NBA Live 06

"Confirmation: NBA Live Players escape from Tussauds"

Time is ticking. Five seconds are left on the clock. Beads of sweat are trickling down your face, but you must continue. You are 2 down. 3 Seconds. You aren't going to make it, 2; you make the decision to throw the ball half the court, 1. 0. The crowd roars the ball is in the hoop. You have won the NBA Season.

Welcome to the NBA. Although Basketball is not a mass-market sport in the UK yet it is starting to move up as becoming more and more recognised. It was only 4 years ago when I tried to form a basketball team only to disband a year later due to a decline in popularity. Basketball has so much more adrenaline than Football every second counts and there sure isn't any boredom in the game.

Looking primarily at the American teams in the game (hence being titled NBA Live) those that do not generally follow American Basketball may find it hard to select a team at the beginning of a season. There are no stats shown on selection so a bit of research goes a long way. Although now you can never go too far wrong with Miami Heat, chosen mainly as it was the first team in the list.

EA Sports games have come a long way since the first offerings. Some were known as too easy to be worth playing and outshone by other games such as PES. However NBA Live takes difficulty to new levels. No longer is so simple to win 100-0 in FIFA Football fashion but now even on easy difficulty you will still find yourself struggling to win the game and it all lies on the dying seconds of the match (hard to make a 3 pointer at these times). Although eventually you will become too good for the easier difficulty levels which will take some playing you still have a lot of difficulty ahead of you to become totally pro. Relating to the difficulty is that of achievements, they are so easy to achieve it is totally unbelievably stupid. 20 points for saving a player? However I do feel all games currently on the Xbox 360 do have their bad achievements and they will improve over time so not such a fault in this early stage.

Basketball is a simple yet complex sport. Careful planning of tactics is involved and if not done right it can result in the defeat of your team, but then again it is just throwing a ball into a hoop. How can someone possibly make this interesting? EA try their best at this and although shortfalls in some areas they are a cut above the rest in others. One of the things that NBA Live does right is that each game you play is different, yet of course follows the same basketball tactics. One minute the opposition can be using a certain type of tactic then changing to another during a time out, which means you, will need to rethink the way you play.

The range of options is rather limited though, you can either play career or just play now, which does just what it says. Although not many options could be added in a sports game. Especially one based on the NBA basketball season where it is like 2 tournaments in one.

The controls are fairly hard to pick up, especially without using an instruction manual. Once you have learnt the controls you still need to work out how to time everything correctly and what to press to perform the action, adding to the difficulty of the game. No longer are you able to jump straight into an EA sports game so it is not ideal for friends coming over for a quick go on the Xbox 360 they have yet to find in the shops. I also found the controls to be a little unresponsive at times; despite you being in a normally perfect tacking position you will be hammering the button to tackle to opposition while they just stand around bouncing the ball like a lemon. Extremely frustrating. Tying in with the controls (kind off) it seems that sometimes during play, the game can't keep up with the ball. Whether or not this was a built in feature or programming flaw I don't know, but it does cause some great stress. This means that despite your hammering of the controls you realise the player you are currently controlling is on the opposite side of the court. It would be nice if you controlled the person nearest the ball, this is one flaw in the game, although it does require you to be on your toes at all points of the game.

The thing I do like though is despite there are some areas where play just stops, which is rare (see the lemon comment above) it is pretty much non-stop action, dunk the ball, run to the other side of the court, either block or dunk the ball, rinse and repeat. The ball will fly everywhere, although to be honest even at full zoom camera you can sometimes lose track of the ball and get confused as to what is currently going on.

Most of this generation has focused on the graphics, although we are looking forward to next generation gameplay. I am pleased to say that although NBA Live does falter in some parts of the graphics department it excels in others. The main being the players, they look a lot like their real life counter parts. However, this is only limited to the players. All the coaches look different to what they should like, which is really not a big thing if you are only in it for the games and not the realism of the NBA.

Since the game was built around the NBA season EA of course had to make it so that players could be easily traded (and swap shirts) in the game while maintaining the realism of the characters. Unfortunately because of this when viewing close ups the players appear to be wearing “square” shirts on the bodies which is totally static and looks like their mother seriously messed up while doing the washing. Although it is not noticeable during the distant views (while actually playing the game).

The stadiums you play in are breathtaking, the floor shines and you actually feel the realism of being at a basketball match, although the closest I have been is too see Brighton Bears playing a season match. Right down to the player introductions the designers have managed to grasp the realism and atmosphere keeping the player immersed, simply wonderful.

Sure, the players look great, the stadiums look great, but what we (or most of us) really want to know is whether the animation is good. It is marvellous. Each time you slam a ball into the net the player will have a different animation. They may swing on it freely, which looks incredibly real or just quickly pound the ball in. A great job has been done to keep you from thinking this is an animation and nothing under your control. It never really stops being a game.

“We call that a button basher” “That's certainly what we call it, (Insert annoying laughs” These are some of the comments you will hear during your play time, they can get extremely annoying. However they don't seem as cheesy as other sports games, notably FIFA (“You couldn't hit a Cow with a Banjo”) and of course repetitive so everything the commentators say seems new. However this may be due to the infrequency they actually commentate. This part of the game seems good, but as I said some of their comments can get annoying.

With top class artists, such as the Black Eyed Peas and Justin Timberlake, EA is always sure to have a great soundtrack accompanying the game, although there is only a small selection of songs and it does not appeal to everyone's tastes. It may be better if you take something from your computer, I would recommend Jock Jams or something similar to play over the top of the commentary and soundtrack.

CLOSING COMMENTS: NBA Live is a game made only for dedicated basketball fans out there, the rules are not as simple to pick up as games like Football (I guess NFL is harder though) and careful planning of tactics is needed. There isn't much variation in the game for it to last a long amount of time, however it is ideal to play it in short bursts. This will greatly increase the games life. If you were looking for a game to play with your friends I would skip this as you can't just jump in and play without a good grasp on the controls taking away any fun you could have. Although there is always online play people always quit when you are ahead, there are a few honest people out there but they are totally outnumbered. I am going to give this game a 7/10 and recommend that it be rented before purchased. If you like it go out and buy it, only then will you know if you are disappointed or not.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/30/06