March 14, 2006 - The game of basketball is a relatively simple one. You have two sides (be it five on five or one on one), a ball-like object, and an elevated hoop-like object. The goal of the game is simple; somehow put the ball into the hoop more times than your opponent. This simple game, which started out using wicker baskets, has developed into a multi-billion dollar industry. As with wealthy industries come endorsements. One of these endorsements that is becoming more and more present, are those via video games.

This is where NBA 06 featuring “The Life” Volume 1 comes into play. Made by Sony’s sports game studio, this is a game that technically, (since they didn’t release a game last year) is two years in the making. With that said, while the game does attempt to bring a new element to the basketball genre, at the end of the day, this new element only makes this game worthy of rental.

Before describing the gameplay, one point needs to be addressed. Regardless of which mode you play, there will be noticeably long loading times. While this may not be a huge deal when playing exhibition games, once you venture into “The Life”, you will quickly become tired at the frequency of load times.

The game mechanics are, for the most part, fairly decent; however it takes some time to become functional with the controls. What should be noted as a positive for this game is its shooting mechanism. Essentially, when you are taking a shot (by pressing the circle), a circular meter appears over the head of the player in question. As you hold the circle button, the meter begins to build up. If you release the button at the right time, the meter will show green; this indicates that the chances of the shot making it are very good. If the color is yellow, then the chances of making said shot are average. Finally, if the color is in the red, then the chances of making said shot are low. This occurs any time you press the circle button as it is the designated “field goal” button. If all you care about is dunking, then that is the square button. While there is no meter that determines the odds of you making said dunk, you have to be relatively close to the basket for the auto-dunk mechanics to kick in. Otherwise, you’ll attempt to “take it to the hole” but since you are so far away, you will be stopped by the defense, leaving you with the options to either pass or shoot.

While the pros to the game mechanics are predominantly offensive, the cons to the mechanics are mostly defensive. Simply put, in most cases the only real way you can “steal” the ball away from the opposition is if they mess up themselves, say by missing a shot. The problem is a combination of the computer knowing what it is doing, and the delayed response in the controls that the player cannot really control. This ends up becoming a bigger issue when you are trying to cover certain players and the game will not want to co-operate with you. This is a damper because one of the biggest attributes to the game of basketball is the fast break, which usually is started from a steal or a rebound. In terms of offense, one of the biggest issues revolves around the fact that randomly passes will go…very awkwardly, sometimes throwing the ball out of the court. While these things do happen in the real-life NBA, the fact that a player can miss a pass from maybe a foot away (in video game measurements) leaves one scratching their head. A second issue revolves around new “Showtime” game play, which mostly relates to “The Life” mode.

Overall, this game plays relatively fine as a pure offensive game, but tends to fall apart when it comes to playing the defense. Don’t be surprised if the games are high scoring.

This game has the standard sports game options: Quick game, League, Online, Practice, Create a Player, and Mini games. However, this game has one main new option exclusive to this game.