Genre: Sports
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: SCEA
Release Date: October 2, 2007

Producing a successful sports title has to be one of the most difficult ventures for a game producer to undertake. Consider that beyond the basics of creating a game that not only looks good and is fun to play, a sports developer is also required to make the content statistically accurate to satisfy die-hard fans, while simplifying and organizing gameplay to make the game more accessible to a greater variety of players. If this juggling act weren't a formidable enough task on its own, developers are also required to find creative ways of differentiating their product from those of their competitors.

NBA 08 for the PSP is the latest edition of Sony's adventure into sports entertainment.
Besides the obligatory basketball modes, NBA 08 brings a plethora of old and new mini-games to the PSP. Skill-building mini-games and carnival games will keep you entertained even if you're not in the mood to actually play a standard game of basketball. NBA 08 features strong single- and multiplayer game modes, and although there is no formal training system in the game, there are ample opportunities to learn how to play and practice your on-court timing with the numerous practice modes. NBA 08 comes with a well-written 20-page reference manual to get new players started.

The graphics quality of NBA 08 is nothing short of spectacular. When you consider the amount of detail that is being handled at any given time while playing at a heated pace, it is impressive that the handheld PSP is able to keep up. Visually, most games will be presented just as you might see them on television, with a liberal use of instant replays and static statistics screens giving NBA 08 a nicely polished appearance. The single most realistic visual effect in NBA 08 has to be the on-court reflections. As nice as the game looks, though, I found some of the font and color choices for the menu and help systems to be poor. Text can sometimes be difficult to read because of the thin font, and color contrast is poor, with some menus sporting dark blue text against a dark background.

The game's sound effects are adequately realistic, and the play-by-play content in NBA 08 is surprisingly well done. The voice-over work rarely becomes as annoying as it does in so many other sports titles. The game also includes a music jukebox that plays music from artists, both popular and unknown, at various times throughout the different play modes and during menu access.

Although NBA 08 does not contain a tutorial system, it does provide enough practice modes to allow skills to be developed and polished. Free-throw and shoot-around games are excellent to practice offense skills, while other skills can be mastered in pick-up and exhibition games. As is the case with most sports titles, it will take some time to become reasonably proficient with the controls in NBA 08. The basics for shooting and passing are quickly mastered, but learning to steal, pump fake, alley-oop and even block will take much more practice. In reality, the actual gameplay in NBA 08 is considerably simplified, and you'll find that most of the time, the key to success is simply a matter of timing. In addition to controlling the actual actions in a game, you'll also need to manage the players, since they can be injured or even foul out of the game. While playing, I found that it was fairly easy to lose track of the ball in the concentrated movement of players up and down the court. This is definitely a game that requires you to be fully attentive and intently focused on the PSP screen.

NBA 08 includes a fairly decent level of customization through the options menu. You can switch various elements of gameplay, such as the use of the shot clock, fouls, backcourt violations, player stamina and the game's overall difficulty rating. You can also make adjustments to how the camera system will behave while playing.

You won't find a shortage of game variations in NBA 08. In all, there are well over 14 different game modes from which to choose. Conquest mode will most likely be the favorite mode for most players, as it combines both regular basketball and a strategic element whereby you must try to gain control of every city in the NBA. There are no fouls or shot clock in this mode, but you can still be called out-of-bounds (which will happen all too frequently). With every three-point shot or blocked shot, the opposing defender or shooter becomes "stunned" and has limited abilities until his team scores again. If you are able to claim all of the cities in a given region, you'll unlock a retired player who can be added to your roster. Not only will you need to worry about winning games, but you must also defend your claimed cities because they can be recaptured by other teams. This will require you to keep captured teams fairly strong to defend the captured cities. All of the results in Conquest mode are cleverly shown on a U.S. map, with each team's logo predominately displayed to show each match-up as it occurs.

When you're tired of just running the ball up and down the court, you can try out NBA 08's Block Party, which is its bundle of mini-games. Block Party includes the returning 2007 mini-games, a three-game All-Star game mode and the carnival, which contains carnival games with basketball themes. The mini-games include themed variations of arcade and carnival classics like Breakout, pinball, Shoot The Hoop and skee ball. I am still trying to reason out how carnival games fit in the scheme of an NBA game franchise, but nevertheless, these light arcade games provide a brief respite from the regular basketball modes.

In the All-Star Weekend mode, you can play a regular All-Star game with the Eastern and Western All-Star teams, compete in a skills challenge or participate in a three-point shot contest. If you're more inclined to experiencing the full team management aspects of basketball, then you will want to play in NBA 08's season mode, which lets you manage team rosters, trade players and recruit free agents. You'll also have the option of having the games simulated on a pre-determined schedule, or you can jump in and play the games yourself. Playoff modes in NBA 08 are equally detailed and give you the option to create brackets manually and even configure the elimination format to either a single game, or the best of seven games.

NBA 08 offers both ad-hoc (local) and infrastructure (Internet) gameplay for up to two players. Multiple game modes are supported in both ad-hoc and infrastructure configurations. Both modes have the potential to provide hours of multiplayer entertainment, although as is often the case, I found very few players available online against whom to compete. A promising infrastructure feature of NBA 08 is the ability to download additional game content, but this powerful feature is woefully underutilized. When connected, I found only two items available for download: an updated roster and an additional pinball machine.

Although there are some slight gameplay improvements over the 2007 offering, most of the improvements in NBA 08 are simply additions to the already bizarre collection of carnival mini-games. The single-player Conquest mode and robust multiplayer capabilities do help to redeem this title and are certainly worth a look, but if you already own NBA 07, you should carefully consider if NBA 08 offers enough improvements and new features to justify a purchase.

Score: 7.5/10