NBA Live 07

"Live 07 may not be the most realistic basketball game but it's still a blast."

Let me start with telling what I was looking for in this game. I have NBA 2k7 but I wanted to play basketball on the go. I didn't want super realistic gameplay, I just wanted something fun that I could pick up and play for a couple of minutes. NBA Live 07 does just that.

Gameplay
As implied above, Live 07 isn't very realistic. For starters, the AI is horrible. Multiple times, a player on the opposing team will bring the ball up to the 3 point line, wait until there is very little time left on the shot clock and then shoot a three pointer. And for some reason, they'd make the shot. This brings me to my next point. Almost every shot goes in. In fact, it is almost impossible to play defense. In the 10+ hours I have played this game, I have recorded maybe 3 or 4 blocks. If someones dunking the ball, don't even try to block it because they will make it anyway.

Fortunately, this works both ways. Offense is very easy, which makes this game fun to play. It's very easy to get into a game and you don't have to be a hardcore basketball fanatic to play the game. Instead of working the ball around, setting up picks, and running confusing plays (of course you can still play the game this way if you chose) you can run the ball up and take a jump shot or drive it in and do an acrobatic dunk. Of course, to most this will be a negative. Offense may be too easy. However, it is still fun. This game is listed as a basketball sim but if that's what you're looking for, Live 07 isn't the game for you. If you're a casual basketball fan that wants a game to 10-15 minutes at a time, this is for you.

On to the controls. Not much to discuss here. The basic controls are relatively easy to get used to. The Analog stick is used for moving the player while the face buttons do different things like shoot, pass, and cross overs. Some more advanced controls like icon passing are difficult. To do an icon pass, you must hold the Left Shoulder button while pushing select. Plays are selected with the D-Pad. Holding L and pressing a face button is done for special superstar moves for good players. (The X-Factor is a new addition. When the X-Factor, who is selected by the computer, starts to heat up, they can be given Superstar abilities.

That was the core gameplay, now let me go over the extra features. Let's start with online play. First, know this; their are very few people online. When I was onlne, there were less than 10 people online. The game I played was incredibly slow and laggy. This is not one of the better PSP online titles, in fact I don't know if I want to play online again.

Dynasty mode is a new addition to this year's portable version of NBA Live. It's quite in depth and entertaining however there are a couple of negatives to take note of. Simulating takes forever. Simulating a couple of months, takes over 5 minutes! Making trades are difficult because the computer never offers you trades. You must try to work out a trade yourself. This is made even more difficult because in the trade screen, player salaries are not listed. This makes it nearly impossible to make a trade because the salaries have to match up between both teams. Team chemistry is very random and there are few things you can do to change your team's chemistry. As a result, simulating will result in many losses. Other than that it is an average franchise mode.

The All Star Weekend is here and it's not very great. The Slam Dunk competition is difficult with the awkward controls. On the other hand the 3 Point Competition is unrealistically easy. Most computer controlled players will score over 20 points. With a good player, I can score the full 30 points each round. Still, these modes offer a quick and fun gameplay session.

Graphics
The player models in NBA Live are not jawdropping. I bought this game expecting great graphics and mediocre gameplay. Instead, this game brings average graphics and average gameplay. Anyways, back to the player models. They look close enough to the actual player but than again, some faces just look too similar to other players as well. The uniforms seem like they are just painted over the skin of the players. People often complain about the framerate of this game but the framerate seems to have stayed solid through my experiences.

Other than that, the court looks ok. There is nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't look amazing. The team logos seem very pixelated. As expected with a portable game, the crowd looks horrible in todays standards. Another thing about the graphics that I'm pick about are the menus. This game has crisp, clean menus that are navigated through easily.

Audio
The announcers at first seem amazing. For example, they will mention Kobe's number change and wonder which number will be retired. But this becomes annoying when the season after the number change is almost over and they're still mentioning this.

I'm not a fan of rap, pop, hip-hop, R&B, etc. so the game's soundtrack doesn't suit me very well. However, you can play MP3's stored on your memory stick instead. At the time of writing this review, I haven't gotten this feature to work.

Conclusion
In conclusion, NBA Live 07 is a fun game. But there are too many minor problems that most people won't like so I can not give this game a higher score. NBA Live 07 gets a 6/10 from me.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/05/06