Though EA Sports and 2K Sports have been battling over NBA game supremacy for years, Sony continues to muddy the fray by also releasing an annual basketball game game.

Problem is, while the two third party game publishers vie for comparisons like steak to burgers, Sony just throws down some first-party road kill every year to see who'll bite.

Simply put, NBA 09 The Inside is the inferior game on all fronts. It's not particularly pretty, it's light on sports simulation intricacies and heavy on fast, goofy fun.

With a token nod to the role-playing as athlete mode most sports titles are including these days, The Inside's version, "The Life," is shallow and lifeless and, thus, not worth living through.

But if fast goofy fun is all you want from your basketball game, that's great. But you certainly shouldn't be expected to pay the same sixty bucks the top NBA games command.