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By: Shanker Srinivasan - Posted on November 3, 2008

It's that time of year again. With the NBA season officially underway, it's time to gauge how well the virtual court stacks up against the real thing in our 2009 rendition of "Faces of the NBA." We've taken screenshots of 32 NBA players from NBA Live 09, NBA 2K9, and NBA 09 to see how they compare with the real thing. The players range from perennial all-stars to young up-and-comers. In case you missed it or just want to see how much progress has been made in the span of a year, you can check out last year's feature here.

In contrast to last year, the competition is tight with each game excelling in certain facets. NBA 09's player models are a drastic improvement over last year's senior citizen-esque offering, and it may have the most accurate rendition of sweat across all three games. The player models in NBA 2K9 are structurally the most accurate, but they seem to lack texture, shading, and sweat effects. Also, their jerseys seem blocky hanging from the players' shoulders. NBA Live 09's models feature great lighting effects and texture, but they suffer from half-shut eyes, as well as too much sweat. It's up to you to cast your votes and decide which game's player models are the best.

The in-game screenshots were taken in 720p resolution from the PlayStation 3 edition of each game. Whenever possible, the images are of the player directly facing the camera with his eyes centered and without any particular facial expression. In cases where the player's head was slightly tilted, the image has been rotated strictly to make comparison easier. Each screenshot was taken early in the first quarter of an offline game. The player mug shot accompanying each screen was pulled from NBA 2K9.