NBA Live: Nothing but net, this game delivers

After successful titles such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Madden NFL 10, Fifa 10 by Electronic Arts, you could see this coming.  NBA Live has found great success for over a decade on console systems everywhere and it was time for them to bring it to magical world of handheld devices.  I’ve been a huge NBA fan for most of my life and this game is going to have to go against the highest of expectations from me.  NBA Live isn’t the only basketball app out there so let’s get our sneakers on and find out who’s got the best shot to be the best in the App Store.

Gameplay Modes:
As this game mimics the console version, it has Exhibition mode, Season, Playoff, and Tutorial mode.  Exhibition mode is your simple “pick up and get into the action” mode where you pick your team and opponent and go right to it.

For Season mode, you take your team through a long and arduous 82 game schedule where you can either “simulate” the majority of the 82 games, or you can choose to play whichever one you want.  This is a great feature and I’m glad to see that they brought from the console version to the handheld because it’s unreasonable to ask a player to play 82 games on his iPod touch.

Playoff mode the team of your choice right into the heated and intense environment of postseason where players are tested, legacies are made and history is written.  Your opponent in the playoffs is completely random and you can even simulate these games as well.

With the combination of the play-by-play commentary, the crowd noise, and the dynamic sound effects of the game really make NBA Live come to life for the gamer.  They even have random voices shouting gibberish just like in a real basketball game.  The game just has a great professional basketball feel to it and it’s great to see that they’ve really integrated all the amazing aspects of the NBA into the game.  That’s the name of the game over there at EA though, “its in the game”.

Controls:
As with most sports games, a lot of the success depends on the controls.  Controlling the tempo is good, and even having control of your difficulty goes up pretty high on the priority list but having control of your players is of most importance.  This is where I thought NBA Live shined.

Most of your controls is with a analog D-pad on your left and two “action” buttons on your right like most sports and action adventure games.  In NBA Live, the controls are very responsive and the movement is very smooth.  Instead of having 5 different buttons on the screen doing a million different actions, they made it simpler, assigning the two buttons to do multiple actions.  For instance, one button passes to the nearest person, or if you hold it down, you can tap on which player you want to pass to.

The only gripe I had was that on defense, one button is used to switch players and they made the same button to steal the ball.  This doesn’t work for me as the game has no way of deciphering which action you want to do.  It just assumes that if you are close to the opponent, you won’t want to change players.  It’s a little frustrating at times but doesn’t take away from the game too much.

The free throw shooting could’ve easily been an easy timing and precision “wait till the ball is in the middle of the hoop”.  Instead, they decided to use the accelerometer and have you “shoot” your iPod like you would a basketball which leads to inconsistent results.

What We Liked:
+ iPod music friendly + Three different gameplay modes + D-pad mixed with “touch” controls + Unlockable “Legend” teams + Play-by-play commentary by Marv Albert + Well-thought out control scheme + Variety of musical artists + Responsive and tight controls + Helpful tutorial feature (Basic & advanced) + “Edit Roster” option to keep the game updated + 2 different camera angles + Play calling and play sets + Variety of dunks and moves + Crowd noise and sound effects + Ability to pick up right where you left off during your game

What We Disliked:
- Could use a “Create a Player” feature - Minor glitches - A.I just stands still in lower difficulty setting - Graphics were slightly disappointing - No Multiplayer - Free throw shooting too difficult

Final Verdict:
Being a $9.99 basketball game, it had to deliver entertaining and inspiring gameplay, enormous amount of depth, and a good amount of replay value.  Fortunately, the game delivers on every level and is a must-buy for NBA sports fans.  I am a huge NBA fan and I had extremely high expectation for this game and I was not disappointed.  I was slightly disappointed with the graphics, but they still are way above average and good enough to tell teams and players apart.  Now all they have to do is come up with monthly updates to keep the NBA player rosters updated and the game would be unbeatable.

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Tags: Review, Sports

Category: Editors Choice Awards, Games