NBA Live 06

The Good
The graphics in this game is a huge improvement over last year's game. Players now look very close to their real-life counterparts. The gameplay has been revamped as well with the new Superstar feature that let you pull off moves like the stars do in the real NBA! Dynasty Mode has been tweaked a bit, too. You now have to hire assistance coaches and trainers to help improve your team during the season. The All-Star Weekend mode is back with more dunks and commentary in the Slam Dunk Contest. As always, EA Sports Trax has the usual hip-hop/rap selection of music that fits the game well.

The Bad
They still haven't fixed some of the problems from last year's game as well as adding some new bugs to this otherwise awesome game. The players still slide sometimes. They still often move their feet and attempt a dunk or lay-up without first putting the ball on the ground. An annoying bug is that players receiving the ball get whistled for backcourt violations after inbound passes go back across the halfcourt line. Another bug is that sometimes a CPU player just dribble the ball out of bounds. A weird glitch usually happens when a player throws a ball upcourt that sails out of bounds at the other baseline. Instead of having the other team inbound the ball from that baseline, that team somehow ends up inbounding the ball from right under the opposite baseline.

The Bottom Line
This is a great basketball game with a few minor issues. The gameplay is fun and exciting, especially on two-player. I recommend this game to everyone who has a GameCube. The game is the latest sim basketball game for the GameCube and it might be the last one for it. Of all the basketball games made for the system this game is in my opinion the best.