Ordinarily, if we were playing some stream-of-consciousness cognitive connections game and you threw the words "basketball" and "nunchuks" at us, we'd probably think of the movie "Game of Death" and a chuk-wielding, yellow-track-suit-wearing Bruce Lee taking down a gauntlet of foes before coming face to face with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. At least that's what we would have thought of before EA Sports' NBA Live 08 for Wii landed on my desk. You have to hand it to EA for being bold. As the first developer to bring the game of basketball to the Wii, it was stepping into uncharted territory. But, just like Jabbar found out when he decided to mix it up with the baddest man on the planet, the results may not always be so great.

In an attempt to make everyone happy and make the game accessible to gamers and non-gamers alike, development has introduced two separate controller schemes. Using the EA Sports Family Play set-up, only the Wii remote is used. According to the manual, this makes things so intuitive that you can "put the Wii remote in Grandma's hand and let her put on a clinic." Sure, the visual is a great one -- my grandmother blowing by some hapless defender as she soars over him for a dunk, or flying into the stands to start a fight with a fan who may -- or may not -- have thrown a drink at her. In reality, this Family Play set-up is only fun if you're the type of person who derives joy from preventing others from experiencing it.

The play in this simplified game has been so dumbed-down, it's hardly recognizable as an interactive experience. On offense, pull the remote back and then flick it forward to shoot, shake it side-to-side to dunk, and use the A button to pass. On defense, you jump to block and rebound by pulling the remote back and forth, and the side-to-side deal will attempt a steal. That's it. If you noticed, certain concepts -- like being able to control your player's movements -- have been scrapped. The game controls all player movement. Offense is a complete drag. You inbound the ball to your guy and he heads up the court. If you leave him alone, he'll slowly make his way to the hoop, where you can wiggle the remote for a dunk. Defense is the only aspect that's even remotely fun. It's cool to block shots by timing the flicking of the remote. The bad part is that after you block a shot, you usually end up back on offense. In other words, your grandma will not be putting on a clinic. If anything, she'll want you to drive her back to the clinic.

The advanced controls play a lot closer to what you expect from the Live franchise -- to a degree. The addition of the Nunchuk adds a whole lot more buttonage to things, and being able to do some fancy ball-handling by rotating the left-hand controller is a kick. And, yes, in this mode you can actually control which way your guys run on the court. That said, it still plays like an arcade game. If there were any sort of all-powerful gaming court whose word was law, this would legally have to be a big-head basketball game. There's not a lot of strategy required here.

While you can just play a single-game, a truer test of your chuk-ing skills would happen in Season mode. Take your fave franchise and lead it through a 29-, 58-, or full 82-game season. But given the type of play available -- either far too simplified in the Family Play mode or overly arcade-y in the advanced mode -- the majority of gamers may shy away from an 82-game slate. Live 08 on Wii does its best when dishing up the balling in small doses. Those looking for quick-hit hoops will probably spend a lot of time in the Superstar Challenge mode. Here, you'll get to pick a scenario based on a real-life game from last year. Last Dec. 4, Gilbert Arenas scored 38 points to beat the Mavs. In the Challenge mode, you'll begin with a limited amount of time on the clock and Arenas will start out with 28 points. Your job is to get him up to 38 and also win the game.

Those looking for mini-game-style quick-hit hoops action will end up in the NBA Live 08 Party mode. While I'm guessing that a real party thrown by someone like Kobe or Allen Iverson would be a little more interesting than a virtual three-point shootout or dunking contest done with a plastic remote, that's what you'll have to settle for. The dunk contest is actually pretty fun and it will challenge your Wii skills more than anything else on the disk. The dunk is broken up into two parts -- getting the ball above your head and slamming it through the hoop -- and both are time-based. Easy dunks may just involve timing the pulling back and flicking forward of the remote, but the fancier, higher-scoring ones will require some acrobatics. The three-point shooting contest will let you get your timing down as you try to drain rack after rack of balls. The controls feel tight here, and you definitely know if you've bricked one solely from how your release felt.

Hoops fans that are serious about their game would do better with the PS2, PS3 or 360 versions of Live 08 or -- if they're looking for the cream of this year's b-ball crop -- any version of 2K Sports' NBA 2K8. Live 08 for Wii is an interesting animal. It's worth a rental if you just want to see how the game plays with the Wii remote and Nunchuk, but it's still clearly a work in progress. There are some fun arcade-style mini-games, but there's not nearly enough here to make me want to give up my Wii Sports' bowling career.

This review was based on a retail copy of NBA Live 08 that was supplied by the publisher. I think the UPS guy is jealous of him.