EA confirmed today that NBA LIVE 08 will be the third game in the EA lineup feature Online team play. This is pretty innovative as the entire team can be controlled by human user son both sides of the ball, making a 5 on 5 basketball match a real 5 on 5, instead of just two people using two teams. This actually increases the level of realism and could be a lot of fun online to play with 4 buddies against an entire team of user controlled opponents.

Online team play makes me want to grab this game and give it a try. Expect an NBA LIVE 08 demo in some time in late November.
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Another contest is coming at you from your friends at Loot Ninja. We’re giving away three PS3 games in this contest. Yes, that’s right, three games together! The games are: Heavenly Sword, Lair, and NBA 08. We want to thank Sony for sponsoring this contest by providing the prizes!

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment in this post stating your current favorite feature of the PS3 and what they’d like to see most out of the PS3 in the future. This is limited to things achievable with a firmware update only, not “more games” or anything hardware related.

The contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday November 7th. That gives you a full 4 weeks to enter. Only one entry per person per day is allowed, and a winner will be chosen at random after the contest is finished.
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NBA 08 is the follow up to the PS3 first party launch title, NBA 07. The game looks to build upon what was started last year to take the game to the next level. But too many features were left out to bring it there. The game is pretty, but needs some depth to really compete in the basketball game market. Here is a breakdown of some of the facets of NBA 08 for the PS3:

Presentation and Graphics: NBA 08 runs at a blistering 60fps at full 1080p. Not many games can claim that honor, but Sony has made sure their NBA line looks top notch. There are, however, some clipping issues which prevent the graphics from being the best they can be. The details in the arenas and crowd this year are a huge step up, as are the player and uniform details. The game presents some really cool replays, but these seem vary sparse and only after a big dunk. I would have liked to have seem these occur more often, say with a big crossover to nice steal. The camera seems to stay too far away from the action, not giving you enough opportunity to find that tight passing line into the low post. 4 of 5

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We got word today from 2K Sports about their new Media Player which showcases some pretty screenshots and a gameplay trailer for NBA 2K8. The game is set to drop October 2nd in the US for most major consoles.

The game looks more polished than last year’s title with more details in the uniforms and smoother animations. Word on the street is the game runs at a blazing 60fps on all platforms. I think the coolest feature of the game is in the inclusion of the Slam Dunk Contest as a playable mode.

Hit the jump to check out the Media Player. Sorry we can’t embed it for you on the homepage… it makes things go a bit haywire around here.

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NBA games are often defined by their music. This year for NBA 2K8 is no exception. Check out these beats:

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If you want to drink even more of the EA Sports Kool-Aid, there’s now a demo for NBA Live 08 on the Xbox 360’s Marketplace.

Weighing in at 563MB, the demo is available in all regions except Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Swede.

I’m going to pass on this, because I can almost guarantee it will be the same as the 07 iteration.

Looks like the 2006 NBA Rookie of the Year is slated to be the official spokesman for NBA 2K8. Take-Two Interactive announced that Chris Paul, the strating point guard for the Hornets will be their cover athlete and official spokesperson for hteir new NBA 2k8 title. Following in a nice long heritage of great NBA games, NBA 2k8 looks ot be another dominating title so Chris Paul should rejoice while he counts his stacks of cash.

“It’s a great honor to be a part of the best NBA video game title, let alone the guy on the cover,” said Chris Paul. “I’m a big time video gamer and it’s a dream come true to be on the cover and represent the next NBA 2K game, NBA 2K8.”

Nintendo has announced their anticipated launch schedule to keep us gamers busy during our long hot summer. Of greatest interest have to be the Wii titles: Metroid 3 in August and Mario Strikers in July. There are also a gigantic DS lineup announced, of greatest note are the 3 versions of the Mega Man title, sly devils and their different versions, as well as the SimCity EA game coming to a hand held near you. Can’t wait to see the distribution of Wii and DS titles become a bit less lop sided.

Wii
July 30 Mario Strikers Charged Nintendo
Aug. 20 Metroid Prime 3 Corruption Nintendo
September Battalion Wars 2 Nintendo
Aug. 14 High School Musical: Sing It! Disney Interactive Studios
Aug. 14 Madden NFL ‘08 EA
August Tiger Woods PGA Tour ‘08 EA
August Space Station Tycoon Namco Bandai
August Brunswick Pro Bowling Crave
August Dave Mirra BMX Challenge Crave
August Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection Crave
September Brothers in Arms Ubisoft
September Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal Warner Bros.
September George of the Jungle Crave
Fall Boogie EA

Nintendo DS
July 30 Picross DS Nintendo
Aug. 20 Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day Nintendo
Sept. 10 DK Jungle Climber Nintendo
Sept. 24 Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol Nintendo
July SimCity EA

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Sierra Online has released FreeStyle to the public on a preview disc as of yesterday. FreeStyle is a new PC only game that reminds us all of the NBA Street style games, where you can play street style basketball games from 1 on 1 to 3 on 3. It is being considered an MMO PC basketball game, not sure how that is going to work out, but it sounds interesting, you can level your character and upgrade his gear to gain more experience (although some gear is rumored to cost you real cash). It is also going to have the obligatory hip-hop soundtrack and Marc Ecko clothes. If you have a GameFly account you can actually score a free copy of the preview disc through them, which I will comment on as soon as I get my grubby hands on it.

NBA Street Home Court for the Xbox 360 follows up on the franchise of street games quite nicely. At it’s core it is an arcade style game that allows you to have a fast paced, high impact game of street hoops with NBA, WNBA and created characters. The game shines in the Home Court Challenge where you build a character from scratch and have him battle his way through the ranks. Of interesting change was the create a character section now is more of a morphing of 2 NBA stars to get your character. The game graphics are nice, but not as impressive to me unless you are playing indoors on a hard wood floor. The soundtracks are pretty good and the gameplay fairly tight, but unfortunately the game can be beat quite quickly and does not offer much replay value other than one achievement that requires you to level up two created characters to level 10. A decent pick up for some NBA fun and exaggerated dunks, especially if you are a fan of the old series, I made it a quick rental and don’t think I will hold on to this one, but a solid game overall.

Overall Rating : 8 out of 10