The flip side to this is the new Pull And Hold feature on defense, which is essentially cheat-but-don’t-get-caught. As your defender is adjacent to an opposing player, using B/Circle causes your player to physically interfere by grabbing and jockeying for position. Just don’t do it too long or too blatantly, as it’s a surefire path to a foul.

What I can say is that the game’s new physics engine, which focuses heavily on weight and momentum, now factors into controls. For example, one-on-one situations offer right-stick weight balance controls. This should affect how quickly you can juke or how well you can protect the ball. In theory, this is a groundbreaking idea, one that could pass down to the next generation of sports games. However, I couldn’t pull this off regularly, and I couldn’t tell if I just never got the right feel for the timing or if the necessary finesse requires too much precision to be accessible.

You can select which character’s story you want to dive into first. The order isn’t explicitly shown on the selection screen (though really, you could just go left to right), but playing out of order creates a unique Pulp Fiction-esque experience. Regardless of the order you play, various plot threads move along from chapter to chapter, and you’ll get a sense of the bigger picture when you get to the final segment.