The little guy, the dark horse, the underdog or David fighting Goliath. Call it what you will, but no one was expecting NBA Live 06 to do anything more than turn up and flash its next-gen biceps to an apathetic crowd before returning back home across the Atlantic. Yet here it is, with excited grown men gathered around a television screen all cooing “Ooh!” in unison as a virtual Dwayne Wade pulverises the basket with an explosive slam dunk. This is followed by embarrassed giggling. The giggling of a bunch of converted graphics whores, no less, who can’t help but be drawn in by the visual punch NBA Live 06 is packing.

The hardened gameplay over graphics campaigners will be wondering how this is relevant to the actual game itself, but the improved graphics affect every facet of NBA Live 06. For example, the players on court now have an actual physical presence, so defenders feel like defenders rather than helpless bystanders to ghost past on the way to an easy lay-up. That alone helps patch up the traditional weakness in basketball games – defending. It’s no longer about picking the nearest player and stabbing the steal button in hopeless abandon, it’s about filling the paint (that’ll be the bit under the basket) with fat players made of burgers such as Shaq, à la real-life NBA tactics.

The same applies at the other end of the court. With all the players having a solid presence, it’s easier to see players and to pass the ball around. Inevitably, gameplay does get messier as you approach the basket and everything starts to get a bit crowded – but it’s still a big step in the right direction for the series. Best of all, NBA Live 06 is actually fun to play. You will begin to put pressure on yourself to play with style because the animations will elicit childlike noises from onlookers. Simply put, NBA Live 06 looks like Goliath, fights like David and is damn fun to play. And not even the graphics whores were expecting that.

Ryan King