International BasketBall 2009 Lite

Basketball may have a higher audience in the United States, but it is played and enjoyed all over the world, thanks to a multitude of tournaments and competitions. Beside the mandatory World Cup, there are also European championships and various other leagues spread around the world, although the NBA is still the place where you can find the most famous and well paid players.

International BasketBall 2009 is a simulator that allows you to become the manager of any team around the world and lead it to global success, by winning every major competition you can enter. Also, you can play with the national teams as well and enter the World Cup, where you can bring your own country fame and glory, by winning the most prestigious tournament of this kind.

However, the management part is but half of the equation, since you also get to play the matches and interact with the players to the best of your abilities out on the court. Hence, not only you can decide the strategy for the next game, but you can actually put it into practice yourself and see whether it works as intended, or it needs some adjustments to be functional.

Once you go out there, on the other hand, you notice that the simulation itself is not very well constructed and it is very difficult to play properly. Starting from the fact that the controls are very difficult to get adjusted to and you seemingly cannot do anything to get the ball from the opponent players, there are a lot of things wrong with the gameplay and it ends up not being very fun.

Moreover, the are plenty of bugs and glitches to ruin the mood as well, not to mention the annoying inconsistencies that seem to be put there on purpose. As an example, you can only raise your hands to block a shot if you are standing still, which is obviously incredibly ineffective and very frustrating during the actual match, when every little move counts.

International BasketBall 2009 may have gotten a few things right, but it got most of them wrong in the end. The simulation is nowhere near as fun and intuitive as it should be, which means that you end up stressed and annoyed after each match, rather than happy that you got to enjoy your hobby.