the ball off the shot clock, bouncing the ball of the backboard while facing away from the basket, and kicking the ball.
With all the different variations on gathers, dunks, and alley oops, there are hundreds or thousands of possible resulting dunks, and the fun of this mode is experimenting with all the things you can do, and performing some jaw dropping dunks that have little chance of occurring in real life. You can perform just about any of the memorable dunks that have occurred in the Slam Dunk contest, including Dee Brown's no look dunk, Vince Carter's arm in the basket dunk, Dominique Wilkins' windmills, and Michael Jordan's free throw dunks. There is a handy practice mode for you to perfect your dunks before you actually get graded by the judges.
Unfortunately, the Slam Dunk Contest is by far the most interesting feature in NBA Live 2005, as the rest of the All-Star events and gameplay modes are pretty standard. The developers must have been too focused on adding the All-Star weekend features that they turned a blind eye to the core gameplay. Perhaps the only changes in the gameplay are to the pro hop, and freestyle air. The pro hop, introduced last year, was a useful move to create room for you player to get off a shot. It is no longer as effective as it was last year, and has to be used carefully. Freestyle air allows you to either attempt a dunk, a tap in, or simply rebound the ball on missed shot attempts by pressing a different button.
It's appalling that all the problems in NBA Live 2004 still exist and were not addressed by the development team. These include the inbound from frontcourt to background violation bug, and the canned animations that take too long and put players out of the play momentarily. However, by far, the worst part of the game is the awful CPU AI.
Just as in NBA Live 2004, the CPU AI is pretty damn stupid. CPU controlled players never want to get open. On fast breaks, they'll bunch up near the defender instead of heading to an open spot on the court, ruining many fast break opportunities. Also killing fast breaks is the fact that players don't recognize it's a fast break situation, and they'll stop to receive a pass as they head downcourt with no real urgency, instead of sprinting. In the half court game, CPU teammates don't recognize double teams, so even if you spot a situation in which you should be able to pass to an undefended teammate, it's unlikely you'll be able to take advantage of it. Even passing is a chore, as pressing the left thumbstick in a direction and pressing pass won't necessarily pass to your intended player, and most of the time, the passes are lobbed, so even if you spot a teammate momentarily between the basket and his defender, you won't be able to quickly get the ball to him to score.
An even more aggravating example of the horrible AI is the CPU controlled players' lack of interest in rebounding the ball after a missed or blocked shot. No one wants to get the ball; they'll just stand around for a moment, until the ball bounces close enough to someone to grab. Also, the CPU plays the same in the final seconds of a game as it does the first quarter, even in a blowout.
Just like NBA Live 2004, this game is a blockfest. Block happens far too frequently. They happen when you take shots in the paint, they occur on fast breaks with one defender chasing you from behind, they occur because the canned animations for player shots take too long.
The best part of NBA Live 2005 is the new slam dunk contest mode. It retains all of NBA Live 2004's problems and fixes none of them. Does anyone on the NBA Live development team actually play basketball? Or is their basketball experience limited to watching the NBA on TV?