NBA 08
- August 22, 2007 00:00 AM PST
With weekly downloadable highlights from the NBA season and inventive Sixaxis control, NBA 08 is one complete b-ball package.
NBA season is only a couple months out and what better way to celebrate the gambling scandal and thus newly tainted professional sport than the latest basketball game from Sony, NBA 08. Thankfully, this virtual league is Donaghy-free.
Running in gorgeous 1080p, NBA 08 has come a long way since we last saw it down at Sony's studio in San Diego. There are a lot of reason's this year's NBA game tops the last and it's not just about full-HD graphics and 60 frames per second (though we definitely like that juicy bit).
For example, the game has a new progression system that rewards you with points to spend on lots of in-game goodies to customize your characters' threads and play styles. There are a ton of goals to complete, all of which will let customized characters purchase higher-level gear.
Motion-based Sixaxis control is one of the coolest new features this time, allowing you to move the controller in different ways to pull off jukes, spins and other movement-related moves. It also lets you adjust if you want your player's hands up or down on defense simply by moving the Sixaxis up or down. Expanding on controls, "key control" is the new system of offensive control that makes it easy to pull off two-man plays like pick-and-rolls and alley-oops by holding the L1 button and selecting a second button for the corresponding player. The directional pad is then used to choose what type of play you want to pull off.
The Nugget choke
Probably the most interesting part of NBA 08 is NBA Replay and "Games of the Week," where the former lets you replay top performances from last year's NBA season (Kobe's immortal 50-point barrage, anyone?) and the latter serves up downloadable highlight-reel plays for players to replay a handful of top plays from each week of the upcoming NBA season. Rad, especially for bandwagon-riding Celtics fans.
With a ridiculously a detailed character creator, a bevy of new and easy-to-use control options and weekly online goals via PSN updates, the Sony team on NBA 08 really took advantage of the having some time off after delivering NBA 07 for the PS3 launch...and it shows. Take a look at the video for a peek at how it all comes together.
