Digital Sportspage Blog

Well, I got Live from Gamefly and have to say that I’m pretty impressed with the full version of the game. I’m not trying to say it has reached the level that the 2k basketball games have recently but the demo for Live had me saying “Well, it’s a definite improvement but it had to be after the first two dismal 360 releases.”

One of the first things that jumped out at me was how much more natural the game felt compared to the demo and the PSP version. The three major complaints I had of the demo (rebounding, cpu offensive AI, and players stopping to catch the ball preventing fast break opportunities) have all been addressed.

The demo had several balls hitting the ground after hitting the iron and that has been all but eliminated. Rebounding is not the chore it was in the demo.

The cpu offensive AI was pretty poor in the demo often taking the quick shot rather than working the clock. Maybe this was a result of the short quarters, I don’t know. What I do know is that the cpu offense really takes their time to run plays and find a quality shot.

I would constantly have my fast breaks thwarted in the demo when my player would stop to catch the ball. There’s nothing more infuriating in a basketball game than having a 2-on-1 in your favor turn into a 2-on-4 because there’s no option to lead the guy on the break. This used to be a problem in the 2k series before they introduced the lead pass button and the Live 08 demo had me thinking of those days. Fortunately the full version has fixed this problem for the most part. I’ve still seen it happen from time to time but I can live with that because not every pass is on the money in the NBA so it shouldn’t be here either.

Compared to 2k8 this game is quite the looker. Where 2k8 looks great in action there’s times where the close-up shots between plays are downright fugly. Live 08 doesn’t look quite as good as 2k8 in action but the between plays stuff is much better.

The pacing of this game is fantastic. The speed feels right and I already mentioned the cpu offense utilizing the clock. This really surprised me because I didn’t feel this in the demo. The pacing really shines in the later stages of close games and definitely helps add to the tension.

I found that I don’t really like any of the camera angles available. Where 2k8 has a wealth of camera angles Live only has a handful. I know a lot of people prefer the broadcast angles for basketball games but I cannot stand playing basketball games going side-to-side. Neither of the up-and-down camera choices follows straight on but rather starts at an angle and straightens out as you go down court more. This is very disorienting on possession changes when the camera flips around and would sometimes lead to me stepping out of bounds whenever possession changed close to the sidelines.

While I am impressed with what Live has done after last years’ horrible game and the underwhelming demo I can safely say that it doesn’t reach the heights that NBA 2k8 does. 2k8 finally arrived from Gamefly yesterday so I’ll post some impressions on that as well but let’s just say that the game I played left my jaw hanging on the floor.