
	Platform Wii Genre Sports Publisher Electronic Arts Developer EA Sports ESRB E (Everyone) Released Q4 2007

- Family Play makes the job of playing easier

- Pretty much everything else falls flat, throws up a brick; insert your own description of a game that fails at delivering a good basketball experience

Review: NBA Live 08 (360) Review: Mario Hoops 3-on-3 (DS) Review: NCAA March Madness 07 (360)
Newsletter
Be notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice weekly. Enter E-Mail Address Below: Subscribe \| Unsubscribe

NBA Live 08

Score: 4.0 / 10

It’s safe to say that I gave NBA Live 08 the benefit of the doubt; after all, it’s the first NBA Live game to appear on the Wii. That said, it’s worthless. From the controls to the graphics to the meager options, NBA Live 08 is the proverbial brick – smashing right through the proverbial backboard.

Like most of the recent EA Sports titles, NBA Live 08 features two control options: Family Play and Advanced. Family Play essentially takes a lot of the player control aspects out of the hands of the player; with Advanced you make use of both the Nunchuck and Wii Remote for more precise control. I should put precise is

Advertisement

- Wii Game Reviews
- Sports Game Reviews
- Games Published by Electronic Arts

quotes because when I say precise, I actually mean hit and miss. Or more precisely hit, miss, miss, miss. There’s a high level of unpredictability involved. Even after many hours and getting a real “feel” for the controls, sometimes a motion would result in a lay-up – sometimes performed from the three-point line, no less – and sometimes it

Advertisement

would result in nothing. At the best of times, the control is inconsistent.

Beyond the controls, the actual gameplay is equally horrendous. For a series that prides itself on at least a nod to realism, NBA Live 08 is full of bizarre glitches and annoying quirks, not the least of which is the inordinate number of steals that happen during the course of a game. At one point, I felt slightly nauseous since the camera spins every time the ball switches possession. The AI controlled players can’t play defense, either. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to where they position themselves on the court most of the time. But then again, how do you defend against a lay-up from three-point land? It’s almost like a version of NBA Street was skinned with the NBA Live accoutrements.

NBA Live 08 features online play, which actually works pretty well, all things considered, but there’s not a whole lot of extra modes included. There are the prerequisite Three Point and Dunk Competitions. There’s also instant play and (one) Season mode. Compared to other the options offered on the other consoles, this is anemic at best.

The upshot of all this, is that there’s only way for NBA Live to go on Wii and that’s up. They can’t go much lower than 08.

- D.D. Nunavut

(March 12, 2008)


PC \| Gamecube \| DS \| Wii \| PlayStation 2 \| PlayStation 3 \| PSP \| Xbox \| Xbox 360
News \| Reviews \| Previews \| Features \| Classics \| Goodies \| Anime \| Forums