NBA Live 06

Format PlayStation Portable

Developer Electronic Arts

Publisher EA Sports

Genre Sports

The world's tallest men stoop their way onto the biggest little screen in games, with a shift away from NBA Live 05's focus on team play towards a game that's more about individual brilliance.

In the all-new Freestyle Superstar mode, each and every NBA team pivots around a designated big-hitter, blessed with heightened abilities. Shaq, for example, boasts a frankly ridiculous menu of slamdunks, from the vaguely sexual Two-Hand, Two-Foot Tomahawk Hang-On-Rim to the vaguely agricultural Windmill. The degree to which you channel the play through your appointed b-balling deity is to be left at your discretion, although the limited stamina of your pro means they won't last forever. Enter the tactics.

NBA Live 06 is as polished and as definitive as you'd expect an EA Sports title to be. Every team, every player, every stadium, every competition and every stat has been squeezed onto PSP with ruthless efficiency. However, it remains to be seen how well the PSP's diddy screen will cope with the action. The last time we played a fast-moving American sports title - the zippy Gretzky NHL Ice Hockey - we found
our brains curdling with all that visual information. Here's hoping NBA Live 06 has a slightly more sedate pace.

PSW Staff