NBA Live 07 Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

NBA Jam this ain't.

After the Easter break I was hoping for some great games to come my way. And Ok, so I may be somewhat biassed but I have always preferred Konami sports games to EA sports games (I think you know which titles I'm talking about). Still, NBA was a basketball game and I thought that EA usually spend a decent amount of time on the games they release.

How wrong I was. You can play a variety of different modes, including a season mode where you get to play through as your chosen team. Being an EA game, all the teams and current rosters are there. I haven't followed the NBA in a while so was slightly disappointed not to see Shaq and Kobe on the same team but then again you can't have everything.

Before I get into the gameplay, let's just have a quick word about the loading time. It's all well and good to have every NBA team and up to date players in there, but when this means that there is some loading time (albeit small) even when you try and pause the game or go back a screen, this can get a bit much. In fact, I was quite surprised to see it in there considering how games have advanced lately. The loading time isn't long, maybe a few seconds on some of the smaller screen changes, but really folks, this shouldn't be happening in games today. It gives them a bad rep and takes away from the enjoyment of playing.

Actually I wish it took away from the enjoyment of playing as there isn't a great deal really. We try to play our games on mid level handsets so that they are representative of the general population. And unlike some other sites we actually play the games instead of posting a review which basically says nothing about the game and clearly shows you haven't played it. So for NBA Live 2007 I played the game on my SE K600i. The screen is a slightly smaller size than some, but the resolution is usually very good, which can mean decent graphics. What it meant for NBA Live 2007 was graphics that would look good on my old Commodore 64. The sprites are very blocky and too thin to be recognisable. Then there's the unbelievable decision to play on just half a court so at the end of each play, instead of the frantic counter attacks, you get another slow build up. Playing on half a court also means that all the players are really really squashed together on an upwards view so when you get players by the net, you can't tell who's on your team or who's your opposition.

It gets worse as well with the fact that the smooth passing and high octane dunks are also gone. Because the controls are somewhat pants too. It's an 8 direction game with a 4 direction joystick so you have to use the keypad if you want to dribble properly. Then there's the double button press as there are four shot / control buttons where you switch players, pass, shoot and try and dunk. Without being able to see where your player is, it's a little frustrating trying to string together a few quick passes followed by a slamdunk. Luckily when you play on easy, you don't get the ball stolen much, but one very very annoying thing that does happen is that you get called up a lot for charging. Pass to Kobe, have a dribble, think you're clear, go for the dunk and NO....you get the foul called for charging and the opposition gets it. You can't really see where the opposition are so the fouls occur all the time. This happened so much that I gave up trying to dunk and ended up just playing for the 2 and 3 pointers. There are no real aiming or power options either so if you're not using a star player you may hit a lot of bricks.

Sound is actually reasonable with a tune on loading and also some speech effects during the game. There is supposed to be vibration as well but this didn't seem to happen when I played.

Finally, even with all the modes, there are no strategy options for the team. You can change players, sure, but you can't really do much else. Even the excitement of managing the players or getting the draft picks is not there, all you are left with is a game which has the most up to date rosters for the NBA but which plays like a brick. Like how I finished the review? Clever huh.

Check out the much better AND1 Streeball for a real b-ball game.