If you look at my 360 Achievements you’ll see there is not a single sports game on that list nor will there be one in the near future. Sports games on the major consoles are too complicated for me to spend much time with. NBA 09: The Inside, on the other hand, was worth my time. From the get go, I felt that it fell squarely under the category of pick up and play.

The Name Of The Game Is: Variety

In NBA 09: The Inside, you’re given six different modes from which to dabble in. This game features the standard Exhibition mode for a quick basketball fix. For this mode, all you have to do is choose the teams that will be playing and BAM, you’re playing basketball. The franchise mode, which we quickly fell in love with, is what amounts to a simulated season of basketball. The franchise mode gives a list of MANY games to play in and you can either play through each game or jump to a game. But since time travel hasn’t been invented yet, you have to wait while the game decides whether you won or lost all the games before the one that you chose to jump to. There’s a helpful practice mode for all of the newbies (like me) that teaches how to shoot the baskets and generally get used to the controls.

We’re also given an All-Star Weekend mode where the difficulty gets cranked up. You can either play in a basketball game or a challenge. We’re also given Playoff mode: this is simply a tournament mode. Finally, there’s a quick play mode for those that have no time to really play for an extended period of time.

Face Buttons Galore

NBA 09: The Inside doesn’t exactly have what we would call complicated controls. The nub stick on the PSP works well for moving the players around the court.  Depending on what side you’re playing (Offense or Defense) the face buttons change. While on offense, you’re given the ability to do various dodges and the circle button is what shoots. On the defensive side, the face buttons are used various attempts to steal the ball and the triangle button is your Jordan jump button, no matter how small your player is. (Continued after the jump)

Graphics and Sound

If you’ve ever played an NBA game for the PSP, you already know they push the PSP hardware to its limits. While the players aren’t so detailed that you can see the sweat beads on their foreheads, it is detailed enough to where the courts look real and the basketball almost seems as though you can reach into the screen and take it from the player’s hands. Unfortunately, the players themselves look more along the line of plastic cut-outs than living, breathing human beings.

The sound was great in the game. In the menu screen,  a stream of pure rap blares through the speakers.  If you enjoy that sort of music, you’ll be instantly in love. In-game, the sound is a thing of beauty and we found very little fault in it. The ball sounds realistic and the crowd sounds as though they recorded it from an actual NBA game. The commentary is where we found a small annoyance. While it sounds similar to a TV broadcast, eventually you begin to hear the same lines over and over again. For instance, if you get blocked nine times you’ll end up hearing the exact same line about five times. The commentator himself sounds extremely authentic, and this adds to the immersive experience with this title.

Pinball? Why Pinball?
Now here’s where we began to get confused. When we loaded The Inside, we were expecting a Basketball game and only a Basketball game. What we got is a Basketball game plus mini games galore. Officially, the “Carnival” section of the menus in this game features six mini games. These range from a brick-buster game that’s similar to what you can get on a cell phone to a game called Hot Shot which is a virtual version of one of those arcade basketball games (for those of you who have an intense fear of the outside world). We also get a skee-ball style game as well as Pinball (which, regardless of my tongue-in-cheek comment above, is extremely addicting).

For us, the multiplayer aspect was a bit of a disappointment as there was no one online at any given time. It’s almost as though people are waiting for the game to be reviewed by us before running out to spend their hard earned cash to buy it.

For the hardcore basketball fans (you know who you are), the game features downloadable rosters; this gives you the ability to have the real teams out on the court rather than the old teams. This will probably be strictly for the people that worry about Koby and Shaq being on different teams these days, but for the rest of us, this won’t be a huge selling point.

The Verdict: Pleasantly Surprised
With the various game play modes and the entertaining mini games, as well as the hardware pushing graphics and the excellent sound, this game is quite simply the first portable sports game I couldn’t find a major flaw in. Other than the repetitive commentary, it’s one of the only sports games that I can truly recommend. This is a rare gem of a game that should be held close and borderline worshiped, it’s just that good. With all of the variety it’s hard to get bored with NBA 09: The Inside.

Evil Rating: [rating:4/5]

Review based on final retail code, supplied to our network by the publisher.