NBA 2K8 builds on the solid foundation of the 2K series to bring basketball to the next-gen. The game looks good, is fast paced, and provides a great deal of fun. Here is a breakdown of some of the facets of NBA 2K8 for the PS3:
Presentation and Graphics: NBA 2K8 looks pretty good. It’s nowhere near the best sports game I’ve seen, but it’s fairly good. Visually, I think NBA 08 from Sony is a good bit better than NBA 2K8. The player models are decent, but there are quite a bit of jaggies present. The uniforms look spectacular and move fluidly with your player’s movements. Facial mapping for the most part is good, but some players just look slightly off. Lebron James, for example, just doesn’t look quite right. The arenas look good with a nice shine to the floor. Nice detail was put in to all the intricate pieces around the court (trash cans by the benches, medical supply buckets, men with mops, etc). The crowd needs a lot of work. Crowd movement and modeling isn’t very good. There’s a lot of times you’ll see someone waving their arms that are completely flat or just look like a string. I think with a bit of polish, the graphics could be great. My biggest issue with the presentation, however, is the menu system that 2K Sports has implemented for all of this year’s games. When you load the game, you’re taken to a Quick Game screen with no apparent options. You have to hit the right analog stick up or down to pull up the standard menus. Nowhere on screen is this indicated, which is both confusing and frustrating to anyone who doesn’t know what happened to the menus. 3.75 of 5
