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NBA 10: The Inside is a bright example of how a developer can reckon they’re going for *added value* in a video game but are in fact wasting their efforts by not working on the core gameplay which has been the same the last three years.

I know, that’s quite an opening sentence right there… but I’ll do my best to clarify.

First of all, I bought this for my PSP Go system and have played every iteration of the Sony Computer Entertainment basketball game on older PSP hardware. So this review comes from someone who is very familiar with the past PSP basketball games and also might reflect load times that might be different for those running the game off of UMD media.

Speaking about the core gameplay of NBA 10 (the actual on-court play); this plays pretty much right down to the same small quirks that NBA 07 had. The same, everything. Some specific examples:

* I can literally stop dribbling and pump-fake my way down the court. This game has no notion of a pivot foot.

* The shooting mechanic is just wonky. Sometimes I’ll miss a wide-open lay-up. I’ll miss open jumpers but I’ll hit shots with two people in my face. While yes, it’s right; professional players do miss wide-open shots from time to time. This game just has unrealistic field goal percentages for shots.

* I like the CPU play when a huge man passes the ball to the wing on the corner of the court. 90% of the time, the computer shoots a three pointer. I know this. I have a defender anticipating this and trying to block the shot. When I don’t, just about every single time the ball goes in.

* Brandon Roy dunks the same as Greg Oden. They both do the same spin and cross-over dribble with just about the same success. They both can back down Bynum with the same amount of success. Their player models are just SLIGHTLY different even though in real life they look really different. I guess this is just a long-winded way of saying player models are not an accurate representation of the actual player most of the time. Nor are the play-style characteristics.

* Sometimes in Conquest mode, a player will just stand there dribbling the ball. And not go. I have really just waited there for 30 seconds with nothing happening. And they won’t go until I try to steal the ball, which should really be simple if a player is just lackadaisically standing and dribbling the ball. But I won’t steal the ball and the CPU player will be OFF, doing some cross over mode.

* If you win the tip-off, pass the ball to the right-most player who will always lead the CPU defenseman for an simple dunk. Every. Single. Time.

Those are just some examples. It’s sad to see that the gameplay is largely unchanged from NBA 07.

And that’s where the other side of this review comes into play: the bells and whistles. There are many a game mode in this game, which is pretty cool to see… aside from the fact that in order to make all of these game modes, most likely a large part of the development team spent time making the dodgeball game mode which is kinda fun for 5 minutes instead of trying to accurately model the Utah Jazz roster of players. In NBA 10, you have dodgeball (as I previously mentioned), you have pinball with about five or so tables to play on, you have some breakout-type clone… you have a lot of different game modes, nearly an overwhelmingly amount of them.

I just stick to the Conquest mode, which is kind of like Risk (believe it or not). You start off selecting one NBA team… and from there, you can challenge other teams while teams can challenge you. If you challenge a team and win, you take over control of that team. Then, you can go players between different cities. But, if you lose to a challenge, you lose that team you played with. It’s a very fascinating game mode and the one mode I spend most of my time with.

The Conquest game mode has been around since NBA 07. Naturally, in NBA 10, the mode is relatively unchanged, give or take a new small feature (such as “training” your team) or two. They also expanded the Conquest mode so you can play a Conquest mode with powerups and so forth.

There are also some small issues here and there, such as why there is a main menu item called “Online” but the only option is ad-hoc mode, why Brandon Roy looks like Steve Blake and so forth.

If I were to have reviewed NBA 07 – NBA 09, it would have gone from four stars for NBA 07 to three for NBA 08, two for 09 and, as you can see, two for 10.

To place it all together as succinctly as possible: the gameplay is more or less the exact same you’ve experienced in NBA 07. Instead of taking time to refine the gameplay, but devs took the time to incorporate some new gameplay modes that are fun for about five minutes but do not present any redeeming qualities to be played more than that. The game mode that is the only reason why I play this game is COnquest, which is an fascinating and fun take on basketball + Risk.

To the developers: the gameplay needs to be refined. Spend time working on that and improving it for NBA 11. Just keep the game modes you have now. I’m guessing the core gameplay hasn’t changed due to lackluster sales of the NBA software on the PSP. Yeah, it’s really unfortunate that software sales aren’t there for the platform (when they really should be; the PSP offers an incredible handheld experience and deserves as many sales for hardware / software as possible), but I am not buying NBA 11 if it falls in line with NBA 07 – 10.
Rating: 2 / 5