Overall Good Game
As far as gameplay goes I found NBA 06 to be be a mixed bag of good and bad. First the good: Gameplay is very fluid and all the animations and special moves are there. NBA 06 uses a visual shot meter that gives an indication of how good your shot is. I liked it because it allowed me to get a better feel for the game before actually turning it off. One thing I really like about NBA 06 is the Poster Cam designed to slow down the action and highlight big plays. I also like the Shooter Cam for game play which nicely captures all the action. Sounds of the game are OK. Noticeably lacking is a broadcast announcer. This may be a turn off to some, but I found it rather resfreshing just to play the game without repititious commentary. Nobody has been able to match the commentary in ESPN NFL 2K5 so lack of it in NBA 06 is not so bad. The sounds of the court more than make up for no announcer commentary. This game is not a memory hog either, with only 120 KB required to save a season, amazing.
Now the bad: Graphics just don't matchup to the competition. I think this is because NBA 06 is totally lacking in cut away scenes between the gameplay. When closeups occur (i.e jump ball, manual replay etc.) the player models are not that bad. Overall I am satisified with gameplay but there is one main thing Sony overlooked . My biggest complaint is the almost total lack of fouls in the game. Since when did the NBA become a gentelman's game? It is not uncommon to play an entire game and only have 1 or 2 fouls total between both teams. I tried changing skill level and increasing the fouls slider to maximum but got the same result. So hack away and go for the steal becasue you will almost NEVER draw a foul. It would have been nice if Sony would have made some of the blocked shots (and believe me there are plenty of them in a game) into shooting fouls.
I can't comment about Online play because each time I signed on no opponents where there. If Online gaming is what you crave be warned that I can see this game being similiar to Gretzky 06 when it comes to Online play, opponents are few and far between.
Bottom Line: NBA 06 is a fun game and has the potential to be a great game with a little more work. Most basketball fans will enjoy NBA 06 and it is a good alternative to NBA Live 06 or NBA 2K6.