NBA Live 07

"Despite sloppy gameplay, NBA Live 07 is a decent choice for any basketball fan..."

The Good - A ton of content, from extra jerseys, to all kinds of modes that aren't nessecary in a basketball game; Dynasty mode is extremely deep; the All-Star weekend is a blast...

The Bad - Gameplay is horrible, and it's just not as fun as the older Live games; no classic teams, only All-Star teams from other decades; Dynasty mode has no option to change the length of the schedule...
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I'm not a basketball fan, and I don't ever plan to be one. However, I usually pick up the latest copy of NBA Live for whatever console I happen to be playing at the time. One of the reasons for this is how good the multiplayer generally is for basketball games. And, since Christmas was coming up soon, I decided to ask Santa for it.

I recieved the game at my grandparents house, from my grandparents, and because I brought my XBOX, I loaded it up.

After turning on whatever console you're playing LIVE on, you get a nice little intro movie, showing actual gameplay, which I believe, is the last EA Franchise to have an actual intro movie. The movie itself shows some cool moves and dunks, but gets old pretty fast.

The menu pops up, and the first time I saw it, I was shocked. What was I going to do first. Was I going to hit "Play Now" and jump right into a game, or was I going to hit "Game Modes", and try and figure out which other mode I wanted to play.

Hitting "Play Now" puts you through to the team selection screen, where you get all of the current NBA teams, the 2006 All-Star Game teams, and a few surprises, such as the "addidas 5ive", and some All-Decade teams. Since I had been a big fan of NBA Live 2005, I chose the Denver Nuggets and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Even though I'd been through a few menus, and hadn't seen the game in action, I was excited. It looked as if EA did a good job on the title. Everything was clean, and there were a ton of options.

I went to the "Select Uniforms" screen, hoping that there would at least be something that looked cool for both teams, that was unlocked from the start.
I flipped through all the uniforms, and was amazed that EA didn't make you jump through a ton of hoops to get a bunch of classic uniforms. I was happy. So happy, that I almost forgot to choose my settings.

Alright, enough with the intro. I loaded up the actual game for the first time, and within a few minutes, I was quite happy. The game played pretty realistic, and all of the good players weren't screwing up on anything. Lebron James wasn't missing any wide-open dunks, and Carmelo Anthony seemed to be having a good game to. I was impressed, as my Cavaliers led the Nuggets 23-14 going into halftime.

The halftime menu popped up, along with a gigantic picture of a Toyota truck.

Oh no. Advertising had leaked into this game, too!

I didn't care, though. Advertising, for me, makes the game a lot more realistic. I hate how "Nate's Army Surplus Store" sponsors the halftime menu's in other games. I skipped through the menu, and loaded up the second half of the game. To skip through all the details of the game, I ended up winning 46-30, a decent first showing for a rookie like me.

I still had the "Awesome" feeling inside me when the main menu loaded once again. I was excited to see what else the game had to offer, and then realised, "Hey, there's a dunk competition somewhere in here, right?"

A few screens flew by me, and I was on the practice court slamming down 360's with Carmelo Anthony. A few minutes later, Steve Nash had scored a perfect 30 in the 3-Point Shootout. After that, he went 1-on-1 with Dwayne Wade, which he won 11-4.

And I knew I had only scratched the surface of 07.

I was extremely glad that the game had remained largely the same as NBA Live 2005. I was familiar with how the game handled, and how each of the modes worked. While I played 2005 on the Gamecube, the general mapping of the controls had stayed almost the exact same on the transition from the Gamecube to my XBOX. Despite how I'm usually angry at EA Sports for making sub-par NASCAR and Madden NFL games, I was impressed by 07.

I worked my way through each of the different game modes, from 1-on-1, all the way to the different challenges in the All-Star weekend mode, and then noticed that it had been two hours since I plugged the game into my XBOX.

I then decided that it was time to start my quest for the championship in LIVE 07's Dynasty mode.

Loading up the mode, I was treated with a somewhat bland menu, and was told to choose the settings for my dynasty mode.

It was then, I ran into problems.

I flipped through all of the settings to make the season as short as possible. I flew through the draft, made changes to the way the playoffs worked, and finally, went to set how long my season would be.

Then I realised, I couldn't actually do that. I had to play all 80-some games.

I became a bit angry with the game, but not to the point where I'd rip out the disc in shock and anger. I decided to live with it and play on.

I put the quarters at two minutes a piece, and chose the Houston Rockets as my team. I didn't want to be cheap and pick the Lakers (by the way, are they still any good?), but I didn't want a horrible team. Despite my experience with Live 2005, I was still a newbie with 07.

I was pleasantly surprised with 07's dynasty mode. The ESPN license worked extremely well with this game, as it brings a host of new features to dynasty mode. ESPN's role in LIVE 07's Dynasty mode is to show you all of the fantasy stuff around the league. The main feature I found, was ESPN's Rumour Control. Right after you start the Dynasty mode, you'll have access to this menu. It basically shows a bunch of rumours going around the league, and you have the option to research them throughout the season. However, you can't research more than one at a time, and almost 90% of the time, the rumours are false. Along with the Rumour Control, ESPN brings you a Mock Draft, that shows a bunch of predictions of which team will draft which player in next years draft. It changes after almost everyday, and, unless you hold your spot down in the points standings for at least a few days, you'll see some rapid changing. The returning stats tracking features are here, and they all work the same way.

I managed to play at least 10 games before I had to pack up and go home that day, but from my observations, the game plays a lot different than NBA Live 2005's. It doesn't feel like arcade basketball at all, which means that a lot of 3-point shots will be taken, and you'll see very few dunks at all. It seems to be impossible to get near the basket, and in short games, you'll see one player account for almost 88% of the teams total points. The CPU also plays quite strange. I've seen teams call almost all of their timeouts in the first quarter alone, which, despite the fact that I never watch basketball, seems a little weird. The freestyle superstar system works quite well, but sometimes, a little too well. I've used it more and more in the past few games I've played, and I've gotten fouled a lot. It looks cool, but it becomes a cheap weapon in tight games.

The game modes you've gotten used to in Live are still in here. You'll get your Play Now mode, Season and Dynasty modes, as well as the All-Star Weekend, Freestyle Challenge, 1-on-1, and Practice modes. They all have their little moments, and all of them can be played with two or more players. They're all a lot of fun, and I enjoyed each and every one of them.

The sound in 07 is great. The music is a bunch of catchy hip-hop tracks, and the commentators are quite educated, and they sound like the professionals that they are.

To round out the list of features, there's still the Create-A-Player and NBA Store features, which act like they have for the past few NBA Live games. They both work pretty well, but the store has a lot less items to be purchased. This can be considered a good thing, because in the games lifespan, you'll spend a lot less time slaving through the game to unlock everything and a lot more time playing and enjoying the game...

NBA Live 07 is a great basketball game, despite the fact that the gameplay is a step on the poor side. It has an awesome selection of modes, and a great Dynasty mode that will have you playing Live long after the NBA Finals are over and a champion is crowned. It's a great multiplayer game, too, and has its fair share of spectacular moments...

- - - Score Summary - - - Gameplay - 6 - Some weird issues pop up here and there, and there is no difficulty setting that it "Just Right" for me. It's either too easy, or too hard. I don't like the change in physics, as they feel totally wrong. It's too easy to nail 3-pointers, and completely blow out the AI. On the other hand, there's a ton of game modes, and it is a whole new experience to play multiplayer. Seriously, if you have another basketball fan as a friend, sibling, parent, or child, you'll be in for a treat.

Graphics - 9 - It looks like an XBOX 360 game, minus the lighting on the jerseys. I was blown away the first time I looked at this game, and I'm still blown away now. Almost no framerate drops, except in the single-player 3-point shootout (not the freestyle challenge one). Heck, even the menu's are cool...

Sound - 8 - I hate hip-hop music, but I love almost all the songs in this game. Some songs that were in 2006 FIFA World Cup (another game which I've played to death) re-appeared here, which helped this rating. Oooh, and the announcers are great. They're a lot of fun to listen to. The stadium music is actually real music this time, and it's a whole lot of fun to here your favourite song playing while throwing down a dunk.

Value - 7 - You'll grow tired of the way the game plays, but it's hard not to say "no" to the sheer amount of content this game has. If you have XBOX Live, you'll get live ESPN Updates sent directly to your game, which is a nice touch. But since I don't have XBOX live, it won't work for me. Oh well. The amazing amount of game modes included is nice...

Reviewer's Tilt - 7 - Like I said, I enjoy the amount of things you can do in 07, but the gameplay is a huge turnoff for me. I was annoyed that I couldn't change the season length in Dynasty mode, but I'll get through it somehow. It's also a lot of fun to play with any amount of friends. The dunk contest and 3-point shoot modes are cool, too. The only thing I don't like, is how you can use any player in the game in the 3-Point Shootout, but only the good dunkers in the Slam Dunk Competition. In NBA Street 3, you could use any player...but oh well... Still, I enjoyed the game...

Final - 7.1/10.0 - NBA Live 07 is still a great game of basketball, but the game suffers from a lot of physical gameplay problems. Live has a ton of entertaining game modes, all of which can be played with two or more players. If you're a fan of the NBA, Live 07 is the right way to go, provided you don't care about some gameplay problems you'll probably run into...

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/26/09

Game Release: NBA Live 07 (US, 09/25/06)