NBA Live 07 (Xbox 360, 2006)

Despite the addition of several previously missing modes, NBA Live 07's many gameplay flaws and uneven visuals relegate the series to the bench for yet another year.
Once the initial luster of shooting hoops during load screens and seeing realistic players drenched in sweat wore off, flaws such as missing features and impossible-to-make free throws made NBA Live 06 on the Xbox 360 a letdown. EA has addressed many of these problems in NBA Live 07, adding several game modes and superstar controls, but many key issues remain. As a result, NBA Live 07 again comes off as unpolished; it just happens to have more ways to experience the rough edges.
NBA Live 07 boots straight to the practice gym, where you can warm up your moves with Tracy McGrady. Here you can select from a number of game modes via the well-designed menus. Play now, season, and online return from Live 06, and new this year are dynasty mode and the NBA all-star weekend. The all-star weekend includes the rookie challenge game, three-point shoot-out, slam-dunk contest, and of course, the all-star game. The dunk contest is easily the highlight of the weekend mode due to its depth and the large number of great-looking dunks you can perform.

Dynasty mode places you in the role of general manager for the team of your choice. After hiring an assistant coach, assistant, trainer, and scout, it's off to training camp where you set your team's training priorities. Over the course of a season, you can use your staff in a number of ways. Assistant coaches can research rumors and schedule team events, assistants work with players to improve their skills, trainers help players heal faster, and scouts can evaluate talent year-round in preparation for the draft. In addition to monitoring players' happiness and overall team chemistry, you'll need to keep an eye on their fatigue levels to make sure they don't get too worn out over the course of the season. If you're looking to improve your team via a trade, you can do so. Another way to better your squad is through the draft--a process made easier if you keep your scouts busy during the year. Your team can still perform well if you don't keep your staff occupied every day, but putting in the work will yield tangible results.

Introduced on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox last year, but new to NBA Live on the Xbox 360, are "total freestyle controls." Each superstar player is designated as having one or more of the superstar abilities--high flyer (great dunks), scorer (athletic layups), playmaker (fancy passes), post (power dunks), and shooter (variety of jumpers). The best of the best have three levels of skills, as well as another set when they're "in the zone." These additional tiers let them pull off even fancier feats of skill. Level-one freestyle moves are performed by holding LB and either pushing a direction on the right analog stick or pressing a face button. The level-one moves are easy enough to do, and while some are more useful than others, they add a lot of variety and pizzazz to the game. The additional levels of freestyle control look slightly cooler but aren't any more useful. Once again, EA has failed to provide an adequate instruction manual, so the only way to learn these moves is by trial and error or by going into the control-settings menu every time you want to try something new. You can change players' abilities on the fly, but you won't need to do so very often.Hopefully the people in EA will fix these problems.