NBA 08

"Another basketball game. Nothing special about it."

I have played many basketball games for various consoles. I usually refer to the NBA Live series, but I gave NBA 08 a chance.

Gameplay: 6/10
The actual playing of the basketball game is fairly good. You use a shot meter to shoot that I found hard to use when I first played the game, but now I'm pretty good. The controls are pretty easy to use, but free throw shooting is pretty difficult. I have only made a few out of about 100. Even on the rookie difficulty setting, I find the game fairly hard to play. If you leave someone open for even a half second, they'll drain a shot. Sometimes when I'm open for the dunk, the player will do a lay-up and miss it usually. Apart from the actual play, there are a lot of game modes. Pick-up games are pretty pointless because the players are randomly selected and you have a mini-draft before the game. Usually the teams are pretty evenly matched though. Exhibition games are the same as any past NBA video game, except rosters are different. Season mode is worse then before. All you do is play a season of 82 games and its nearly impossible to make a fair trade. The CPU always wants a much more better player then who they're playing for. Other than that, there is managing your lineup, settings, and looking at stats. Nothing special.

Online: 2/10
On the back of the game case, it says "Downloadable content and roster updates each week throughout the season." There are only 2 pinball games and 1 roster update to download. The 2 pinball games are completely pointless and the roster update is from August 29th (Or somewhere around that time). That was way before the season started and there is supposed to be roster updates each week throughout the season... You can play a lot of game modes online, but hardly anyone is online. I stayed waiting for about 30 minutes until I found someone. There is usually lag, which messes the game up.

Graphics/Sound: 5/10
The graphics aren't anything special for a PSP game. They're not horrible, but they could be better. The commentary gets repetitive. The same thing is said about 10 times per game. The play-by-play is fine, but again, nothing special with that either.

Play Time/Replayability: 6/10
It takes quite a while to finish a season if you play all the way through it. A few games in a row get pretty boring. I sometimes pick it back up to play once in a while if I'm bored with my other games, but its basically the same thing every time. There are bad calls all the time and its pretty hard to make a shot.

Don't waste your money buying this game. If you want to, you can rent it, but don't be surprised if you don't like NBA 08. It gets boring after a while.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/08

Game Release: NBA 08 (US, 10/12/07)