Dynasty

Dynasty Mode has retained the features introduced in the "push" approach last year including the free agent negotiation mini-game, the ability to have tasks handled automatically and all the usual Dynasty features (trading, free agency, drafting, scouting and so on). However, some cool new stuff has been added starting with the ability to pick your team's direction. Whereas last year the virtual team owner set forth his expectations at the beginning of the season (rebuilding, making the playoffs, contending for the championship etc), this time you pick the direction you want the team to head in. This is important as it sets a list of goals for you to accomplish during the season.

Accomplishing these goals (such as getting coach of the year, finishing with homecourt advantage, etc) will earn you Dynasty points, which are making their return in NBA Live 09. Dynasty points can then be used to purchase upgrades during the offseason. I wasn't a big fan of Dynasty points back in the day as they usually required you to reach certain milestones during an individual game that were difficult to accomplish if your style of play as a true to life as possible, but this approach is much better involving team goals rather than something more superficial like scoring 40 points with a single player in any given game.

Training and player development is handled separately to these upgrades however. In Dynasty Mode, the NBA Academy not only serves as a means of brushing up your skills as a gamer but also developing your players. Players will still develop year-to-year according to their hidden development attributes. Long time players will be happy to hear that various graphical representations of player development have made their return and can be viewed during the course of a season.

The offseason has also benefitted from the presence of the NBA Academy. Instead of simply scouting prospects and playing them in a series of one-on-one games, you can invite prospects to scrimmages which take place within the Academy, giving you a better idea of how everyone plays in a 5-on-5 environment and allowing you to work out a few rookies at once.

The NBA Draft has also been revamped with the draft board available to view at all times. Although you can pick from any of the prospects still available when you're on the clock - as usual, there's no restrictions here - you'll also be presented with a list of the best players still remaining and you'll be able to view a detailed scouting report, complete with comparisons to current NBA players. I'm not sure how well this will work once you've progressed a few years into Dynasty Mode and real players continue to retire but it's great to see that level of detail.

Perhaps the most exciting news for most Dynasty enthusiasts is that we're finally able to make trades during the Draft itself. Teams will also offer trades, though unlike the trade offers you'll receive elsewhere the proposed deals during the Draft will strictly be one-for-one deals. The user also has the option of offering picks, though we were told that this year the CPU won't offer any deals involving picks. Nevertheless, it's great to finally see the option in the game.

After the Draft you'll be presented with an analysis of how everything went down. You won't see or hear any analysts talking about the Draft but you'll see a report card that gives a rundown on the most NBA ready rookie, best pick, worst pick, the pick with the highest potential and so on. As you might imagine, details like this really add to the atmosphere of Dynasty Mode.

Free Agency has also been revamped. As I mentioned before the negotiation mini-game is still there so if a free agent is mildly interested in signing you'll need to convince him by talking up the different things you can offer him. However, the free agency period now consists of 25 rounds in which you can negotiate with a free agent and make him and offer. As each round passes, other teams are doing the same which means if you don't get in quick, you may well miss out on signing a player before you've had a chance to talk to him. As other signings are made, mini press release-type messages pop up to let you know where other free agents have gone.

Among the other new features I saw was a trading block function, another overdue and welcome addition to the series. I didn't get a chance to try it out as the build I was playing crashed while I was trying it out (keep in mind we played some early builds and there's a lot of kinks still be worked out) but from what I can see it's fairly straightforward. Multiple players can be placed on the block to entertain offers from the CPU. Not being able to try it out I'm not sure how many offers you'll get but presumably the more desirable the players on the block, the more teams that will be interested and make an offer.

I had time to simulate a season and check out the stats and was a bit underwhelmed with the results. They're a little better than last year but there were still some players scoring too many points, though the scoring averages were within a realistic range. Minutes per game averages were a bit high while some of the leaders in other categories had averages that were a little low. Bench stats are also a little low, mainly due to the starters playing so many minutes.

I made a note of these issues so that I could compile a list for the producers. Something that should also be noted here is that we were told that a lot of players were due for ratings updates so hopefully the simulated stats will be polished up a bit by the time the game is released. Rest assured that the inaccuracies are nothing like the problems with the sim engine that we encountered with the PC version of NBA Live 08 though.

There are a few other missing features that would have come in handy as well, including the ability to cancel simulation (of course, you can always intervene if you've got Sim Intervention on and then just quit the game), view salary lengths on the Trade Players screen and the traditional Reorder Roster function which is once again missing from Dynasty Mode, though the Player Rotation and Inactive List options are still there. These are also suggestions I've made to the production team after making my observations at the Event.

Overall it looks like a good year for Dynasty, though the problems with the stats were a bit of a downer for a Dynasty geek like me. The integration of the NBA Academy (complete with its 5-on-5 scrimmages) as well as the addition of some long desired features has me looking forward to playing an 09 Dynasty when the game ships.

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