CYBERSPORT : KOBE IS KING ON HIS COURT.

Byline: Tom Hoffarth

On the playgrounds of cyberville, Kobe Bryant starts every game, he's never home with the flu and - maybe most ironic - he doesn't have to share any spotlight with Michael Jordan.

At least not in Nintendo's newest video game, ``Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside,'' for its N64 system.

Nintendo choose not to pay Jordan's steep personal licensing fee and include him in the game that sells for a suggested retail price of $59.95. Nothing new there. It's why Jordan's likeness is missing from many NBAPA-endorsed video games - except no one is going to advertise the fact. Nintendo is no different.

So in Bryant's game, Jordan's spot on the Chicago Bulls' roster is the silhouette of a man who is 6-foot-6 and weighs 216 pounds and ironically has Jordan's statistics, is named ``No. 98 Player'' and is listed as the starting shooting guard.

This should teach kids an important lesson: Caveat emptor.

The likenesses of the other 300-plus current players are very neatly recreated for all 29 teams. For Bryant, this newest endorsement vehicle goes beyond just his face on the box.

The Lakers guard conferred with the game's technical people and had them program in the ability to crossover dribble, go behind the back, slam home alley-oops and fly to the basket - all remarkably like him.

Made for Nintendo 64's graphically advanced technology, the movement of the players and ability to change the settings for offensive sets makes things about as realistic as one can expect. The other hot feature: You can program a ``player'' in your own image and insert him as a free agent on any teams. Just pick a height (between 5-foot-3 and 7-10) and weight (up to 350 pounds) and choose among 19 faces to put on the player.

None of which looks like Jordan, either, by the way.

``NBA Courtside'' is the first of what Nintendo plans in a line of sports games for the N64. The ``1080 Snowboarding'' game (also $59.95) will be followed by a Ken Griffey Jr.-endorsed baseball game, a golf game and several auto racing games. While the Sega and Sega Saturn systems used to dominate the sports video-game market, Nintendo's own titles to go with those from Electronic Arts have today's younger demographic on the N64 system. Older players tend to gravitate to Sony's PlayStation, which has fewer sports titles.

``Most of the top-10 sports games are for Nintendo, which has a smaller library but sells more copies,'' said Nintendo corporate affairs director Karen Kaplan. ``The goal of the sports game is to give the feeling of motion and make it as real as possible, and in the past with the 16-bit systems, and even to a degree with the 32-bit, the time lapse involved did not result in very fluid play.''

Which is probably what the ailing Bryant should be doing today. Drinking plenty of fluids. And playing his own video game.

Without Jordan's influence.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO no caption (game package for `Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside')