EA's view of next gen hoops?
30 seconds left in the last quarter, Seattle is up by three points against the Lakers. Luke Ridnour drives to the hoop, takes the layup... that hits the back of the backboard, out of bounds, Lakers' ball. Welcome to next gen hoops.
I'll start off with the aspect that hit me first when I popped this game in my ps3: the graphics. At first the game looks incredible. Player faces, floor textures, jerseys, arenas and coaches. The signature shots look good, although not as good as in 2k7 in my opinion. There are some signature dunks, like for LeBron James. Soon during the first game, I start to see some familiar and unwanted gameplay, like same old player stuttering, warping from running animations to layups, dunks that bounce off the rim and in and miscellaneous small things that really feel misplaced. Some players with lighter skin tones look reddish like they hopped out of a boiling pot just before the game. The ball still clips the net. There are two things that irritate me the most are the screwed up eyes of some the players (occurs during free throws) and that most of the crowd looks like crap, worse than Live 2000.
The gameplay feels much better than in the previous installment, but that isn't saying much, since there are still numerous things to ruin your basketball experience. I like the fact that you can speed over a defender but it can be abused, especially in multiplayer. EA tried to make the players move around more realistically like 2k8 judging from it's demo; it looks more realistic but it makes some aspects of the game more difficult, especially defense. Speaking of defense, it sometimes feels pretty lame. There seems to be no counter moves to some of the post and goto moves. The right analog stick is useless, since it takes for a while for a player to even raise his hands up. Shot blocking looks weird, most of the time the shot gets rejected to the same direction it was originally heading to.
On offense the most noticable thing is that EA got rid of user shot releasing (I'm not sure if the case was same in next gen 07, I never played it). It's a matter of taste whether it's a good or a bad thing. It can bring more realism since there's no missed open jumpers if you misexecute a shot. Then again, there is no real guarantee how to make a shot since user has no control over it. I personally preferred the user controlled jumpers. I was pleasantly surprised that without even trying to get everyone involved, somehow the points were evenly scattered. Speaking of team effort, the players stand around too much. Most of the time it's because a play is being executed and it's about one player cutting and running through a screen while all the other players just stand around and wait. Fast breaks are sometimes good, sometimes not. Cpu controlled players tend to run under the basket and slowing down speeds while passing, stopping at the 3pt line and everything you wouldn't want them to do.
Point guards still run the show for the cpu. The point guard, no matter who, will test his luck driving, for example Earl Boykins taking on Kevin Garnett under the basket (it wasn't a pretty sight for Boykins). The AI too often doesn't recognize an open man and it's strategies seem random. It also relies too often on shooting in your face, which looks horrible if you approach this game as an NBA sim.
Passing in this game has gone worse due to various reasons. Firstly, the direct pass button has been integrated together with the alleyoop button. In order to dir pass, you have to hold the button, which will take a second or more and during that time the situation, for example a fast break will be over. Secondly, the player often passes to a different player you tried to pass to resulting in gray hair. There's also situations when players like Nash and Kidd pass straight into the chest of opposing defenders. Thirdly, alleyoops and lob passes are a catastrophe this year. Most of the alleyoops sail at the height of the shot clock, timed way off and out of bounds. If you manage to make an alleyoop, most of the times the receiving player stops about six feets from the baskets, waits for the mile high pass to land and catches it with a two feet takeoff. Most of the lob passes seem to have the speed of a balloon.
And now with the actual bugs, things that should have been fixed before this game had been released. Players still attempt layups behind the backboard that result in out of bounds calls almost every game. Players also receive passes that force them to go to an animation that brings them out of bounds. The cpu also sometimes passes an inbound pass to a player that is already out of bounds. There is some framerate slowdown after replays. So far I've encountered two types of game freezes that required to exit the game; one during a timeout (the players also didn't have jersey numbers during it) and during a free throw. Sometimes players airball layups, players like Kobe Bryant. The intentional foul button doesn't work in multiplayer. The freethrow help window sometimes pops randomly during gameplay, once it stayed there for 3 minutes in front of the action. Players still chase the ball when it's heading out of bounds never catching it. The most annoying thing however is missed layups that cause a dilemma. Players miss off the rim, off the back of the backboard and off the bottom of the rim. Professional basketball players don't layup off the bottom of the rim. When you try to compensate this issue by increasing the layup slider, strange shots begin to fall that come from angles that shouldn't result in a basket. There are very strange animations to accompany these.
As always, the new Live game has some featured new, often heaily advertised things about it. This year there are goto moves, hotspots and quick strike ball handling. Goto moves are cool, some are more easily triggered than others, but it seems like a feature that might be abusable. At least with Arenas I was able to drain jumper after jumper. Then there's the hot spots, which show the hot spots for every player. Kobe has almost the whole court as a hot spot while Shaq has only the front of the basket. But what about Leon Powe, who has nothing but a whole court full of cold zones? Quickstrike ballhandling doesn't feel very different to me from freestyle control. The featured post moves are great but a bit too effective, seems like they work almost every time. I was able to use the counter shot to score over 20 with Rasho Nesterovic more than once. The dunk contest has been a great addition to last gen games but in this one it's horrible, most of the time I didn't know what I was supposed to do even though I mastered the contest in last year's games.
The audio in Live 08 is familiar. Same recycled play-by-play, same clunky rim sounds and a new EA trax soundtrack. Presentation could be better, since it's the third year of next gen hoops. The replay screen doesn't allow much rewinding and contains about ten seconds of material and there still isn't an option to save replays. In-game auto replay cameras are strange and do not represent TV-style presentation at all. There are also no additional extra stat screens during gameplay except when someone scores a double-double etc. The 2k-like highlight reel after the game is a cool addition but it doesn't work very well, it often shows short clips of an empty court and other odd stuff. The game menus are mostly the same as in Live 07 and 06, so no imagination here.
This is the third year of next gen hoops and EA is stumbling to deliver a solid basketball game. There are good things about this game but usually when you come across a satisfying gameplay moment two bad sequences follow that really ruins the athmosphere. EA is taking a step back in some directions while getting ahead in some others. Gameplay has been improved but the bugs and miscellaneous small things that have risen or remained unfixed really decrease the overall basketball experience.
For a next gen game, there just isn't an excuse. Why haven't they tested the game enough to iron out the bugs? Do they really met their own standards with this game? The main purpose of a video game is to have fun, I had some fun moments with this but as a long time basketballgame player I couldn't stand it for too long, that's why I don't write anything about the dynasty mode, since the gameplay is too bad for me to start one. Live 08 also seems to fall short of a basketball sim, since the best strategies don't reminisce real basketball too much. I'd rather play an older NBA Live all the way back to 2001 if it was only for the gameplay. EA really needs to make some dramatic changes to it's franchise because it's not a good next gen game, barely a good game, period, and not as fun when you spend enough time playing it.