NBA Live 07 Review

Despite the addition of several previously missing modes, NBA Live 07's many gameplay flaws and uneven visuals relegate the series to the bench for yet another year.

Once the initial luster of shooting hoops during load screens and seeing realistic players drenched in sweat wore off, flaws such as missing features and impossible-to-make free throws made NBA Live 06 on the Xbox 360 a letdown. EA has addressed many of these problems in NBA Live 07, adding several game modes and superstar controls, but many key issues remain. As a result, NBA Live 07 again comes off as unpolished; it just happens to have more ways to experience the rough edges.

Clipping is a frequent occurrence.
Clipping is a frequent occurrence.

NBA Live 07 boots straight to the practice gym, where you can warm up your moves with Tracy McGrady. Here you can select from a number of game modes via the well-designed menus. Play now, season, and online return from Live 06, and new this year are dynasty mode and the NBA all-star weekend. The all-star weekend includes the rookie challenge game, three-point shoot-out, slam-dunk contest, and of course, the all-star game. The dunk contest is easily the highlight of the weekend mode due to its depth and the large number of great-looking dunks you can perform.

Dynasty mode places you in the role of general manager for the team of your choice. After hiring an assistant coach, assistant, trainer, and scout, it's off to training camp where you set your team's training priorities. Over the course of a season, you can use your staff in a number of ways. Assistant coaches can research rumors and schedule team events, assistants work with players to improve their skills, trainers help players heal faster, and scouts can evaluate talent year-round in preparation for the draft. In addition to monitoring players' happiness and overall team chemistry, you'll need to keep an eye on their fatigue levels to make sure they don't get too worn out over the course of the season. If you're looking to improve your team via a trade, you can do so. Another way to better your squad is through the draft--a process made easier if you keep your scouts busy during the year. Your team can still perform well if you don't keep your staff occupied every day, but putting in the work will yield tangible results.

Introduced on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox last year, but new to NBA Live on the Xbox 360, are "total freestyle controls." Each superstar player is designated as having one or more of the superstar abilities--high flyer (great dunks), scorer (athletic layups), playmaker (fancy passes), post (power dunks), and shooter (variety of jumpers). The best of the best have three levels of skills, as well as another set when they're "in the zone." These additional tiers let them pull off even fancier feats of skill. Level-one freestyle moves are performed by holding LB and either pushing a direction on the right analog stick or pressing a face button. The level-one moves are easy enough to do, and while some are more useful than others, they add a lot of variety and pizzazz to the game. The additional levels of freestyle control look slightly cooler but aren't any more useful. Once again, EA has failed to provide an adequate instruction manual, so the only way to learn these moves is by trial and error or by going into the control-settings menu every time you want to try something new. You can change players' abilities on the fly, but you won't need to do so very often.

Despite several changes and additions, NBA Live 07's gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. The basic controls are easy to learn, and freestyle control, which is mapped to the right analog stick, feels great. Using the stick to perform advanced ball-handling moves is cool, and it's just as intuitive when turning a normal jumper into a fadeaway or stealing the ball. On-court actions are often difficult to execute due to frequently unresponsive controls--specifically, controls unrelated to the freestyle control method. This is made worse by players frequently getting stuck in animations, most often when backing the ball down or when double-teamed in the post. Dunks and layups are now mapped to the X and Y buttons, respectively. This is supposed to add a risk/reward element to your shot selection, but the concept is poorly executed since there's no consistent method to figure out if you'll be able to make a dunk. If you elect to dunk and your player isn't going to make it, a good portion of the time he'll switch to a layup, and when he doesn't, he'll clank the ball off the rim--a frequent occurrence. Hop steps aren't well implemented, mostly because they tend to move your player away from the basket rather than closer. Layups and the hop step are both mapped to the Y button (hold for a layup and tap for a hop step), so it's easy to end up taking a shot when you wanted to hop step. Thankfully, free throws aren't impossible this year.

When playing against the CPU, the overall pace of play is slightly faster than that of a real NBA game. It's not the dunkfest that Live 06 was, but even on the highest difficulty, it's still not particularly taxing to get to the rim. Offensive players do a nice job of filling the lanes on a fast break, and they work hard to get open in the half-court offense. Should you want to run a specific play, you can call one via the D pad. Defensively, the CPU is aggressive, rotating quickly, fighting through picks, and double-teaming often. There are also lots of gameplay quirks. Players don't get back on defense quickly, and they'll also routinely chase and then grab the ball out of bounds when they weren't the last one to touch it. Rebounds often fall to the ground untouched, and players frequently dribble with their backs to the basket when they're unguarded at the top of the key.

ESPN Motion segments are streamed right to the Xbox 360.
ESPN Motion segments are streamed right to the Xbox 360.

Players don't "skate" around the court as much as in the past, thanks to new physics that take momentum into account. This is also theoretically supposed to keep players from changing directions in the blink of an eye; however, it's not uncommon to see a player erupt from standing completely stationary into a high-flying dunk. The new system also causes some bizarre collisions under the basket and makes it extremely difficult for a defender to keep a quick player like Allen Iverson from driving right on by. To make up for the difficulty of changing directions on defense, offensive players frequently get sucked into defenders, slamming into them repeatedly.

Online play can best be described as disappointing. Co-op play is supported, but the rest of the options are limited to ranked and unranked games. You can't create leagues, nor can you participate in the dunk contest or three-point shoot-out. Also, the game suffers from serious lag. We tested the game from two different locations, and our experience ranged from very choppy to unplayable.

The player models are excellent.
The player models are excellent.

Live's achievement points are spread out over 15 different tasks, most of which are just a way to get you to experiment with the higher-level freestyle controls. Points are earned for executing each category of level-three and in-the-zone moves. Playing online will net you a couple of achievements, and there are a few given out for multiplayer games, as well. One particularly weird achievement tasks you with playing and completing a game with four users on the same machine. Obviously not everyone is going to be able to get access to four controllers, or four people for that matter, so some competists might find this a bit frustrating.

NBA Live 07 looks great in still shots, but when viewed in motion, its visuals are uneven. Rather than the flashy-but-unfriendly broadcast view found in Live 06, the game defaults to a less impressive, but much more useable, baseline view. Should you want to play from a more dynamic perspective, the broadcast camera is still available, sans the disorienting angles from last year. The player models were one of 06's highlights, and they look even better here, in part due to the more realistic-looking skin and muscle definition. Players look remarkably like their real-life counterparts, and EA even went to the trouble of making sure Steve Nash's new 'do made it into the game. There aren't as many player-specific shots in NBA Live as there are in NBA 2K7, but many of the more notable players do have their real jumpers. Players still sweat, but they no longer perspire like Patrick Ewing after running a marathon...in the desert. The blurring effect used to create a realistic depth of field is occasionally overused, but for the most part, it adds to the impressive presentation. Player introductions have also been improved and show off the player models and realistic arenas nicely.

The entire presentation leading up to the game looks great, but as soon as the opening tip goes up, the visuals take a turn for the worse. For starters, the choppy frame rate is still a problem. Individual animations look excellent, but as was the case last year, the transitions from one move to the next are disjointed or often nonexistent. Players still warp from dribbling to passing or shooting, and defensive players with their backs to the basket will suddenly be facing the hoop. User-controlled instant replays are a "new" feature, and after using them to check out the game up close, even more flaws become apparent. Clipping issues--such as a player's arm passing through another's or the ball going directly through someone's chest--are rampant throughout the game. In fact, players constantly grab rebounds or dunk by reaching through the glass.

It's curious that EA hasn't chosen to integrate the ESPN license into the in-game presentation. There are, however, a few new ESPN-related features, more so on the Xbox 360 than the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Streaming video of interviews, news clips, and analysis are culled from ESPN Motion. The video quality is adequate, and there's a wide variety of content, though at this time there aren't any game highlights. You can also check out segments from ESPN Radio, and as long as you're online, you'll automatically hear the latest ESPN Radio SportsCenter Update every 20 minutes. You can also get updated scores and information from the ESPN ticker that runs across the screen and from the news pages in the online lobby.

Don't be fooled. The game doesn't look as good in motion.
Don't be fooled. The game doesn't look as good in motion.

One area in which NBA Live excels is its excellent commentary. Marv Albert does the play-by-play, and player-turned-announcer Steve Kerr provides color commentary. The two have great chemistry together in real life, and this comes across in the video game in the off-the-cuff remarks and banter between the two. Ernie Johnson is joined by Greg Anthony for the all-star weekend, which means after a weak dunk you'll get to hear Anthony say off-the-wall cracks like "I'd rather watch girls dunk on an eight-foot rim." NBA Live 07's soundtrack is vastly improved over last year's. The well-rounded soundtrack includes a wide variety of artists from around the world, including Segio Mendes & The Black Eyed Peas, Gnarls Barkley, Jurassic 5 featuring Dave Matthews, Rhymefest, Lady Sovereign, and Talib Kweli.

NBA Live 07 isn't a bad game, but it is disappointing. Live 06 had many of the pieces needed to make a great basketball game, but rather than improving those specific pieces, EA added more parts and didn't make any of the old stuff much better. All the new game modes are nice, but the lack of noticeable improvement in how the game plays means you probably won't want to spend a whole lot of time with them.

The Good

  • More game modes than last year
  • slam-dunk contest is great
  • commentary and sound are top-notch
  • Level-one superstar moves are cool

The Bad

  • Online options are sparse, and lag is a huge issue
  • upper-level superstar moves are overkill
  • animation is spotty, and there's lots of clipping
  • controls are unresponsive
  • new dunk and layup buttons make controls needlessly complex

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