Game Overview
For some reason we missed out on NBA Live 2007 by the looks of it, apologies for that people, however, 2008 is very much in our hands and although we aren't big fans of Basketball we'll attempt to tell you if the latest edition to the series is actually any good.

We always notice how fancy NBA games look, why is it that they always look so damn good? For a sports title, tit has to be right up there with the best to date. Sweat, veins, muscles, shine on the court, crowd everything looks superb. When the game is in ful flow they take a little bit of a hit but it really isn't enough to put you off the game and make you think it looks rubbish. We'd like to see this amount of detail in other titles not just NBA. Although developers will argue that there is the same amount just in different areas, which is probably true.

Gameplay is much the same to other basketball games out there which pretty much means that unless you enjoy playing or watching basketball then NBA Live 2008 isn't going to be your cuppa'. It's not the easiest game to pick up and play either. You could by all means get the game and play with a mate who doesn't have a clue what they are doing but if you play against the CPU or god forbid, online, you'll soon become very frustrated.

Commentary is fairly shallow and tedious which is a bit of a shame but when you have a game that is quite tedious in itself then it only makes sense to have repetitive commentary. Pass, pass, pass, shoot/dunk so on and so forth. The commentary does it's best to reflect that.

There are plenty of game modes available with 08 our favorite being the three point competition where you have racks of balls lined up around the three throw line. You have to sink as many as possible. The learning curve on making the shot each time is huge between the level difficulties. Play it on easy and you'll hit every single one however on Superstar the players shooting ability seems completely different and if you hit 1 you'll be lucky! You really have to be spot on with the release of the ball......we think!

Our Conclusions
It's a sturdy attempt at a game, which is something we have become used to from EA. Our worry with the NBA series is complacency as the game never seems to change all that much. The game looks superb and we did enjoy our time with NBA Live 2008 however with competition from Take 2 and NBA 2K8 it should be an interesting year for NBA fans.

Overall Score: 7/10

Thanks to Shaun and Louise at EA