FROM FREE THROWS TO FIRE-BREATHING DRAGONS.

Byline: Redmond Carolipio Staff Writer

Dragons, hoops and hockey -- that about sums up my week.

2K Sports and Vivendi were in Los Angeles recently to show off early builds of three new titles that won't be hitting store shelves until the holiday shopping season. Here are my pre-alpha thoughts on what I checked out.

`NBA 2K7' and `NHL 2K7' (2K Sports, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, possible launch title for PS3, coming in September)

Baseball and the upcoming football season are ruling the talk of the summer, but an early look at 2K Sports' lineup gives fans of hockey and basketball plenty to get hyped about.

I'm not big on hockey, but the demo of ``NHL 2K7'' had some pretty interesting stuff. One big highlight was ``Cinemotion,'' which alters the atmosphere of the game. There are two kinds: one with orchestrated music, movie-style direction and no play-by-play, which gives the game the feel of a sports movie. The music even plays more happily when you score, sadly when you get scored on.

There's also ``pressure control'' with the right thumbstick, which allows you to coordinate on-the-fly defensive pressure against certain players. You can do anything from have one or two guys shadow an opposing star to having one of them knock the stuffing out of that star whenever the puck is in the vicinity.

I also enjoyed some other smaller features. The ``parametric'' camera adjusts to the player you're controlling and delivers dynamic play angles as opposed to just a general top-down view. There's all-new player chatter on the ice as well. I even heard some guys communicate in Russian.

Also stepping it up is ``NBA 2K7,'' acknowledged by many as the pre-eminent hoops simulator.

They've jacked up the realism to the point where each NBA arena's lighting and brightness corresponds to the real-life version.

That's not all. In a wonderfully retro/progressive move, 2K has whipped out its take on the concept of the ``signature move'' for the NBA players.

Signature moves are special shots that only certain players can do. Electronic Arts made it a staple of their early hoops games during the 16-bit console era. Moves were based on stuff the players actually did in real life -- Michael Jordan had an acrobatic reverse layup, Charles Barkley had the ``gorilla'' two-handed slam -- it gave the game and players character. Now you can see signature moves in the ``Street'' series, but that's about it.

On 2K's end, the game has captured the actual jump-shot motions and body gestures of every starter in the league. For example, Steve Nash licks his fingertips, Vince Carter has that mini-leg kick when he pulls up for his shot, and Shawn Marion even has the ``kangaroo'' jump shot that magically seems to go in.

Of course, there are also the dunks. I didn't get to see it, but Anthony Chau of 2K Sports told me Carter's reverse-windmill 360 from the 2000 slam-dunk contest is in there.

``It's really hard to pull off, though. You have to take off from exactly the right spot,'' he said.

``Eragon'' (Vivendi Universal Games, arriving mid-November for PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS and PC)

For the record, this is not a ``Lord of the Rings'' game with Viggo Mortensen (he's Aragorn). This title is based on the fantasy novel by Christopher Paolini about a farm boy, Eragon, who ends up becoming the savior of the land with the help of a young dragon named Saphira.

Eragon becomes a Dragon Rider, sort of the equivalent of the Jedi -- except with dragons instead of light sabers as the signature weapon of choice.

I got my hands on the Xbox 360 version of the game and tried out a dragon-flight level, which consisted of me using Saphira to light enemies on fire or smack them with her tail.

Flight-wise, it reminded me a little of ``Panzer Dragoon,'' a game that treated the dragon like a virtual fighter jet instead of a big, cumbersome beast.

An interesting concept was how a second player could assume the role of Eragon and essentially play defense, deflecting attacks a nd launching magic arrows that can take out small groups of enemies.

However, it sounds like the game is taking the ``King Kong'' approach and not bombarding the player with loads of levels involving the main creatures. Instead, there will only be a handful of times where players can fully flex their animalistic power.

``These levels are essentially Saphira's time to shine,'' said Tim Ramage, lead producer for the game. ``But we wanted to also expose the player to the dragon in active and passive ways.''

Saphira will make her presence felt in the background, flying around

and generally doing what dragons do. However, there will be some instances where Eragon can call her in for backup. Such a case happened when some enemies on a high bridge were raining down flaming arrows. One button press later, Saphira swoops in and eradicates the bridge, sending the bad guys plummeting to their doom.

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