This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Aaron Thomas.

Handheld gaming has never been a hotbed for sports titles, and that’s being kind. Sure, the occasional golf game is pretty good, but the systems have never really had the power to offer a compelling experience for anyone who plays sports games on home consoles. The PSP is poised to change things once and for all, because it’s got the power to take handheld sports games to the next level. It’s just a matter of developers taking advantage of the power they’ve been given. 989 sports is first out of the gate with a full lineup of sports titles, including hockey, soccer, basketball, and baseball in the first couple weeks of the PSP’s launch. NBA has a lot of good things in common with console hoops games, but long load times, poor audio, and some unrefined gameplay keep it from reaching its potential.

It doesn’t have all the features you’d find in a console game, but NBA easily surpasses what has been done on a handheld to date. Not only does the game feature exhibition, season, and tournament modes, but minigames, like a three-point shootout, skills competition and a cool shooting game called “paint”, as well. The season mode is rather simplistic, but all of the basics are there, including injuries, trades, all-star voting, and stat-tracking. You can even play with teams from Europe, or if minor league ball is your thing, there’s a full selection of NBDL teams to choose from.

Even more impressive is that you can play the mini-games, as well as full court via a local WiFi connection or the internet. Setting up a wireless game is quite easy if you’ve ever taken your PS2 online, and even if you haven’t, it’s not terribly difficult. Once you are connected you can view your stats and challenge people via different game lobbies. There is no chat feature available, but if you’ve ever seen a room full of people trying to type with a controller, you’ll know this is no great loss.

Despite the fact that the PSP is short one analog stick and two shoulder buttons compared to the PS2, the controls don’t reflect any shortcomings. Passing is done either by pressing the X button and a direction, or you can use icon passing by holding down L1 and pressing the button that corresponds to each player. Offensive moves like a crossover (quick tap) or spin (press) are mapped to the square and triangle buttons, which will cause the player to go left or right respectively. To give shooting a more realistic feel, the game highlights the ball one of three colors – yellow, green or red. The indicator is yellow when you take your shot, green when you need to hit the circle button to release, and red if it’s too early or too late. This feature works really well for giving shooting a realistic feel, not only because of the timing involved, but also how it makes difficult shots truly difficult. Defense is very basic, but you can manage a few details like changing defensive assignments and switching between zone and man coverage.

NBA has mostly up-tempo games, but it’s not out of hand like the old SNES NBA Live games. You’ll get your fair share of fast breaks, but when the tempo slows down, the game does reward you for passing the ball around and finding an open shot. The game’s default camera is a side view that seems just a bit too far away, making it tough to follow the action in a crowd. Fortunately, the game has a baseline camera that makes the game much more enjoyable. Not only does it show off the impressive player models, but also improves the flow of your offense, since it allows you to see more of the floor.

Nobody would blame you if you thought a first-generation basketball game wouldn’t be a showcase for the power of the PSP, but NBA is a very nice looking game and exceeds expectations in a few areas. The player models are very detailed, from accurate faces to headbands and tattoos. You really only see the details in the player introductions and when the game zooms in on a player to highlight a big play, but they’re impressive nonetheless. There are lots of little nice touches throughout the game like the Fleet Center’s parquet floor, laser light shows at the beginning of the game, and scoreboards and players reflected on the hardwood.

NBA can compete with console basketball games in some ways, but in many others it just can’t hang. The action on the court is fun, but it’s very simple and despite your ability to call plays, it’s just not very deep. You’ll find yourself bringing the ball up court, mashing the ineffective spin and cross-over buttons trying to drive to the lane, kicking the ball out to try again if you get denied. Your players don’t offer a whole lot of help in the matter since they tend to just stand around, only moving a few feet to clear out, or to make a feeble effort at getting open if you call a play. They’ll set the occasional pick here and there, but they rarely cut to the basket and seem content to let you play like you’re the only one on the team, much like Kobe Bryant in real life. There are a fair amount of fast breaks in the game, but many of them come to a screeching halt when you try and push the ball up by passing instead of dribbling. Not only do players quit running towards the basket when they reach a certain spot on the floor, but they almost never catch a pass in stride, and lose all momentum when receiving a pass.

The low-post game is non-existent as big men will spaz out when near the rim - spinning in odd directions, traveling, and generally looking quite inept. Since the game’s shooting mechanics aren’t friendly to turn-around jumpers and shots when someone is playing close, the big guys will miss a ton of shots they’d probably hit in real life.

Poor A.I. doesn’t only afflict your players, but the other team as well. The computer will routinely pass up open shots from inside the paint, only to toss the ball around, finally settling on an off-balance three. You’ll also see the computer run the same plays over and over; not because they are exploiting a flaw in your defense, but because it doesn’t matter that it takes four horrible shots in a row, because three of them will go in. The shooting percentages are far too high, and the computer routinely hovers around the 70% mark, though it conspicuously dips near the end of games, allowing you to keep somewhat close if you’re losing. Like Chris Webber, the computer also seems to have problems with clock management. Sure, it’ll fire up a shot before the shot clock expires, but it displays no sense of urgency when down by seven points with 49 seconds life, neither pushing the ball up court for a quick shot, nor fouling in an effort to extend the game.

Another area where NBA feels like it was hurried is the season mode. Yes, the basic options are there, but there’s no franchise mode, trades can only be made with one player on each side, and the computer never rejects them. Certainly one can’t expect a full-featured season or franchise, but there’s nothing here that wasn’t done twelve years ago.

One area that people have been concerned about with regards to the PSP is load times, and unfortunately, NBA does nothing to quell those fears. After selecting a team, it takes over 35 seconds to load a game, which is excessive, irregardless of this being a launch title. Certainly load times will get better as developers get a better handle on the system, but that’s not going to make anyone sitting through these load times feel any better.

There are plenty of areas where NBA is lacking depth in gameplay, but by far its weakest aspect is its audio. Disappointing is an understatement, as it seems like no emphasis was placed on the game’s sound. There are a few songs that play in the game menus, a couple arena tunes, and there’s a PA announcer that offers up “Welcome to Los Angeles. Tonight the Los Angeles Lakers take on the Dallas Mavericks.” He’ll call out possession when the ball goes out of bounds, and say “foul” when an infraction has been called, and that’s it. Here’s the kicker: that’s the only speech in the game! There are no player names called out, no commentary, and no play-by-play – not even a “slams it home!” “From downtown!” or even a “BOOM-SHAKALAKA!” The PSP might not be able to do commentary like the PS2, but it can certainly do better than the Sega Genesis.

989 has a good foundation for a basketball franchise here, but one can’t help but feel the title was rushed out the door to make the system’s launch. The graphics are great, and the mini-games and WiFi are great additional features, but the basic gameplay has a lot of problems, and the audio is virtually non-existent. If you’re a hoops fan looking for a quick game and some enjoyable mini-games, NBA will get the job done; but if you’re expecting deep gameplay, you’ll probably wind up disappointed.

It’s fun to play, but the little things hold it back.

The player models are great. Use the baseline cam – it’s 10x better than the default.

If this was Sports Talk NBA on the Genesis, I’d still be disappointed.

If you’re not expecting too much, the game’s pretty fun.

Wifi, internet play, and mini-games give the title some solid replay value.