Stage 1: Impressions |
Stage 2: Analysis |
Stage 3: Evaluation |
If you've been following The Wiire closely, you might notice that sports games have earned some of our highest ratings to date. This is mostly because - in addition to having solid gameplay and passable presentation - sports games have tended to benefit more from the Wii's motion controls than games in any other genre. The natural translation from making the real-world motions that you would on the playground to making those same motions in your living room - raising your hands to catch a pass in Madden, swinging a baseball bat in The BIGS - make these games feel (literally) like second nature. Sports games on Wii aren't just good, they're progressive.
NBA Live 08, however, is a giant step backwards.
The gameplay is so shallow that I hesitate to call it basketball. Sure, real-life NBA players will line up five-on-five on authentic NBA courts, but that's about where the similarities end. The AI is so pathetic that there is absolutely no need to worry about trivial matters like "finding an open teammate," "double teams" or "shooting." To score, players only need to move the character as close to the basket as humanly possible and start shaking the Wii Remote to the left or right, and then watch as the on-screen player attempts a dunk or a layup.
There's no reason not to dunk every single time.
You'd be guaranteed to score, except sometimes players miss insanely easy layups from right in front of the basket. The lesson here? Always penetrate the defense with someone who can dunk, and forget the layup attempt entirely.
Speaking of forgetting, you're not likely to forget your mundane mission (to score uncontested baskets at will) at any point throughout the course of the game. Any time your player gets in range of the basket to where he can score on a dunk or layup, a Mii will pop up in the lower-right hand corner of the screen above the words "DUNK NOW!"
Perhaps the constant reminders ("PASS NOW!" and "STEAL!" among them) of the most basic tenets of the game were part of EA's Family Play, but I found them insulting. Sadly, not as insulting as I found EA's implementation of Family Play as a whole.
Completely unnecessary.
The only difference between Family Play and regular play on Live is the Nunchuk's control stick. The same controls and motions are used no matter which mode of play. By default, players use the Nunchuk's control stick to move their character. With Family Play enabled, players can disconnect the Nunchuk and have their players moved around the court by the game's AI.
Remember, this is the same AI that can't handle even basic defense.
In Madden, the addition of Family Play was understandable. Even though that game's motions were largely intuitive, there were a handful of controls that were consolidated in Family Play mode so that players could solely concentrate on the joy of making football moves. But with Family Play in Live, EA is essentially telling us that a demographic exists in which people can handle every move on the Wii Remote, but can't cope with the single addition of moving a player with the Nunchuk's control stick.
Shooting is fun, but with such bad defense, what's the point?
EA already thinks that Wii owners can't play offense (why else tell someone to "DUNK NOW!" even though they're clearly underneath the basket?), but they don't even give us the option to play defense. I'm not kidding. NBA Live 08 only lets players control half of the sport.
Defense in NBA Live 08 consists of pressing B. That's it. If your opponent is moving with the ball, and you'd like to stop him, press B. The nearest defender automatically locks on to the ball handler. Maybe the guy with the ball will try a crossover move (done by shaking the Nunchuk). If you're holding B, however, then odds are he won't be able to go anywhere. Defenders don't have to worry about players picking up a speed burst and turbo-ing past them, because there is no turbo button. Defenders can be content to wave the Wii Remote wildly in an attempt to steal the ball, or just let the opponent score so they can get back on offense. . . another easy dunk.
It's a shame that the game is such a dunkfest, because shooting the ball is kind of fun. Players bring the Wii Remote up so that their player jumps, and move it forward at the height of the jump so that the player shoots the ball. It's not really an intuitive motion, but adds an element of timing to the jump shot. It's just too bad that the game's only bright spot so far - an action utterly fundamental to basketball - is rendered completely unnecessary by the lack of defense.
Stage 2 will cover the game's presentation, online play, season mode, and Party Mode. Maybe Live can rebound from such a rough start.
Stage 1: Impressions |
Stage 2: Analysis |
Stage 3: Evaluation |
