NBA 08 Featuring The Life Vol. 3
Score: 70% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment America Developer: Sony Interactive Entertainment America Media: DVD/1 Players: 1- 4; 2 (Online) Genre: Sports (Basketball)
Graphics & Sound: For the past few seasons, "The Life" has made Sony's NBA franchise worth playing. The mode, which lets you go through all of the off-court antics of players, was originally more of a side feature but has quickly become the game's main attraction. It is no surprise then that the mode has received top billing this time around and seen a majority of the tweaks. At the same time, the core gameplay is still neglected, which ends up hurting both the third variation of The Life, as well as the game as a whole. Although most of the gaming world has turned its focus to "next-gen" visuals, NBA 08 Featuring the Life Vol. 3 still looks decent for a PS2 game. At the same time, and like most of the game, there are few noticeable changes when compared to last year. Players look and animate like they did in previous years and feature many of the same issues. The one that really sticks out is animations, which suffer from a slight delay when transitioning between moves. This delay is also seen in the play-by-play commentary. Compared to other games, the commentators have a decent amount of dialogue and do a pretty good job of presenting the information. At the same time, there is a delay between something happening on the court and someone saying something about it. The lag isn't major, and is more like when trying to watch a nationally broadcasted game on TV while listening to your hometown commentary crew on the radio; it isn't major though there is enough of a delay that it eventually becomes annoying. Crowds rarely sound like they are in the game and are pretty low key.
Gameplay: This year's version of The Life continues the story featured in past year's versions, though with a much different focus. With one player on the shelf and another traded, the focus this time around is on how the team responds while also integrating a brand new player, Youngblood, into the mix. While you spend much of your time as Youngblood, you'll also control other members of the squad in various situations. As with past games, your main objective in The Life is to complete tiered goals as you move through the season. Goals are much better balanced than in previous years, though at the same time, they still seem to pull some of the focus away from the actual basketball game. Everything is pre-determined, so even if you are having an All-Star caliber game, you'll still get chewed out because you haven't met some arbitrary goal. At the same time, since the mode is built around the concept of playing as a team, some goals will force you to use players you will normally overlook, which translates into you playing with more of your players in Season or Exhibition games. In addition to The Life, NBA 08 Featuring the Life Vol. 3 features the standard complement of game modes. You can play a single-game Exhibition with any of the game's featured teams as well as All-Star squads or take on other players in Online. You can also play through a season in League mode or play through any number of skill-building mini-games. Really, if you have any experience with last year's version, there isn't anything new in NBA 08. Granted, this is true when it comes to nearly all sports games, but even then, there are minor changes to tighten up areas. While there are a few tweaks in this year's version, they really aren't enough to change the dynamics of the gameplay in any major way. Most notable by its absence in NBA 08 is a full-fledged Franchise Mode, which is something the series has, to the best of my knowledge, never featured. The only semblance of any type of franchise control is the ability to trade players. This aspect happens to play home to one of the game's more noticeable tweaks. In past years (and on multiple platforms), you could take the used car salesman approach by trading your benchwarmers for other team's superstars. Now the A.I. will show a little more sense when making trades - though you can also toggle this feature off and build a super team if you'd like. Online is pretty sparse. You have the usual complement of Exhibition games and leaderboards as well as roster updates, though actually finding a game online was sometimes tricky.
Difficulty: Player A.I. is inconsistent at best; sometimes it will feel like you're playing a team consisting of the Three Stooges and Marx Brothers while at other times, you're playing an All-Star squad. I understand that sometimes teams get hot and seem unbeatable, but there is a pretty noticeable shift. To make matters worse, your teammates usually don't benefit from this shift and usually make boneheaded moves, like stepping out of bounds, if you aren't there to hold their hand. Then there are the obvious calls and non-calls. The fundamental rules of basketball aren't enforced nearly as much as they should. A player may step out of bounds, but that doesn't mean he'll be called for it. What is disappointing is not that it happens, but it also happened in previous versions and hasn't been fixed.
Game Mechanics: NBA 08 Featuring the Life Vol. 3 uses the same colored shot meter as other versions of the game. When taking a shot, a colored halo appears around the ball. Green means you'll make the shot; yellow is a maybe, while red means you won't. The meter is still one of the best things that the franchise has going for it and though it does take away some of the challenge, it also helps to balance out a few A.I. issues. As far as the rest of the controls are concerned, they generally work well. When in the low-post, you can pull off a number of moves using a combination of (L1) and the right analog stick. The only control aspect that doesn't seem to work all that well is switching between players. The mechanic is as easy as pressing one button, though there is a slight, but noticeable, bit of lag that can throw off your rhythm. Eventually you learn to compensate for this, but given the game's pacing, this won't always help. As with last year's edition, NBA 08 is still a game that hasn't really found its place. The Life is what makes the game interesting, though it still needs a lot of tweaking before it becomes something that will really make other gamers take notice. Even if this were to happen, the gameplay still needs work if NBA 08 wants to contend with other games on the market.
-Starscream, GameVortex Communications AKA Ricky Tucker
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