The EA Sports franchise machine has become something of a monster these days. The layout on each game is the same, the special features that are kept inside them are also very similar, and it’s a bit on the hard side to review them all without feeling a real sense of déjà vu.
That’s not to say this is a bad thing, especially this year, as almost every single update that has been rolled out over the past 6 months, from Madden and Tiger to FIFA and the already rated NHL, have been above their class in a way even I never thought possible. NBA Live last year wasn’t really the best it could have been, with some rather choppy frame rate on occasion and a real lack of any encapsulation into the game.
This year we see a whole new ball game (no pun intended), with a nicely slick and more up to scratch effort, which does away with the drab feel of 12 months ago. The NBA franchise is huge, so the software advertising the sport and its wares has to be also. There is such a feeling of glossy American presentation with this, as even on the practice court that welcomes you to actively press the start button to begin you get little snippets of the ESPN Sports Center network, giving you highlights and news about what’s going on in the B-Ball world.
