NBA 2K6 should be an A+ game. It has nearly everything you could possibly want in an NBA basketball game: tons of features, great graphics, spectacular animations, a new (and much better) ball control scheme, and good AI all wrapped up inside a game that flows and plays about as well any basketball game to date. What keeps NBA 2K6 out of "must buy" territory is that it's plagued by a handful of noticeable bugs and design gaffes. In other words, it's a very typical 2K Games sports release – so close to reaching a level of sports gaming nirvana never before achieved, and yet still painfully far away due to bugs that simply should have never cleared quality assurance.

Before getting to the good stuff, let's get what's wrong out of the way. NBA 2K6 breaks one of the Cardinal rules of sports games. There are several of these rules: a lack of walks in a baseball game, poor two-minute drill AI in a football game, stonewalling goalies in a hockey game, and pinball gameplay in soccer. NBA 2K6 breaks the basketball rule which revolves around poor substitution AI. In real basketball, if a player picks up his third foul in the first half, that player almost invariably sits on the bench for at least the rest of the half and most likely well into the third quarter. In NBA 2K6 that same player may stay in the game after he picks up his fourth foul in the first half. It doesn't always happen but it happens often enough for it to be noticeable. There is simply no excuse in this day and age for a basketball game to get this wrong. It should be simple: player gets foul number three in the first half, player rides the pine; the fact that NBA 2K6 screws this up from time to time is extremely disappointing because it can absolutely ruin a game if a CPU team gets into early foul trouble.

There is a problem with the auto-substitutions that causes players to sit the bench for too long. This is unrelated to the foul problem. For example, when playing the Celtics, the AI will sit star player Paul Pierce for the entire second quarter almost like clockwork. Pierce will then sit out part of the third before coming back into the game. Each game will see some kind of bizarre sub pattern. This may not be a huge deal for everyone but for those looking for an authentic basketball game, it's highly annoying.

Finally there is a bug in the game, which has been confirmed by developer Visual Concepts, which screws up the player match-ups. There are times when the CPU center decides he's going to guard your point guard in a man-to-man defense. Watching Shaq guard Steve Nash is enough to make a hardcore hoop fan scream. This seems to happen only when a substitution is made that causes players to play out of position. This causes mass confusion within the game, resulting in these weird match-ups. What makes this bug at least semi-tolerable is that it eventually fixes itself as the game goes on. Still, there is just no excuse for it.

These problems may be enough for some basketball fans to steer clear from the game entirely. That's understandable because these are basic basketball fundamentals that the game just flat out screws up. All of that said, even with these problems, NBA 2K6 remains an extremely fun game to play.

Visual Concepts seems to have completely rebuilt the game as it plays very little like previous editions of the series. Gone is the old ISO-Motion system which allowed you to do moves via the right thumbstick. In its place is the "shot stick" which allows you complete control over the kind of shot you wish to attempt. You can still use the old "single button" method to shoot but the stick is so much more fun. A word of warning: it's not easy to use the advanced controls in this game. It's like trying to play an advanced fighting game with all of the combos and stick movements. For example, if you want to use a post move in the paint you need to do the following: pull the left trigger and push into a defender to engage in the post up; once engaged, you use the shot stick in a variety of ways to perform certain shots like hooks, drop steps, dunks, etc In addition to the post moves you can use the left and right triggers to do crossovers, hop steps, spins, stutter drives, and on and on. Take the game into practice mode before jumping into a game; it takes a lot of practice in order to use it effectively but once you do get it down it turns NBA 2K6 into a truly amazing game.

With the new shot stick, and the control that it provides comes a whole slew of new animations. NBA 2K6 is the best looking basketball game ever made. Period. The player models look great, but it's the animations that really steal the show. There's only one issue with how it looks: the old "reverse lay up" animation is still in the game, which is a bit of a shock seeing as it's the one fans have begged to be removed for a while now. Still, even with the weird lay up animation, the smoothness of how this game looks and feels is simply second to none.

The improvements don't stop at the new moves, though. The AI finds the open man, drives open lanes, and plays one tough game even on the default difficulty levels. It's not until you master the controls that bumping up the difficulty is required. The rebounding model is superb, there's plenty of fouls, fast breaks look fantastic, and the game is not bogged down by numerous and unrealistic blocked shots (a common sin in a lot of hoop games).

The new "Dual Player" control is also a handy little device that allows you to tell a player without the ball to cut to the basket, go low for a post up, or step back for a three. It's a cool feature that allows you even more control of the players around you other than just calling basic set plays.

As is the case with most of the 2K Sports games, the online play for NBA 2K6 is fantastic. Playing on Xbox live is simple and a ton of fun. As is the case with every online sports game you need to know your opponent or you run the risk of playing against a guy that just shoots with Kobe every time down the floor, but if you can find the right group of players, NBA 2K6 provides a wonderful online experience (and playing against another human also eliminates some of the weird sub logic). Hopefully one day these games can provide online franchise play, but we have to settle for basic league play for now.