NBA Pro Basketball 2010

How much can a sport change in a year? When it comes to basketball, unless they suddenly start decorating the baskets with pink fluffy tassles or replace the ball with a bunch of grenades strapped together in rudimentary fashion, chances are the game itself isn't really going to change.

Which makes you wonder just how publishers manage to churn out sports sim after sports sim, year after year.

In NBA Pro Basketball 2010's case, this revisit following last year's slightly stunted outing is a worthwhile one. Gameplay in this edition is less a cold, hard and slightly jaded sim and more a celebration of the sport.

In short, even though there are tricks and tactics aplenty on offer here, this year's Pro Basketball is the kind of game you can enjoy with just a cursory look at the controls.

You use '5' to pass and '0' to shoot, while holding the latter down until the ball turns green results in a slam dunk. It's not hard to get to grips with it, as simply passing the ball to the net is a fairly simple task that wins most matches with little fuss, even on its hardest setting.

It's a double-edged sword, however. By making play simple, NBA Pro Basketball 2010 successfully avoids the problems that blighted the previous release - players on your own team blocking your path and running out of energy when taking a shot are no longer issues.

But it's incredibly hard not to score a basket every time you have the ball, with stealing possession as simple as tapping '5' in front of the player with the ball on most occasions.

So, while NBA Pro Basketball 2010 is full of notable improvements (and, naturally comes with all the modes you'd expect - full seasons, as well as a slam dunking mini-game and a three-point shoot out contest), it's made itself a little too accommodating as a result. Victories are just a little too easy to come by for play to really mean anything.

In other words, it's stepped out of one minefield into another, slightly less hazardous, minefield.