Graphically, the game is an improvement over the PS2 version of the game, though this is where the compliments stop, sadly. The players come off looking more like plastic action figures than human flesh and bones. You can play online and off, in a season, playoff, even play three different mini-games, but the basic defense of your CPU controlled team breaks down — completely — the moment someone drives the lane.

This is inexcusable, and makes for a frustrating, broken game of basketball. Passing the ball is also very floaty and ends up in way more turnovers than should happen. Using the tilt sensors, you can juke, crossover, and spin. The controls don't feel any more natural that pushing a button to do the same thing, but on the other hand it does free up the controls.

Also, for a simulation game of basketball, you should not be able to score 80 in a half, not when two people are playing head-to-head. Shot percentages are also not in the 80s, ever.To add salt to this open wound, the game has no play calling or color commentary at all. You get the PA announcer. It could not have been that difficult to use the audio files from the PSP version of NBA 07, grab the original recordings, and slap them onto the PS3 disc.

The Life, which saw vol. 2 on the PS2, is absent, and this game features no franchise mode, so that kills longevity right there. Another strike against the game comes when you try to venture online. If, for one reason or another, you are not signed into the PlayStation Network, you cannot get online in this game. You are instructed to "exit the game and return to the system software screen." Wha?

Once you are logged into the PlayStation Network again, launch the game, then you may play online. On the Xbox 360, when you get knocked off the network, this is a snap - hit the guide button, log back in, and then return to the game.

NBA 07 does have one good idea, and that is a mode called NBA Replay. Here you can "replay" key matches from the NBA season, and play them in NBA 07. As the season moves along in real life, there are more matches to replay. It is a wonderful concept, but without a solid core, it is lost.

Ironically, the game works out better as an arcade game of hoops.