NBA 07: featuring the Life Vol. 2

Sony was cool enough to send us comp copies (Playstation 2 and PSP) of NBA 07: The Life Vol. 2, and we’ve spent more time than we should’ve over the last couple days checking it out.

Couple disclosures:

1) We’re not a big gamer. Haven’t been since college, when it was easier to lose 3 hours to this stuff. We have a Playstation 2, but got it just to get it. It might not even be ours. All we know is it resides in our home, and was really, super dusty up until Friday. Frankly, at the risk of sounding old, when all the controllers went to more than 4 or 5 buttons, it was just too hard to learn to play.

2) Back when we did play, we were a die-hard NBA Live/EA Sports guy, having been loyalists all the way back to Lakers vs Celtics and the NBA Playoffs, when they were simply Electronic Arts. We didn’t play NBA 06: The Life Vol. 1, nor did we take great note of it.

All that said, we ripped this thing open and went at it with much glee. We created our own character (named Merri Sherman, after our character in Who Shot Mamba?), gave him all the accessories (tights, 5 wrist bands on both arms, goggles, knee pads, elbow pads, and moustache), and put him on the Cavaliers.

We tried to play him in “The Life” version of the game, which is some kind of role-playing thing. Like you’re a player and you have an agent, and need to complete drills or something. We assume it goes on and on through a season, and we’ll try it out when we have more time. Seems fun.

However, we wanted to play games, so we went to the other part of the thing – the straight games. All the features you expect are here – you can play a season, etc. We picked the Cavaliers, much to the shock and surprise of everyone reading, we’re sure.

We played on the veteran setting, which is default, and had a lot of trouble at first. After about five games over the last two days, we’ve finally figured out how to drive, pass, shoot, dunk, call for picks, and all the basics. Soon we plan to open the instructions and figure out the rest.

(If you’re wondering, LeBron and Hughes can get to the hole whenever they want. Z has a nice mid-range game if he’s open. Where are our rookies, though? Are we too dumb to find Shannon Brown?)

All-in-all, we’re having a lot of fun with it. Our sister gets pissed at us because we scream at the TV in almost equal volume as when the Cavaliers actually play, which must mean we’re into it. We’ve heard the phrase “Oh my god, it’s not even real!” more times than we can count.

We’ll continue to play and keep you updated on the other features and developments, if they prove interesting. There’s a dunk contest, and probably a bunch of other stuff, too. Honest assessment after minimal gaming is this is a good game, and pretty fun.

(EA Sports, we’re looking at you – hook us up with some NBA Live 07 – we want to compare. Email here, buddies.)