’ve been a recent fan of Sony’s NBA series because of The Life career mode. So what happens when this PlayStation 3 edition drops that engaging feature? The game is left to stand on its gameplay – which is not, and never has been, a strong feature for the series. It’s akin to the Lakers needing points and giving the ball to some guy not named Kobe.
Without The Life, this title can’t quite fill the void left by its absence. The season mode is very basic and unfulfilling, and is nothing more than a calendar filled with dates and teams. There is a trio of minigames to play (which aren’t online), but the only really interesting feature the game offers is a NBA Replay mode where you make your way through 50 situations in which you must complete specific goals to advance. If you go online, you can even download five additional situations every week that mirror happenings in the real-life NBA. I like this concept, but I’d also like the option to write my own history and build a dynasty in a more fleshed out career mode.
On the court, this game is dribble-for-dribble the same as the current-gen version. You’ll see the same exploitable AI, and the play in general is predictable and basic. If there’s one area where I think that this series is acceptable, it’s the special moves. As is par for the course, they aren’t super flashy or extensive, but I like that you can actually pull them off. In the other NBA games, special moves are too complex, too inconsistent to rely on, or they don’t synch up correctly with their animations – leading to guys doing the funky chicken instead of driving the lane. At least in this title I know what I’m going to get every time I press a button. This more or less translates to the PS3’s Sixaxis motion controls, which you use to perform special moves (or you can just use the buttons). I quickly got used to using them, but they didn’t change my opinion of the overall experience. It’s too bad there aren’t any post moves using the controller’s motion sensing.
The noticeable graphical uptick and the Sixaxis controller are not nearly enough to warrant a purchase over Sony’s own current-gen NBA title, and certainly not over the 2K series. I hope for the franchise’s sake that next year doesn’t simply add The Life mode to the PS3, because even that kind of positive addition would just be a sidestep to obscure the real gameplay progress that this series needs to make.