Double Feature: MLB Playoffs, Live vs. 2k

NBA Live 2007 vs. NBA 2k7

Here at Pregame Wrapup we hold sports and sports video games in the highest regard. This could be why our loved ones never talk to us and the we’re on a first-name basis with our credit collectors, but nobody said love was easy. Especially when the goddamn dog’s stinking up the room because you forgot to feed him for a few months and the electric people only turned the lights back on when you called and told them you had cancer.

In the second part of our SUPER DOUBLE FEATURE we’ll take a look at not one, but two new NBA games, NBA 2k7 and NBA Live 2007. Call into work, skip your classes, and get ready to live vicariously through computer images of black guys, because we’re crossing into the digital realm, numbnuts!

Features:

The feature battle between Live and 2k is a full blown war this year, with hack writers around the country trying to come up with faggy analogies to describe it so a coked-out TV personality will chuckle at it and mention it on the air before spewing his credibility all over his $5000 oak desk. In order to help you, the reader make a decision, we’ve stolen this table from some Geocities site about sea turtles and plugged in applicable information about each game’s key features.

PW Sez: NBA 2k7 – someone told us that IsoMotion stick might actually be helpful if we would just stop doing the spin move over and over!

Gameplay

Live 2007: After spending millions on research surveys and test groups, EA Sports came to a single conclusion when making Live 2007: most NBA teams don’t score 130 points a game. To combat this problem Live 07 requires you to hit approximately 16 buttons in a precise sequence to take a jumpshot.. For instance, Ray Allen will jump forward, line up his feet, pump fake roughly eight times, do a crossover and visualize two tortoises fucking before he ever considers taking a shot, just like his real-life counterpart. In doing this EA has created a far more realistic basketball game, where the highest-scoring games end in a 15-to-18 nail-biter and the average inbound play takes 45 minutes to complete.

To compliment the new shooting system EA also drastically slowed the gameplay. In essence, they have changed a game that could once be described as “Sonic the Hedgehog with an eight-ball and a shoe contract” into “that fat chick from ‘The Practice’ rolling up a hill made out of glue and cat diarrhea”. While neither is particularly appealing EA’s idea of “a happy medium” apparently involves drawing a smiley facing on a Ouija board, which actually explains where the dev crew was when corporate passed down the “make a good basketball game” memo. It’s hard to program solid defense when you’re huddled around your buddies in a closet, arguing whether Beetlejuice was a real person or not.

NBA 2k7: The 2k series has always taken place in a magical world where everyone on the team but the point guard is physically incapable of scoring. 2k sports listened to the complaints, and 2k7 takes the series in an entirely different direction. To balance things out point guards have been rendered ineffective, thus allowing the shooting guard to do all the scoring. This adds an all-new level of realism to the franchise: for years I’ve yearned to see a game where Keith Bogans drops 50 on the Pistons and snags 13 steals in the process

We are sad to report the real-world makeover doesn’t extend to player tendencies. Players do have signature shots, and sometimes they play like their real life counterparts. Past that, however, the so-called “realism” crumbles. Hit a three with Robert Horry and he will make no move to touch his genitals. Tracy McGrady often finishes a game with upward of one assist, and Stephen “Mustache or Shit” Jackson can share the floor with white players without flying into a profanity-laced, three-point-firing Nubian rage. Injuries are unrealistic, too: in a game against the Mavericks Austin Croshere went two whole minutes without suffering a concussion, and a simulated season didn’t net a single 20-game injury for Jermaine “NBA Griffey” O’Neal.

PW Sez: Again, NBA 2k7. The AI might not be great but it beats the hell out of playing Live, which is apparently basketball’s answer to watching old people fuck in a carpet store.

Graphics

Live 2007: Have you ever wanted to watch poorly-modeled effigies of your favorite NBA stars duke it out in a slideshow of basketball excitement? If so, Live’s the game for you! In order to capture the feel of an online game for players without a broadband connection, EA made sure its game ran at 10 frames per second. Ten slow frames! Another feature, in which an androgynous, childlike voice called the player’s mother a “dyke faggot” over and over, was scrapped at the last minute when researchers found it caused test gamers to bludgeon their 360s (or their mothers) with the systems’ wireless controllers.

On top of the amazing new framerate, the player models have received a facelift. Now every athlete – from cover star Tracy McGrady to overrated dickweed Carmelo Anthony – look absolutely nothing like their real-life counterparts. This makes the game especially fun to play when the game takes one of its multiple “six miles away from the arena” camera angles – are you passing to D-Wade or Shaq? Hedo Turkoglu or JJ Reddick? Yao or the other white guy in Houston? With Live 2007 the fun comes from all directions, but you can’t see any of them (especially the receipt; it self-destructs the second you get home)!

NBA 2k7: 2k7’s graphics shoot for realism from the get-go. After the opening video, a shot of a giant red laser terrorizing a city before finally blowing the door off of a large building, we’re treated to stunning visuals of the men who built the NBA: a group of pitch-dark tree-men who sweat so much they look like Harlem sprinkler systems. Talk all the shit you want but 2k Sports can render sweat. When I finally get around to making that “Roseanne” video game I’ll gladly option them to design the Rosie/Dan sex scene. I don’t think I’d trust anyone else to create realistic imagery of a lust-consumed John Goodman trying to figure out if he’s grabbing a tit or an inner-thigh fat deposit.

2k7 also carries on the franchise tradition of surreal graphical glitches. The “disappearing clothes” problem is back in full-force – especially after scoring in the post, a baller’s shirt or pants will slide down or outright disappear. While rare, the “dunk dance”, where a center dances into the crowd of cheerleaders in the corner after dunking in a rebound, has returned as well. Were Shawn Kemp in the game 2k7 could again go for its trademark realism – I can’t think of a game where he didn’t rip his pants off and dive into a pile of nubile young jailbait.

PW Sez: It’s a tie. Both games look pretty amazing – Live falters when the action gets intense, and 2k is great until the umpteenth time you see the giant tan polygon they gave Brian Cardinal in place of a torso.

PW Final Score (Serious Pantsfish Ahoy): All jokes aside 2k7 is a superior game in almost every way. EA Sports employees themselves told me they thought the 2k series has been better the last few years, and one even told me he thought the 360 version “blows the next-gen Live out of the water”. I know I sound like an advertising drone here but the 360 version of NBA 2k7 is an amazingly deep and well-made title. Give it at least a rental if you’re a basketball fan.



Bills 8, Bears 27: Having just watched Losman’s astounding Week 3 performance against the Jets I only have one thing to say to you Bills fans: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Browns 3, Panthers 14: You know that old saying “I don’t slap shit because it splatters”? I’m pretty sure I could apply it to this game if I wasn’t too busy figuring out how the Panthers’ top brass will spend the $4.50 this game’s attendance nets them.

Lions 10, Vikings 18: One of these teams is surprisingly good and one of them is laughably bad. If you can figure out which is which you should probably fax your resume on over to the Lions.

Dolphins 17, Patriots 21: Okay, someone pointed this out to me a few days ago: on the Dolphins’ team helmet there’s a picture of a dolphin wearing a helmet. That dolphin doesn’t have a dolphin on his helmet. This kind of attention to detail is important when you’re scanning your TV guide for something else to watch while this game is on.

Rams 17, Packers 10 : If you want to kill your friends make them take a shot every time an announcer says “retirement” during this game.

Buccaneers 21, Saints 35: Florida sports fans and Louisiana sports fans coming together? I don’t know what to expect from the game but I can guarantee they’ll need to drop a giant water balloon full of Febreze on New Orleans afterwards.

Titans 14, Colts 42: I was going to write something about people from Tennessee but then I came up with this brilliant turn of phrase: Vince Dung. MADtv, here I come!

Redskins 13, Giants 28: FEE FI FOE FUM LIVING IN MY BROTHER’S SHADOW MAKES IT EASIER TO BLOW TIKI BARBER WITHOUT ESPN SEEING ME

Chiefs 21, Cardinals 28: The real question here isn’t who will win the game. It’s which is gayer: the Cardinals’ uniforms or Trent Green.

Jets 14, Jaguars 7: If the announcers find more to say than “yep” during this game’s broadcast I might have to rethink my stance on spending $50,000 on a communications major.

Raiders 0, 49ers 10: I based the score on the projected number of shootings that will take place during this game.

Cowboys 14, Eagles 35: I’m sure there’s something to be said about idiotic Philly sports fans and their ability to boo even with their mouths full of their siblings’ cheesesteak-coated genitals, but the only way I’ll come close to watching this game is if every sportscaster in the country comes down with fatal laryngitis prior to kickoff.

Steelers 17, Chargers 10: To quote my favorite “Perfect Strangers” joke again: “You can keep charging and charging, but you can’t beat the shell of a team that hasn’t been the same since their star quarterback got replaced with Frankenstein.”

Ravens 10, Denver 3: WE AIN’T GET NO RESSPECK COZ WE BE LIKE DEM BIRDS DAT CAIN’T DO NOTHIN BUT REPEAT DA SAME SENTENCE OVAH AND OVAH

Evan Wade is the general manager of the Flippery Floo Flahs. Email him with suggestions on or comments about the Flippery Floo Flahs.

– Evan "Pantsfish" Wade