‘NBA 2K9’

‘NBA 2K9’

(2K Sports) for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PS2

Genre: Sports; Rating: E

Grade: A

When you have a successful franchise, there is strong temptation to not tweak it too much in fear of taking steps backward. “NBA 2K9” is eerily similar to the past few iterations in the series, but it’s been such a force in the basketball realm that you can’t entirely fault 2K Sports for making only minor, barely noticeable, changes.

The game play is the best on the market by far. The game looks and plays like a real NBA game, as long as you don’t try to go it alone every play. The AI is smart, so you need to include your teammates and call plays as best you can. This is all carried over from last year, but it’s good to see the game play has not fallen behind, even if learning the controls can be nightmarish at times.

A feature that has been highly touted is the living rosters. Some Oz-like figure is going to send roster updates so they reflect real-life trends. This will allow hot streaks, injuries and so forth on your team and your opponents’ to properly mirror the real players. Sounds good on paper, but as a Washington Wizards fan, it will stink having half the team unavailable with injuries.

There are still an enormous amount of game play modes, and “2K9” looks and feels every bit like the real thing. NBA fans will find few new gems in “2K9,” but they’ll also find few reasons to leave this for another franchise.

‘NBA Live 09’

(EA Sports) for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PS2, PSP

Genre: Sports; Rating: E

Grade: A-

You can’t expect to topple a giant in one fell swoop. So it’s not to be expected for “NBA Live 09” to suddenly supplant the “2K” series as tops in hoops. Sure, “Live” is doing its best to improve what it has and bust out some new features, but sadly everyone seems to be doing the same thing, so little headway is being made.

For instance, “Live’s” newest feature is Dynamic DNA, which is all about updating rosters to reflect current trends in the actual NBA. Now didn’t we just talk about this in “2K9?” Yes, we did. Who knows if “Live” cribbed from “2K” or the other way around? It really doesn’t matter. The end result is still that you’ve got two franchises running parallel with neither making a bold move forward. Dynamic DNA does sound interesting, but we’ll have to see how useful it becomes as the real season progresses.

One distinct area where “Live” has an advantage is calling plays on offense or defense. The controls are easy, but the reaction time is choppy and it ruins the organic feel you want, but it’s not a killer. I will say that trying to dictate play with one player constantly dribbling will be your undoing. So get used to passing the ball around.

The game is strong visually, but its failure to truly do anything innovative leaves “NBA Live 09” just a hair behind “2K9” in overall quality.

‘NBA 09: The Inside’

(Sony) for PlayStation 3, PS2, PSP

Genre: Sports; Rating: E

Grade: D

The weakest of the three NBA sims this year is by far “The Inside,” a franchise that has been long on potential but equally long on problems that keep it from being successful.

Sony’s one claim above the competition has been its inclusion of a single-player story mode in its NBA series. Taking a player from D-League obscurity to NBA stardom sounds awesome, but it has never lived up to the hype. There is actually little game play involved; instead, your player’s career is pushed forward by mini-games and cut scenes. It takes only about an hour to finish the mode, which means depending on where you live, you can finish before your pizza is delivered.

Furthermore, the game play itself is still lagging far behind the competition. Players still glide like they are playing hockey not hoops; defense is nonexistent, so every game is a shootout; all the players look a little bulbous except for some poor muscle shading. Gamers should stick with EA or 2K until Sony figures out what it wants its NBA franchise to be.

—Chris Campbell, Scripps Howard