HOT CORNER

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: NBA Courtside 2002 video game

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Left Field Productions

Price: $49.95

Video games are getting more and more realistic, and this new one is another example. To help make it authentic, Kobe Bryant donned a suit with sensors and served as model for real NBA players, spending two six-hour sessions in a studio.

Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles of the Clippers also were used as models.

A Nintendo GameCube, priced at $199, is needed to play this game, which features high-polygon 3-D models of virtually every player in the NBA. You pick the teams and the players. Up to four people, using separate controllers, can play.

A new “adrenaline button” enhances shooting, dunking, blocking shots, dribbling and passing.

The biggest difference with this game is the level of passing. You can dribble and pass in any direction on the fly.

Artificial intelligence is programmed into the game, so if Shaquille O’Neal is your player, you need to be more careful with your passes than if, say, Allen Iverson is your player. And if O’Neal goes to the free-throw line, well ...

Another feature enables participants to create and customize players.

Each game includes commentary from the Clippers’ Ralph Lawler and Fox Sports Net’s Van Earl Wright, and public address announcing from the Lakers’ Lawrence Tanter.