EA promised Microsoft that it would have plaenty of titles out for the Xbox 360 come lauch day and they haven’t dissapointed. Basketball may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this title is still a very good game. Basketball games have always struggled to do well in the UK compared to the US, maybe we don’t have the same passion for the sport or maybe we just aren’t tall enough to play it! With NBA Live 06 being a launch title for the Xbox 360 I can see a rise in the uptake of players for this game, though it may start out as a stop gap until a decent football (soccer) game comes out on the 360 it may just give us the opportunity to appreciate a game that deserves a lot more credit than its currently getting. EA Sports have done a great job in getting all the titles finished on time and looking so good, shame other developers can’t show this same desire and commitment.
NBA Live if you hadn’t already guessed is a Basketball game. In the game in you can create a character to go through the season with or just go straight into a game as a famous player. Graphics on the Xbox 360 continually amaze me, I find it hard to not appreciate how graphically beautiful all the games are for this beast of a machine. NBA Live is no exception to this, pearls of sweat can be seen coming from the pores of all the players on the court, you can see muscles twitch as the players move around; in other words the players in the game look just as good as their real life counterparts.
Another thing that looks real are the courts in the game, each one has been painstakingly rendered to be the spitting image of the real court, the lights depict near perfect shadows of the players, and the waxed court looks terrific.
The camera in this game has been worked on extensively, EA have tried to make a camera that acts just like a real camera man would in real life, so you get the odd out of focus, out of frame shots, but you also get the breath taking inch perfect shots where you admire the piece of skill involved.
This game is a real surprise for anyone who picks it up, it’s accessible for new players and yet offers enough content to keep even the most die hard NBA fan occupied.
