Publisher/Developer: EA
Genre: Sports
Price: $9.99
Verdict: EA has done an admirable job of bringing the ‘Live’ experience to the iPhone.
Acquired: Review Copy Provided
Pros: Genius control, easy to play, real players and teams, advanced mechanics available but not necessary
Cons: A bit sluggish, players abilities are somewhat generic

When it comes to sports, except for perhaps soccer, I hate basketball the most.  What David Stern has done to the game in the last 15 years is truly appalling.  Try enduring the Hornets playing the Bobcats after watching an amazing baseball playoff game in October and you can see how much of a game it isn’t. But I digress, I have always had a soft spot for good basketball video games.  I will still play Konami’s Double Dribble to this day if given the chance, and can still remember whipping my cousin JD on the Dreamcast in NBA 2K1.

This joystick works much better then the FIFA implementation.

While I have always preferred the NBA 2K series’ take on the game, Live has its fans as well, and if you are one of those then you will immediately be comfortable with the game.  While much has been stripped from the game to make a portable version, there is enough here to warrant the purchase price.  In a somewhat sluggish arcade affair, you’re given the usual benefit of a full NBA license: all 30 teams and the real players.   The different court views and familiar player models you know from the big boy console versions of NBA Live are impressively recreated on the portable.  In making the transition from console to the iPhone, a simplified 2 button setup with a responsive virtual gamepad has been employed.  The developers had the foresight to allow the overlay of the gamepad to immediately disappear when not in use so as to create less on-screen clutter.  When you put your thumb back down, the pad will reset its location to match your new position.  This is the way it should be done.  The buttons are contextual and change their icon image depending on if you’re on offense or defense, so there are no useless, static buttons cluttering the screen.  For southpaws, this setup can be reversed.  Even with all these intelligent concessions made by the devs for making control work, virtual gamepads are just not, nor will they ever be, as accurate as a true d-pad.  With this is mind EA made the wise choice of eliminating the out-of-bounds rule.  While you can throw the ball out of bounds, no one will ‘run’ or step out of bounds and keeping with the run (well, jog) and gun arcade feel, this works for me.

Look at that exciting zone defense.

You can get by with the basic setup, but the beauty of the game is that there is a slightly more advance control scheme available for those who wish to use it.  By holding the pass button, you can initiate the familiar player overhead icons and then press them to pass to an exact teammate. The game will alert you to who is open or not by displaying the name of the player in yellow or green.  You can also choose to employ the ‘clipboard’ to set up and run plays.  For the real meat and potatoes of the game, EA has created a fun way to score.  Similar to the hold and pass setup, you can press shoot to be a ‘chucker’ or hold it to go in for a dunk.  By swiping in one of 4 directions (left, right, up, or down) during the animation you can trigger a different dunk style.  While the amount of dunk types are limited, this adds a fun arcade element to the overall proceedings.

Sorry Jailblazers, you're playing the Lakers.

Keeping in line with the arcade feel, free throws are performed with a fun gimmick if you have the accelerometer turned on in the options (if you don’t, the game employs a simple touch mechanic to stop 2 moving lines when the intersect in the middle of the hoop).  The accelerometer is tied to the players shot mechanic so titling the phone back sets up the shot and flicking it forward as the player begins his follow through shoots the ball.  A bit odd a first, it becomes pretty easy to master and become a consistent shooter.  That brings up my other issue, since the players themselves don’t seem to automatically perform like their real life counterparts, there is no compensation for poor free throw shooters or other actions.  Shaq will start nailing free throws Kobe style once you get the hang of the interface.  The only real difference I could find was that defenders seemed to bite on the shot fake much more if you were using a superstar like Kobe over a bench warmer.

You can pick up where you left off. Convenient.

The visuals are very well done, with TV-style replays that show your instant highlight reel after a shot or dunk.  They tend to run a bit frequently, but they do add to the overall presentation.  The game mentions that the graphics will automatically employ openGl es 2.0 features (instead of 1.2 on the older devices) if you have an iPhone 3GS or the latest iPod touch.  All the screenshots I took are from my 3GS, so if you have an older model, your mileage may vary.  While (wisely) lacking some of the long term features of its console brethren, you do get some frills here with unlockable classic players, full 82-game seasons, and player trades.  While the game will shut down any tunes you are rocking when you launch the app, you can create a custom playlist from within.  EA found a proper balance to create an easy to learn, very accessible, and just deep enough to warrant the 10 bucks, fun basketball game.  I would just ask for one more pass on the game engine optimization to eliminate the stutter and speed it up a bit for a point release version.  Maybe if I turn off Marv Albert the game will run faster…