Review: NBA Live 08 (360)

Peter Moore, also known as “the guy with the Halo 2 and GTA tattoos” recently moved to EA after finishing his run with Microsoft, and has been quoted as mentioning the lack of interest in some EA sports titles outside of their home country of America, which is probably true. There was that NFL game recently played at Wembley stadium that was sold out completely, but Gamestyle bets that was the entire UK fan base for the NFL. With this in mind, we tackle the latest in the company’s series of NBA games, and while a competent basketball game, we doubt it’ll have anyone but ardent fans purchasing it.

This isn’t due to the games technical points mind you, as in most areas it is quite well developed. Graphically it’s quite a sight in full HD, and the animation of the players is slick and fluid.  Everything has nice sheen to it, (especially the reflective wooden courts, which could probably reflect lasers) and it’s probably the most realistic looking game out of the series so far, but to be honest that’s expected so there’s little to wow you. The audio areas of the game are also as well done as they should be, featuring all the squeaky trainers you would expect.

This is probably the main thing that’ll strike you though, or rather, won’t. The game looks good but it doesn’t look breathtaking, it’s like EA just made them to get the job done, rather than to impress anyone. Halo made us sit up and take notice of its beautiful lighting effects, Gears of Wear because of its sheer graphical power, and they both had great soundtracks and effects. NBA Live 08 isn’t as well presented as either of those games, but it’s as nice looking and sounding as it should be, but nothing more. There’s no real point in extolling it because it would be like being impressed that the Gamestyle offices’ lights came on when we hit the switch, because that’s what they’re just doing what they’re supposed to.

Less impressive is the control scheme, as it seems set on using every damn button on the 360 controller when there is clearly no need for it. Do we really need two different buttons for putting the ball in the basket? One for dunk and one for shoot? Couldn’t that have been assigned to just one button? It also tries to complicate things by including “Pro-Moves.” Basically the star player on each team (Kobe, Shaq, and other such people that are not Michael Jordan) has their own special defensive move that helps them breakout of tough situations and score. Colour us curious, but does anyone else imagine the next step of this being entering a 15 button combo to have Gilbert Arenas launching a fireball at Joey Graham? Though in truth that’d be pretty nifty, oh wait, Nintendo did that already.

Certainly it’d spice up the game a bit more, but EA has done its part to make the game playable, even adding a quite useful feature to proceedings. By hitting the LB button on the pad when your team has possession of the ball, you bring up a series of coloured markers around the key you’re shooting towards, coloured coded to respond to how successful that player is from scoring from those areas. It’s quite useful and definitely helps you when the clock is counting down and you’re a couple of points behind.

The usual game modes are there as well, career (in the form of “Dynasty”, what basketball has to do with a line of Chinese emperors is beyond us), quick play, online and offline multiplayer and such. It all makes for quite a competent basketball game, but ultimately there’s little to draw in anyone who doesn’t enjoy the sport in the first place, unlike EA’s brilliant Fight Night Round 3, which was one of the best early Xbox 360 titles.  So basically, if you like basketball, it’s a good game. If you don’t, there’s not really anything for you here.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Garry Webber