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NBA Live’s sophomore next-generation outing improves on its predecessor. NBA Live 06 for the Xbox 360 included a brand-new graphics engine and some next-generation features, but lacked some of the game modes and features found in the current-generation consoles. NBA Live 07 addresses this by adding more game modes and the superstar controls.
Like NBA Live 06 before it, NBA Live 07 gives off a great first impression. The game loads to a basketball court where you can shoot and dunk while the game loads. Once it’s done loading you can keep playing in this practice mode or enter one of the game’s modes. The modes include Play Now, Season and Online which were in last year’s game, but also the NBA All-Star Weekend and Dynasty Mode. The All-Star weekend includes the all-star game, rookie challenge, three-point shout-out and the slam-dunk contest, all of which are very fun. As expected, you’ll take on the role of the general manager where you’ll have to train your team, schedule events, make sure the team is doing well emotionally, keeping tabs on scouts and drafting players.
New to NBA Live 07 are the superstar controls that debuted on last year’s Xbox and PlayStation 2 game. Each player in the game is designated as a certain type of player: shooter (watch those jumpers), high flyer (fancy dunks), playmaker (creative passes), scorer (great layups), and post (powerful dunks). The freestyle moves are divided into three tiers: the higher the tier the more impressive the move. Besides that, the game’s gameplay should be familiar to fans of the series. You still have the separate dunk button and accompanying crazy dunks, you still have the ability to tip in shots or dunks, and you still have freestyle dribbling thanks to the right analog stick.
NBA Live 07 makes use of EA’s ESPN rights. The game features stories, news and interviews streaming directly from ESPN. The video quality is fairly good and there’s plenty of content to watch. In addition, the ticker that runs across the bottom of the screen is updated every 20 minutes with real information on game scores.
NBA Live 07 includes online multiplayer. You and a friend can play against another pair online, which is a pretty cool feature. Online doesn’t include all of the modes from single-player which is disappointing since it would have been cool to play a dunk contest against people across the country. We had a great time playing online though we did notice that there were some lag and framerate issues at times. This doesn’t too negatively impact the game, though. Also increasing the replay value are the game’s achievements which are spread out through single-player, multiplayer and online multiplayer. They’re noticeably more difficult to obtain than NBA Live 06’s achievements were.
The highlight of NBA Live 07 is the game’s visuals. You’ll see that the player models are astonishing with incredibly highly detailed faces for all of the players and coaches. The player models look incredibly realistic thanks to awesome skin textures that properly show muscle tone. They looked great last year and look even better this year. The game’s lighting is stellar, too, and definitely an improvement from current generation basketball titles. The game’s animations are superb, too, with a number of top-notch dunk and juke animations. Even the way they move down the court is noticeably improved from current generation games. The presentation is great with broadcast-quality camera angles introducing the arenas when you begin a game. There are a few collision issues but they are small. The game looks even better when playing in progressive scan or 720p, though the framerate does drop at times when playing in 720p.
The game’s audio is an marked improvement over last year. The soundtrack is much more varied including hip-hop like Talib Kweli, but also Jurassic 5. The sound effects are pretty similar to last year’s but still sound great. The commentary is provided by Marv Albert and Steve Kerr. The commentary is superb with plenty of side comments that make you feel like you’re listening to a real NBA game.
NBA Live 07 improves on its predecessor best feature: the graphics. The game looks unbelievably good. Add to that some new features and improved gameplay, and it’s hard to turn your back on the game. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Oct 13, 2006
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