Being the first out of the gate does come with its advantages, namely there's little to be compared with. With NBA, it is tempting to try and compare it to 989's PS2 efforts, but even with the PSP's visual prowess, it is still an unfair comparison. When compared to the rest of the PSP lineup, NBA rides towards the back of the pack. The graphics are decent, but suffer from a poor camera angle that detracts from the models. The details are there, which is made evident by the "basketball card" framing action that occurs whenever you pull off a great move. During gameplay the camera is pulled back a little too far, which ends up making it hard to identify who you're playing with. The more you play with a particular team, you'll begin to see nuances that help you to tell one player from another, but do you really want to spend all your time trying to tell people apart when you should really be concentrating on your game plan? I didn't think so.
Player animations are also rather still and don't transition between each other all that fluidly. Again, since this is a launch title, I'm inclined to write it off as a limitation of the system, but after seeing THUG 2 in motion, it's hard to do this. One aspect that can be overlooked is the lack of different animations for dunks and other moves.
Sound is another rough spot in NBA's presentation. The most noticeable aspect is the static crowd noises that constantly drone in the background and end up drowning out some of the other sounds that are going on. No play-by-play is available (which is an understandable omission), but at least you'll get the announcer calling out some more important game moments like shot-clock violations.
