by: John Olin

October 06, 2005

With NBA Live 2006, you have a lot of what you had in the past versions of the game, as well as some new. I will admit, as I have many times before I am not exactly a fan of any kind of sports game unless you are talking skateboarding or golf. I did however find NBA Live 2006 to be somewhat enjoyable, although you can tell with this version, that EA was more involved with making sure the next-generation versions of the game looked great, rather than innovating much more with it. Still if one thing makes this game stand out it would have to be the visuals, but any basketball player can tell you, that it isn’t how you look but rather how you play that wins the game.

The new parts of the game are pretty slim, and they are still not quite up to par. The biggest addition is the freestyle superstar control. Basically, you get special moves with the more popular, or better basketball players, that helps make you stand-out amongst all the other ballers. These players will have abilities that sort of reminded me of the Harlem Globe Trotters, and in that sense, the game started to get a bit silly, but I guess in order to keep it interesting for people who have been religiously buying the title annually it gives them something more to work with.

There are many different types of superstars including playmakers, power players, scorers, and so on. Certain superstars can have their types switched out to something else, so you have more variety to work with as you play the game. The weird thing about them, is that you will be able to do special moves, that you almost never actually see on the NBA court, and even do things that you would believe to be technically impossible. Even so, this mode is pretty interesting to me, a person who for the most part isn’t all that great at basketball games. At times, the game feels like the one basketball game I actually do enjoy, NBA Street. If you are Shaq especially, you feel like some sort of superhero basketball player when doing your power moves. Other than this special edition to the game, you got most of what is in the past NBA games, or for me, the parts that make it complicated.

Most of the hardcore players of the series will defiantly want to stay in dynasty mode. This time around they make it a bit more involved, asking you to hire more help to scout for players to develop your team. Basically they help you find who is the best, and for the most part you only want to use them for finding the draft picks. Otherwise you are going to have a hard time getting things going. Still those players out there who have loved dynasty mode in the past should like this one as well, if they don’t mind the fact that it hasn’t changed all that much.

NBA Live 06 also has your standard multiplayer. You can play with four people offline on your Xbox, or two on Xbox Live. You get a good array of rankings, and information that lets you know how you have been doing compared to other players, but don’t expect a variety of people to play with. Depending on when you are playing, you will run into the same players, who know exactly what they are doing. So unless you are really good at the game, you will probably want to stay away. Then again, at certain times early in the morning you will come across people who will probably be more attuned to your skill.

Visually NBA Live 06 looks noticeably better on the Xbox this year, and in fact it seems as if though they have added some effects that take advantage of the Xbox. I don’t know why they have done this, other than maybe giving people who won’t buy the Xbox 360 something more to look at, and so they don’t have to be to jealous of the 360 counterpart. The players do have a simulated glisten effect to them, and for the most part they are well animated. There are times when it looks like the players will skip frames, and go right to the ball, but overall it is a nice looking game. If you were to take away some of the sharpness, and the new visual elements present in this version though, it would just be what you got last year in 05.

The sound is what you would expect from an NBA game. The loud thuds of the ball on the court, the squeak of sneakers, the sway and sound of players moving around each other, and the thunderous crowds, along with bells and whistles are all here. If you haven’t already guessed, the soundtrack is mostly hip-hop based, but if that isn’t your thing, or if you are tired of some of the generic hip-hop tracks, then you can simply switch it to your own brand of tunes. The commentary in this game is actually pretty good, and I often don’t say that, but you will hear commentary that is very random at times, and doesn’t repeat itself. The guys who do it, are doing a pretty good job, and you get a bette feel that you are actually watching the game on the TV with the commentary. In that respect the game has actually done pretty well.

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NBA Live 06 on Xbox feels like it is trying to go in one direction, but still stay in the same spot it has since last year. If you really think you can wait for a version of this game, then wait for the Xbox 360 version. People who haven’t been following the game for the past year or so will probably get the hang of it pretty quickly thanks to the new superstar moves, but you won’t find much different. Those of you who have that ballers bug in them might just want to rent this instead.

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