Whether you thought that the spurs winning the NBA Championship was the greatest thing in the world or an utter disgrace doesn't matter much now that the season is over. What does matter, however, is that hoop fanatics can use EA's NBA Live 06 to get geared up for next season. In fact, the b-ball faithful have been relying on the Live franchise for four years, with NBA Live 06 making it a five-peat. Now that's a lot of basketball.
The arduous task for developers year in, year out, is how they can improve on a franchise that has already set a pretty high standard in the industry. The idea is to get better and better each year, but when you're on your fifth version of the same sport, on the same console, the innovation window shrinks to the size of a pea.
Boasting a new graphics engine, a Freestyle Superstar gameplay dynamic, and a more pro-style tempo, NBA Live 06, on paper, looks like a sure-fire winner when considering this is the last effort for this gen. But we all know there's no such thing as a "paper champion",
so let's get intimate with NBA Live 06 and see how it fares against the competition…
Driving through the lane.
Gameplay
You may or may not realize how much work goes into compiling the stats on players for a single NBA season, but some back room EA Canada employee does. In most b-ball games, you are pretty much at the mercy of the game's engine. If the open man happens to be rated a "35" in shooting percentage, I don't care how close to the "top of the jump" you release the shoot button- it ain't goin' in. What happens often in a fast-paced, transitional game like basketball is that players - particularly star players - get lost in the shuffle. For a gamer, this is bad news. If you purposely chose the Timberwolves so that you could score on people with Garnett, you really want to be able to get the ball to him at all times, right? Well, this is part of the reason that EA implemented the Freestyle Superstars system for NBA Live 06. Basically, EA has designated a few of the game's brightest as key players, and issued them each their own icon and statistical system. Now, when you are on a fast break, it's easy to pinpoint Garnett because there is an icon hovering between his feet and the parquet. The icons relate directly to each player's attributes which takes the guess work out of it for the more casual players. Using KG again as an example, many of us know that this guy could score with his eyes closed if he wanted to. Others may not know that he's a huge offensive threat, but if they know the icon system in NBA Live 06 they will. Just by looking at the icons, gamers will immediately know the strength of the star. Garnett is what EA is calling a "scorer", like Bryant, T Mac and others. The icon in this instance looks like a flaming basketball. It's also easy to pick out the perfect player for that last second shot, since a cross-hair icon designates the shooters on the court. Other Freestyle character types include the power player, highflyers, defensive stoppers, and the all-around playmakers. Each character has a unique set of moves based on their icon and their individual flair which immediately makes an impact on the usual ho-hum basketball game dynamic. NBA Live 06 is now more like the real league it mimics, since players will often set up plays around their stars that in turn in turn, try to make highlight reel plays. Less like college hoops. More like the NBA. A good move all the way around for this franchise.
Even though EA knew they were onto something with the Freestyle Superstar system, they didn't want to leave the upgrades at that for NBA Live 06. Working hand-in-hand with the Freestyle system is a tweak on the feel of the transition between offensive and defense. Once again, this is pro basketball, not college basketball, and many people felt like the Live series was to intent on running the show like the scholars. The on-screen transitions (the flip-flopping of the ends of the court) have been tweaked and are performed with a bit more speed. The outlet passes also seem to find guys already on the move rather than a point just looking to set up some play that nobody seems to follow in the NBA anyways (although if you want to call a play, you can now, on-the-fly, in NBA Live 06) It's more realistic in the sense of the NBA game, but I'm not going to say the transition game inclusions are more fundamental to the game of basketball. But we all want to see fast breaks and big dunks, don't we? Of course, or we'd all be diligently following the WNBA (lower the hoops to about 8' and I'll watch it; women dunking on women would be killer).
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Feb 11th, 2006
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