A few years away from something great.

User Rating: 7.5 | NBA 06 PS2
By Meleski001 | Review Date:
Gameplay (6/10) - As soon as you start up the game, you are greeted by the choice of either "NBA" or "The Life" modes. Choosing NBA will take you to a basic main menu you'd usually see for a basketball game. You can choose to play single games, playoffs, seasons, or a very good variety of mini games. One thing you might notice isnt here, however, is a franchise mode. This is a pretty major problem, because being limited to one year leaves me feeling that "there is no tomorrow" kinda feeling. Anyways, once you're in the game you get a game going, you'll notice that instead of shooting based on pure timing, you get a meter above your players head that shows how well you timed the shot. Once you hit the shoot button, the meter will swing from right to left, when you let go, it will stop. If you get a red, the shot almost always misses, orange means that you have about a 50/50 chance of sinking the shot, and green means most of the time (unless you get blocked or you shoot from someplace impossible to make the shot) you hit the shot. The same system goes into free throw shots. Another nice feature is the live scoring next to the game scoreboard at the bottom of the screen. As your player racks up stats (points, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals, fouls), you're shown at the bottom of the screen, along with their game total. I personally like not having to pause and go to the stat screen to check up on my players, its a nice time saver to have it right there whenever you need it. Other than this, the game functions a lot like any other basketball game. In The Life mode, you create a player using a sadly limited create a player feature, he is sent to the camp of the team you selected as your favorite, and after you get through a frustering tutorial the game forces on you, you have to complete goals throughout your season. Sometimes you need 15 points and 4 assists, and the game MEANS 15 points and 4 assists. If you get 59 points and 3 assists, you have to repeat the level. This gets extremely frusterating as the goals get tougher. The Life is a great innovation, and in the next few years it will probably become something amazing, but this year it just isnt pulled off great.

Graphics (7/10) - For me, graphics dont matter as much as the gameplay, so I'm not an expert in this category. However, they are good by my standards. Also, the dribbling moves in this game look extremely realistic. The cutscenes in The Life look a little dated graphically, and it seems that they didnt put any work into matching the lip movements with the words being said.

Sound (7/10) - One of the first thing you'll notice about NBA 06: The Life is that there is no in game announcing. Depending on your view on commentary in games, this is either great or terrible. During games however, you hear players communicating with each other. Aside from the lack of announcing, and a very limited (6 songs I believe) soundtrack, the sound is fairly well done.

Value (7/10) - For $30, this game is a nice steal. Even though there isnt much replay value in The Life mode and there isnt a dynasty mode, you get a good game for a small price.

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