NBA Dynasty Review

Let’s cut straight to the chase: with NBA Dynasty being released so soon after NBA Legend, the big question is which social basketball game is really worth your time. And the answer is … it depends. While they both cover the same sport, Legend and Dynasty are two very different games. If you want to create and customize your very own superstar, you should probably stick with Legend. But for basketball nerds—those who want to manage a team of legends and who enjoy delving into statistics—Dynasty is an almost ridiculously addictive experience.

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NBA Dynasty is just the thing for stats obsessed basketball nerds

Let’s cut straight to the chase: with NBA Dynasty being released so soon after NBA Legend, the big question is which social basketball game is really worth your time. And the answer is … it depends. While they both cover the same sport, Legend and Dynasty are two very different games. If you want to create and customize your very own superstar, you should probably stick with Legend. But for basketball nerds—those who want to manage a team of legends and who enjoy delving into statistics—Dynasty is an almost ridiculously addictive experience.

Like most sports games on Facebook, you don’t actually play basketball in NBA Dynasty. Instead you play the role of the manager, and at times coach. You’ll create a team, play games, and earn money to further improve your squad. In addition to increasing the talent of your team, you’ll also need to eventually expand and upgrade your arena and court.

NBA Dynasty

But the main focus is on creating the best team possible. And NBA Dynasty gives you so many options to do this it’s almost unreal. Because not only can you acquire current players, but you can also load your team up with NBA legends as well. There’s a huge database of players to choose from—though, curiously, Michael Jordan is currently nowhere to be found—but what’s most interesting is that you can utilize multiple versions of the same player. So say you want two time NBA MVP Steve Nash as your point guard. You can choose the current, 2011 version of Nash to play on your team, you can go back to his early days in Dallas, or you can take Nash when he was in the prime of his career.

By having multiple versions of players, not to mention players all the way from the 1950s up until today, NBA Dynasty lets you really create your dream team. The fact that you could team up Nash, with players like Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird, or Patrick Ewing is incredibly exciting. The twist is that the best versions of the best players require you to spend some premium currency. So while you can have Bird on your team using the currency you earn in game, it won’t be the very best version. This works out quite well because it’s still entirely possible to create an incredible team without spending real world money, but there are plenty of tempting players that could very well entice you to spend a few extra bucks.

NBA Dynasty

In addition to simply managing your team and buying new players, you also have the option to do some coaching. In each game you can simply skip ahead to the score, or you can take over coaching duties for the fourth quarter only. You’ll be able to call timeouts and swap out players who are tired, hurt, or just on a cold streak. It’s pretty basic stuff, but it adds a hands-on element to the game that’s much appreciated. And what makes Dynasty a truly addictive game is that it’s missing a very specific feature: an energy system. You are in no way limited in how many games you play, so you can just keep going, and going, and going. And since the games are over so quickly, the game has a “just one more turn” mentality that can keep you playing late into the night.

On the surface NBA Dynasty looks much like virtually every other sports game on Facebook. But when you factor in the huge roster of players, the hands-on coaching, and the lack of energy restrictions, it turns out the game is actually something substantially different. While it is somewhat of a casual basketball experience, the people who will get the most out of Dynasty are stat-obsessed fans willing to spend hours and hours trying to create the absolute best team possible. And those fans won’t be disappointed.

The good

    The bad

      80 out of 100