In many ways, if a basketball game does not move forward in terms of gameplay, it’s going to get stripped of the proverbial ball and the competition will take off in the other direction on a fast break. That’s what has happened with Sony’s NBA 09: The Inside. This is a game that had potential but squanders it with disabling SIXAXIS controls and downgrading the The Life portion into a series of mini-games that purport to track the career of a player created by the gamer.

Let’s look at the latter first. One of the hallmarks of Sony’s NBA title was the ability to step into the shoes of a player and guide that player up through the ranks to potential NBA stardom. You begin by creating a player, but don’t worry too much about the looks because regardless of the player you create, the cut scenes are handled exactly the same. You might create an Ivy League Caucasian player, and he will have the vocalization and mannerisms of a street-smart black player. With a generic wash over that element, the option to create a player is negligible. There are three storylines to track in this game – a point guard, a shooting guard or small forward and the center or power forward. You start in the development leagues with goal-specific objectives. Fail and you start again. There are alternative objectives that you can achieve as well within the time limit given. Then you hit up some mini-games, like basketball golf, with your father, and take on spot objectives here and there up until a key moment in the Finals. It is very directed and lacks a lot of flexibility.

Given that EA Sports’ Be A Pro option is very barebones, The Life is an opportunity missed. It is ultimately disappointing and uninspiring.

On the flipside of that, though, is that you can create players and add them to NBA teams. As you play, you accrue points that can be spent to improve their abilities.

As mention, by default, all SIXAXIS motion controls are turned off, but you can enable them in the options menu.

The menu hub has been given a sleek look and while the game AI is suspect, the trade AI has finally been fixed. In previous iterations, it was easy to have other teams trade their top players to your favorite team, creating a monster squad that ran the table with ease. But in 09, you cannot do that. The franchise mode has also been given a bit of a deeper appeal, adding in the ability to rebuild teams in the off-season, negotiate contracts and train.

The game has the quickplay feature, The Life, Franchise mode as well as NBA Replay (step into the shoes of top players during key moments in the ’07-’08 season) and mini games. The mini games can be a bit hit and miss – like Blacktop Golf is made hard by the angles you have to use to try to “sink” your shots – but are generally entertaining and a pleasant diversion.

The meat and potatoes of the program is, obviously, the on-court games with the TNT-style television coverage. However, what starts as clever discourse by the play-by-play and color commentator soon becomes repetitious noise that can be turned off without affecting the experience. The witticisms might sound clever the first time they are heard, but by the fifth time in the same game, they are beyond old.

The game’s AI is also suspect at times. In one of the first games played, Phoenix’s Steve Nash didn’t do what he is really known for – dishing the rock. Instead, Nash went inside, he put it up from outside, he passed up open players beneath the hoop to launch (sometimes improbably successfully) three-pointers. When the game ended, Nash (who averaged 16.9 points per game in 2007-08 and 11.1 assists per game) had 34 points and five assists. Not to deride the abilities of one of the best players in the NBA, but that simply is not a Nash-like performance.

When it comes to the graphics, NBA 09 plays at 1080p in high def, which is very nice. The players can move a little awkwardly at times, but generally the graphics are decent and the player likenesses are very well done. But there are graphical anomalies that crop up. At times the fouling seems very off, with an opposing player moving backwards as the controlled player attempts to swat the ball, to have three feet of air between the two and the whistle blow for what the announcers call an audible slap on the arm. And rebounding is its own particular brand of frustration at times. When a shot goes up, before it even nears the rim, if it is a miss, there will be a glowing halo on the floor. You can position a player inside that halo, and then jump when the ball comes off the rim, only to have your angle wrong, and have an opposing player snag the board.

Inevitably, Sony’s NBA title has to be compared to EA’s and EA’s is the better game. The Inside has too many flaws, and missed opportunities to qualify for a run through the playoffs to the championship.

Gameplay: 6.8
There are a few moments when one player seems to slow down in going for a highlight moment, but generally the game runs well at 60 frames per second. The AI, though, can be a bit frustrating at times, especially if you try to play to players’ tendencies rather to what the AI dictates they do. The controls are easy to understand and use.

Graphics: 7.4 
Solid environments, good player models but the animations sometimes feel a bit off and interceptions occur at odd moments.

Sound: 6.8
The musical score is decent but the tandem of Kenny Smith and Kevin Calabro can get very repetitious to the point of dragging down the audio portion of the game.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 6.5 
The Life is an element that could have been so much better and truly elevated the game, but as it stands, it feels half-baked here. Some of the tweaks are night, but nothing really stands out.

Multiplayer: 7.0
Playing with another human is still preferable to playing against the game’s AI.

Overall: 6.6
There is a level of frustration that accompanies this game that simply won’t go away no matter how many games you play or in what mode. Sure, the mini-games are fun, but they cannot carry the franchise. Even placing the EA title and Sony title side-by-side in the household for basketball video-game fans (who had tried both) produced an overwhelming vote for the EA title. The Inside could have taken advantage of creating a deeper experience with The Life, but really didn’t. And the gameplay is fine, but nothing that truly sticks out.