Players can play as any of the 29 NBA teams from the 1999–2000 NBA season, which feature more than 300 actual players in motion-captured animation, featuring play-by-play from NBA announcer Red Clay, and standard gameplay modes like Exhibition, Season, and Playoffs, a Slam Dunk Contest and Three-Point Shootout.
The Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions received unfavorable reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.[1][2]Electronic Gaming Monthly, Game Informer, GameFan and Nintendo Power gave the game mixed reviews, months before the game was released Stateside.[3][4][6][7][8][15] Rob Smolka of NextGen called the same N64 version "a travesty of a basketball game" that "manages to eke out a score of one star only because our rating system doesn't go any lower."[14] In Japan, where the PlayStation version was released first under the name of NBA Power Dunkers 5 (NBAパワーダンカーズ5, NBA Pawā Dankāzu 5) on January 27, 2000, Famitsu gave it a score of 27 out of 40.[5]
^In Electronic Gaming Monthly's early review of the PlayStation version, one critic gave it 5/10, two others gave it each a score of 5.5/10, and another gave it 6/10.
^In GameFan's early viewpoint of the Nintendo 64 version, one critic gave it 70, and the other 60.
^ abHelgeson, Matt (January 2000). "NBA In The Zone 2000 (PS)". Game Informer. No. 81. FuncoLand. Archived from the original on May 23, 2000. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
^ abHiggins, Geoff "El Nino"; Rodriguez, Tyrone "Cerberus" (January 2000). "NBA In the Zone 2000 (N64)". GameFan. Vol. 8, no. 1. Shinno Media. p. 89. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
^Boulding, Aaron (February 29, 2000). "NBA In The Zone 2000 (N64)". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on April 25, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2023.
^Zdyrko, David (February 18, 2000). "NBA In The Zone 2000 (PS)". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on April 26, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2023.