NBA 2K7

Shaquille O'Neal on the cover in 2006 was already a slightly nostalgic choice, and the game behind him plays like it knows that. This is basketball built around post position, foot placement and the honest fact that a contested fadeaway should miss. Visual Concepts had spent most of the decade sanding down the same engine, and by this entry the half-court game had a weight to it that its EA rival kept trading away for speed.

The shot stick is the system everything else answers to. Pushing the right stick rather than tapping a button turns every attempt into a small act of aim and release, and it punishes players who treat it as a shortcut. Combined with Isomotion dribbling on the left stick, it asks both hands to do skilled work at once, which is either the best thing about the game or the reason some people bounced off it in the first quarter. Defence rewards the same patience. Sag off a shooter and you get burned; crowd a slasher and he goes around you.

The PlayStation 2 version is the interesting one to revisit, because 2006 was the year the series split in two. The Xbox 360 edition got the new engine and the showpiece presentation, and the PS2 build inherited the mature, thoroughly tested one. It looks its age, the crowd is cardboard and the commentary loops fast, but the simulation underneath is not a downgrade so much as a different, older recipe running at full strength.

The Association carries the long game, with rosters, contracts and the slow grind of a rebuild, and All-Star weekend events are there for the arcade itch. None of it is deep by the standards of modern franchise modes.

What survives is the feel of the ball leaving your hands at the top of the jump. Few sports games from the era get that right, and this one still does.