NBA 2K8 (PS3)

Still the King of the Court, but not by much.
2/1/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

That's not to say that all goofiness has been exorcised from the disk. New this year is a dunk competition -- and you'll end up spending a ludicrous amount of time here. Like the dunk competitions in other games, the way you put it in the net bears little resemblance to the way you do it the regular game modes. Here, the dunk is broken into the gather and the in-air phase. Fiddling with the right stick lets you be creative during each of the dunk stages. For even more fun, the game lets you sky over props like benches, ball racks, and cars.

When you're not trying to do a 360 over a Toyota, you can run through a familiar line-up of gameplay modes. Some hit; some don't. The Association is the mammoth career franchise mode that'll have you hiring staff, managing a budget, and generally trying to keep all of your players happy. It compares favorably with the career mode in Live 08 and it kicks the butt of the career mode in Sony's game, simply because Sony's game still doesn't have a career mode.

In a nice touch, you're given plenty of options when setting up play in the Association. We particularly liked the Trade Override option. Sony's NBA 08 has no such option in its Season mode, nor -- apparently -- does it have a commissioner. It allows you to freely trade bench players for stars and put together an unstoppable juggernaut. Being able to implement a watchdog keeps things legal. Of course, if you do just want to thrash the competition, you can turn the option off and get away with that otherwise suspect Leon Powe for Gilbert Arenas trade.

You can also play through a single game or season, skip right to the play-offs, or set up any situation you want -- time left, score, etc. -- and see how well you do. The game also lets you square off in a Rookie Challenge that pits this year's rookies versus last year's. It's a quick way to see how developers view the strengths and weaknesses of guys like Kevin Durant, Mike Conley, and Al Horford. We purposely didn't put Greg Oden in since learning he'd be out for the season. That said, if you really want to get your Greg Oden on, here's a way you can let him torch a bunch of second-year players whenever you want.

The mode in which we predict you'll be spending the least amount of time is the game's version of street ball. Take the game's elite and have them go up against each other in pick-up games in places like Rucker Park and The Cage. The gameplay is a little bit rougher than in the regular game, but that doesn't necessarily translate into much fun. If you want to have street ball fun, you need to be playing EA's NBA Street: Homecourt. The blacktop game in 2K8 doesn't fly.

Online, there's no shortage of ways to light it up. Bang away in a single-game if you just want to see how your single-player skills work against a live foe, or go into it for the long haul in a tournament or season. Online play on the PS3 can be slightly less smooth on the front-end compared to going online with Xbox Live, but we found no real difference in online play between the PS3 and the 360.