NBA Live 07

By 2006 the annual basketball argument had effectively been settled, and everyone involved knew it. EA's answer was to double down on star power: the Freestyle Superstars system from the previous year was folded into Total Freestyle Control, giving marquee players signature moves tied to right-stick input and a meter that rewarded working the ball into their hands. It was a good idea on paper. A Kobe or a Wade should not handle like a bench guard, and the game at least tried to make that difference legible in your thumbs.

What it could not fix was the underlying feel. Players skate rather than plant, animations fire off in blocks that resist interruption, and possessions often resolve because an animation decided they should rather than because of anything you did. Defence is the worst of it — bodies pass through each other, help rotations arrive late or not at all, and interior scoring becomes a matter of finding the right spot and repeating it. Anyone who has spent time with a good basketball sim will notice within a quarter.

The modes are the familiar EA Sports spread: exhibition, season, a Dynasty career with drafting and trades, and the usual practice and minigame material around the edges. Dynasty is the part that still has some pull, mostly because roster management and multi-season planning survive a mediocre engine better than moment-to-moment play does. Presentation is competent and dated in equal measure, with commentary that runs out of things to say by the third game and a broadcast wrapper that felt a generation behind even in 2006.

The PS2 build is worth separating from the Xbox 360 version, which was a different, rebuilt product. This is the last-gen edition, made for hardware EA had thoroughly mastered, and mastery is not the same as inspiration. It is smooth, it loads quickly, it fills a disc, and it never once surprises you.

There is still a case for it, though a narrow one. If you grew up with that mid-2000s roster and want to run the 2006-07 Suns at full tilt, the arcade-leaning pace and generous shooting windows make for a fast, forgiving pick-up game with someone on the couch. Treat it as a period piece rather than a basketball simulation and it holds together. Ask it to be the latter and it falls apart before halftime.