Electronic Arts NBA Live 08 or Electronic Arts Fourth Grade Live 08?

You call NBA Live 08 a realistic attempt at portraying NBA basketball? I am sickened by the quality of play that Electronic Arts puts out in their sports games. I remember when I bought NBA Live 98 and was pleased with the game by all standards compared to games of the day. With the advancements that consoles have made and the quality of game play has increased with demand, EA Sports is still putting out, well, crap. NBA Live 08 and NBA Live 98 have more similarities in game play than not. I feel like I am playing the exact same game, with updated players and stats. As for calling it an NBA basketball game? I feel like I am watching a fourth grade basketball game. You know the kind where the ball is thrown to the opposite team, and kids are missing lay-ups consistently, and there is no defense. They should honestly just call the game Fourth Grade Live 08 (with dunks and NBA player’s names on jerseys) and it would be much more of an accurate game according to game play.

Its almost as if EA Sports intentionally wants the game to be bad. Like they create a game that is somewhat realistic, then they sit around and ask each other, “What can we do to make it unrealistic?” While playing the game, I ponder to myself how EA Sports is still in business. How they are selling thousands of copies of this game that they release every year, and the game play has not improved much, if any. I don’t quite fathom how reviews on the game could possibly be good. Or during the testing phase of the game, how they do not catch all the glitches, flaws and blemishes of the game. I sometimes wonder if the actual designers and coders of the game have actually seen an NBA basketball game, or if they are just nerds who never get out of their cubicle.

I am going to list a few flaws, glitches, double standards, and inconsistencies in game play briefly below: (in no specific order)

Passing the ball is poor at best. I press the back arrow to pass it to the wide open guy standing at the three point line, and my guy throws a bounce pass across court to a player being defended which is then picked off.

The double standard versus you and the computer is so sad it’s funny. At first I used to get mad, but it’s to the point now that I just smirk when something happens. Like every game I play the fouls are about a 7:1 ratio against me. If you have a big lead the game will make you miss lay-ups, wide open shots, make you turn the ball over, while the computer is hitting shots four feet behind the three point line fading away, while being perfectly defended by two players. I refer to it as the “NBA Jam Factor.” You know in NBA Jam when you couldn’t pull away from a team because they would just steal the ball and run down the court and dunk it. It was always a close game at the end, with the computer drilling a last second shot to win. Almost like the game would actually have its feelings hurt if it were to lose.

The other team can still pass the ball through your body. I wish I could have pulled this one off back in my high school days. I would have been invincible with 0 turnovers instead of 8 every game. Maybe one day I will learn this trick, and pass the ball through external body parts of other human beings.

The computer can step out of bounds, and yet it doesn’t get called. I would think in the code there would be a predefined “if” statement stating that if the players steps or dribbles out of bounds, then return turnover. They must have forgot how to do “if” statements anymore.

Going up for rebounds is like telling a paraplegic to go catch a pop up. I can jump directly under the ball and in one frame the ball is heading towards my hands, and then in the next frame the 5’10” Nate Robinson behind me ends up with the ball out rebounding my 7’6” Yao Ming. Side Note: If you happen to create players and make three guys 7’6” which is the tallest you can make them, and go up for a rebound, the 5’10” can still rebound the ball over all three of your 7’6” men.

When are they ever going to have side announcers that don’t repeat themselves three times a game? Can they honestly not think of anymore one-liners, stats, or funny phrases than the six they already have? Reminds me of Maddens unprecedented line, “Tell your team to play hard here, tell your team to play hard every play.” It’s like a monkey with a mallet beating a gong over and over again in my ear.

I only wish that NBA was this bad. That way, not only would EA Sports be correct on their terrible game play, but I would be a millionaire because I would be the best NBA basketball player ever. The saddest thing about this whole article is that not only did I waste my time playing the game, but I wasted time explaining why the game sucks. Sadder yet, wait until I bitch about the game play of Electronic Arts other sports games.

When will the fallout from releasing poor games finally take effect? When will people start to realize that the quality of their games is about as good as Burger Time released for Nintendo, and stop buying them? Or better yet, another company gets the rights to the names of players, and creates and releases a better game, it wouldn’t take much. All in all, if I were giving EA Sports a review for NBA Live 08, I would give them a 1.5 out of 10. And that’s only because they make the only NBA game for PC’s. Otherwise they would probably receive a .5 out of 10.