Basketball has always been a subject close to my heart and so my opinions can get very strong towards its video game renditions. You see, I have been spending my money on the NBA Live series for the past decade, but for the last couple of years it has mostly been wasted. I had kept loyal to the game for two or three years too long, and when I finally decided to give up on the series, I felt I had no place to turn for a good basketball sim. But in walk 2K Sports with NBA 2K7, a ray of hope to shed light on my dilemma. Could this be an NBA Live beater? Or better yet, the Pro Evo of basketball games?

Although NBA Live is dropping drastically in my estimations, you can't knock EA's knack for making a great streetball game (the NBA Street series is still king in this aspect). However, streetball games usually have a high degree of arcade-style gameplay and if you are looking for a more realistic rendition of the sport then you need look no further than NBA 2K7. Although the game does include a street mode, it's a simulation at heart. The amount of things you can tweak in this game is immense and if I were to mention them all then NBA 2K8 would have hit the stores by the time I'd finished, so you will have to settle for a taster.

There are basic adjustments that can be made to the gameplay, such as game tempo, shooting foul frequency, off ball foul frequency and so on, but there are also 'Team Sliders' in the options menu, which allow you to adjust the way your team performs on the court. For example, you can adjust how intensely your team will crash the boards, contest shots and go for steals, or how often they will tend to foul and take close shots or long range shots, to name but a few. Then there are the 'Game Sliders', which affect all the players on the court. There are so many things to adjust in this menu that it is broken down into categories - Shooting, Defence, Tendencies and Attributes. This may seem a tad excessive, but the decision to twiddle with all these aspects is totally optional - they can be completely ignored if you're not curious and you will still have a great gaming experience.

If ignore all these fancy gameplay sliders and selected the quick game mode, the first thing you notice is the excellent presentation of the match's pre-game experience. The home team's line up is announced as the game loads and once the loading is complete, you get a look at the key match-ups, comparing two players as the teams warm-up and shoot around. This part can be skipped with a simple press of a button, but it is often well worth watching, as it feels like a real TV presentation and solidifies the effort that must have been involved with the voiceovers for the commentary.

Once all the pre-game is finished, the next thing you will probably notice is the learning curve of the gameplay. Although people who have played the series before will instantly feel at home, those who haven't will have a harder time picking it up and playing it than the easier to grasp NBA Live series. It could take you over an hour to feel fully comfortable with the controls and the flow of the gameplay, and maybe even longer if you're not familiar with the game of basketball. Stick with it though, because it is well worth the effort and a great system once it becomes familiar.

The most important aspect of these controls is the shot stick. You pull the right analog stick down to begin a jump shot or lay up and release it when you want to take the shot. This sounds very easy, but at first you have to learn where the correct point to release the shot is - and you should be as smooth as possible when trying to score from a difficult position on the court. I am probably the only person to have done this, but for three or four games I was accidentally taking every shot as a fadeaway rather than a straight-up jump shot. I thought you had to press the thumbstick up for a normal shot, when it is really the opposite. It would have been nice if this was made clearer on the loading menus that show you all the controls, but I don't think many other people would make this obvious mistake!

Once you have got past this initial learning curve of the control system, it all begins to make sense. The shot stick function is a very intuitive method of shooting that feels far more rewarding than simply pressing a button to shoot (which you can also do if you wish - the release time of the button is still important). If you wish to dunk it rather than taking a lay-up then you can simply hold down the R1 button/aggression button and if your player is competent enough it is a more powerful way of getting the job done. However, if the player you are controlling isn't particularly powerful then you can adjust shots in mid-air to avoid being blocked (this is normally a harder shot though, so it's best left to the more skilled shooters on your roster).

Although floor-shaking stuffs are fun to watch, NBA 2K7 isn't a dunk-fest. It is easy to dunk with large gaps in the defence or after a good fast break, but you have to work for it. It is here where 2K7 truly stands victorious over NBA Live; you have to concentrate on good passing, shot selection, switching up plays and executing the finish rather than just charging down the lane with your biggest player and hoping he dunks it without getting called for a charging foul. When you do score or make a defensive stop it feels so much more rewarding, because you really feel as though you are taking part and that every possession counts.

When it comes to gameplay, NBA 2K7 does indeed feel like it's the Pro Evo of basketball; the animations and movements are all really smooth and realistic, while the gameplay itself is challenging but rewarding when it comes to pulling off intricate plays. It's certainly as close to playing the game as you can get without heading down to your nearest court and lacing up. Each player feels like an individual, with some signature moves and animations being thrown in for good measure. For example, Shaq's baby-hook shots, Kobe's fadeaway and Jason Kidd's kiss to the basket when taking a free throw are all present. Furthermore, the way you use your players is entirely up to you; you can play at a fast pace with flair or slow it down and go back to basics. You can string together various plays, or let your players' skills do most of the talking.

Where NBA 2K7 doesn't hit the mark is with its graphics. The presentation during match analysis is incredibly detailed and realistic, but during actual gameplay the engine hardly pushes the Xbox to its limits. The court lighting and atmosphere is done superbly and it is a lot more colourful than NBA Live 07, but it falls short in terms of player and clothing detail. It gets worse when you enter street mode, where the colour loses its sheen and the court lighting effects no longer apply. I have seen better graphics on basketball games for Xbox a few years back - it doesn't totally ruin the game, but it does give you a lot of incentive to upgrade to the Xbox 360 or PS3 version. Smooth animations and crisp in-game displays rescue 2K7 from an awful graphics score though, because as a total package they can hardly be described as dire. It is hard to look past it at first, but it is more than worth putting up with. To perform good passing you need to choose a camera view a little further out anyway, so it's only when you watch replays and close-ups of the crowd that you wish for a little more graphical punch.

Although the streetball mode is inferior to the likes of NBA Street and is graphically inferior to the other game modes on offer in 2K7, it is still a worthy addition. If you can look past the presentational aspects, the street mode allows you to select players for a unique team and you can play anything from one-on-one to five-on-five (except handicaps like three-on-two). This also means that you can play to a score rather than having a timed game and you can also play half-court rather than full-court if you wish. The only gameplay flaw here is that there is no real incentive to play flashy basketball like the gamebreakers give you in NBA Street or the on-fire mode gives you in AND 1 Streetball. Again this is hardly enough to ruin the whole experience, it would just be nice to see something along those lines in future offerings.

It is not like there aren't any other modes to sink your teeth into anyway. Not much has changed since NBA 2K6, apart from a roster update and a few gameplay tweaks - but it's a case of 'If it ain't broke then just play it and quit your whining!' … or something like that. The game modes are still plenty to keep you going, at the very least until next year's release arrives, because they are so detailed and can be altered for a different experience in so many ways (the game sliders, team sliders and one-on-one modes).

To explain each mode in detail would take me forever, so you will have to settle for a brief breakdown. The modes include Quick Game, The Association, Season, Street, Tournament, Practice and Situation. I have already mentioned the delights of the Street mode and Practice is basically your standard Exhibition mode (although you can also practice throws - which I highly recommend for newbies). The Tournament mode is much as you would expect; you can select four, eight or sixteen teams to compete in a knockout tournament. Although you can edit line-ups and plays, it doesn't go into as much depth of the Association mode and the Season modem but its main purpose is for friends to play a few games together with each match up's outcome becoming increasingly important, rather than thriftlessly playing practice after practice. You can also benefit by heading to this mode solo if you prefer the competitive nature of the playoffs without the progressive strive towards the playoffs that the Season mode also provides.

The most important mode, perhaps, is The Association. This is the Master League of the modes, if we are sticking with Pro Evo comparisons. Along with the Instant Action and Battle Mode functions you sometimes get in shooting games, the Master League is one of the finest creations a game has ever seen - so such comparisons can't be a bad thing. The most important thing to note when starting in The Association is that you are a General Manager trying to keep your team's owner happy. When choosing a team you will notice that the owner of each team has a certain objective for you - for example, improve the team, win games or make money. As well as picking a team with good skills, you also need to be careful of picking teams that have a large amount of debt - if a team is unskilled and has a large amount of debt then it's going to be a huge challenge.

However, there are other factors in this mode that affect a team and how good they can potentially be. For example, progressive fatigue, player development, practice sessions, team chemistry and draft picks all have an effect on your performance as a team to name just a few things (unless you choose to turn some of them off when starting a new association). If a player is doing particularly bad in a certain area or if you want to give them a boost, you can perform player-developing drills on a monthly basis (a gaming month, not a real-time month). You are given a set amount of hours to train your squad by using different drills. Each of these drills uses up a certain amount of your hours and you can only select them for one member of your squad. For example, you can select a ball handling drill for your point guard and this will improve their passing/dribbling. You have to choose wisely and you must successfully perform that drill to improve your player's attributes in the chosen area.

The whole squad can also be trained on a weekly basis in certain areas (free throws, defence, fastbreaks, etc.) but the effects are only temporary. The more intensely you train your squad in that area, the longer the effects will last, but this also means that your squad will be fatigued until the effects wear off (the level of fatigue is also dependent on the intensity of the training.) You can also scout for players, trade players, make three team trades, draft players, change line-ups… it's just not possible for me to explain it all in one reviewm but at least now you know why NBA 2K7 has such a good lifespan score! The Association is a truly excellent mode and it makes you feel as though you are really working towards improving a team in every aspect, rather than just trying to perform well on game night.

The Season mode is much the same, only watered down a little. By this I mean that there isn't as much emphasis on developing the team and keeping the boss happy. It's more of a way to just play games and progress towards the playoffs, hopefully bringing some trophies home. If you're not interested in giving the team drills, focussing on certain players and scouting for players then this is the mode for you. The owner might still have objectives but they aren't as important here. You can still choose to have progressive fatigue enabled and tweak line-ups and plays, but it's just not as extensive and so it's less daunting than The Association. Both modes are great and you will spend most of your time playing whichever one you prefer.

The Situation mode is definitely worth a mention too. This allows you to select a game scenario from a number of factors, such as Home/Away score, who has possession, the quarter, time remaining and shot clock remaining. This is a great mode if you want to avoid all the pre-game and halftime reports and just dive into a game with a gripping situation. If you have become a master then you can also make it hard on yourself; why not try and see just how many points you can come back from with only the final quarter to go, or recreate the last few minutes of a recent game you have seen. Loading times in 2K7 are pretty quick too (especially to cancel player cut sequences) so it's possible to play many different scenarios without getting bored or frustrated quickly.

The sound in NBA 2K7 is borderline excellent - it's certainly a better effort than the graphics. The only real flaw is the music, which is really good for hip-hop heads but there just aren't enough tracks on offer. It can get repetitive when you are looking through the menu systems and you think to yourself "I could have sworn that song was on a minute ago." On the other hand, all is good with the sound effects, from the trainer squeaks to the infrequent trash talk. The real star in terms of sound though is the commentary, with realistic match analysis during different points in the game sounding better than any sports game I have heard from. That doesn't mean to say that the play-by-play commentary is shabby either. I created Michael Jordan in the create a player feature (it only takes minutes because it is much more basic than the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions) and both the names 'Michael' and 'Jordan' are stored in the game's database, so his name is spoken within the match and even on the PA system after he scores. If any of the names you select are within the database then the commentators say them within the game, which is a cool feature and sounds natural as there is no delay in the loading of the name.

I told you basketball was a subject I feel strongly about! Believe me, I could have blabbed on and on about this game, but I will spare you from getting square eyes or from scrolling down the page any longer. Just know this: NBA 2K7 is an awesome game and has won my heart as my favourite basketball sim (don't worry EA… my heart still lies with you for Streetball games). It has a long learning curve and the graphics don't come close to pushing the Xbox to its limits, but you can forget about all that when you lose yourself in its smooth, rewarding gameplay and its excellent match analysis presentation. It feels like you are playing basketball - you need to concentrate but it's fun at the same time. I wouldn't stretch to saying it's as good at basketball as Pro Evo is at football, but the similarities are there and it's still as close as you are going to get to the NBA on your Xbox. This game will last you ages, at the very least until NBA 2K8 hits the stores. It hasn't been given a perfect score because it still has a modest amount of improvements to make for next year's release, but I already want to play on it again - right now - so that's what I'm going to do… and that's gotta mean something, right? See you on the courts!

Reviewed by Liam Bennion for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).