Save Princess Peach. Repel the Covenant invaders. Find the Master Sword. These are some standard video game goals.

Help the local barber so he'll invite you to play basketball at the mansion of his son, Ben Wallace? Beat Shaq in a free-throw contest to enter an NBA legends tournament? Try to perform well on the hardwood while blocking out thoughts of your son's health problems?

These are some of the story-line objectives of this year's big basketball games — the spring-released "NBA Ballers: Phenom" and this fall's "NBA 2K7" and "NBA '07."

Yes, story-line objectives. In a sports game.

Game creators and fans continue to debate the quality and direction of story lines in adventure games, where one would expect to find a plot and characters. Now the people who make sports games are injecting narrative into games that used to be solely about scoring a field goal, three-pointer or home run.

"We want to try a little something different and see how people like it," 2K Sports Public Relations Manager Anthony Chau said as he demoed the story mode for "NBA 2K7."

Supplementing the straight-up basketball mode, Chau's game presents "24/7: Next" — a story-driven adventure that combines basketball gameplay with a hip-hop soundtrack and a series of off-court encounters with pro players and celebrities like Flavor Flav. Sidekicks for the player's character are modeled after Turtle from "Entourage" and Carlton from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."

In the opening moment of the story mode, Shaq is spotted practicing free throws on a playground court, and he coaxes the player into competing. That triggers another basketball-game irregularity: first-person free throws.

It's not unusual for sports to get wrapped into a story — it happens all the time in the movies. But video game sports have more often emulated sports TV. "Fight Night" is an interactive version of a Showtime prizefight, and "Madden" is a playable version of a televised football game.

Last month, video gaming magazine Edge praised Rockstar's recent "Table Tennis" game for its multiplayer focus, asking in a headline, "Is it time to retire the single-player career?" Even the standard story-free single-player modes of sports games might be outliving their usefulness in an increasingly connected web of multiplayer networks, the magazine argued. Who needs story?

Earlier this month, David Jaffe, the creator of PlaySation 2's first "God of War," blogged about his diminished interest in story-driven games. Jaffe wrote: "Since 'God of War,' I have lost interest in the genre of single-player action/adventure games. In fact, I've really lost interest in making any kind of game that does not fully and only embrace interactivity in the purest sense. I don't want to tell stories with my games anymore." If a top designer doesn't see the merit of story lines for adventure games, then who wants to argue for story lines in sports titles?

It's not clear gamers really want stories in their sports games either. None of the front-runners in any field have them. But even if they are not a leading feature, story lines have been injected into sports games for some time.

Last year's "Amped" snowboarding game had a story about recovering lost money. At one point, it involved snowboarding one's way into an evil video game company's headquarters. Last year's "Mario Tennis Advance" played as a tennis role-playing game, letting players explore a tennis academy and talk with classmates. Further back, 1999's "Backstreet Billiards" included a mode that put players on a quest to recover their father's pool cue. Racing series like "Need for Speed" and "F-Zero" have used story lines to drive players through the games' tournaments.

Melding the sports-story combo in a different fashion, 2001's "Final Fantasy X" cast a professional player of the otherworldly underwater volleyball sport blitzball as its main character. While the game allowed players to compete in blitzball matches, the main story and gameplay focused on garnering amazing fighting abilities and saving the world from malevolent forces, including a villain with blue hair. Sports wasn't that story's focus.

Maybe all of these scattered efforts — none of which was fully embraced by consumers — are for naught. The arguments stack up against story lines in sports games. It's possible the demand just isn't there. Or maybe the right sports story simply has yet to be told. Bring on a video game version of "Friday Night Lights" or "Rocky" where the non-athletic parts actually matter. Would they be fun to play? It's hard to say. No one has created quite a game just yet. Bring on this next round of attempts.

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Any day that includes playtime with a PS3 is an interesting day. After weeks of publishers bringing their holiday lineups to New York, someone finally brought one of Sony's new platforms — or at least a PS3 development kit. A showcase for Sony Online Entertainment included a playable version of "Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom." Set in the basement level of a midtown hotel, the showcase also included a man with a five o'clock shadow wearing a Santa suit and sitting in a corner for photos with press, but who cared with a PS3 nearby? Starring a player's choice of brutish warrior, feminine scout or old bearded mage, "Untold Legends" presents an experience of hack-and-slash viewed from above similar to the franchise's predecessors on the PSP. The PS3 is more than three months from release, which excuses the normal pre-release issues like a choppy frame rate and slow load times that appeared in the demoed build. Beneath those warts was some solid combat and at least one next-gen effect. In a level set in sewers, an enemy's projectile attacks create ripples in the water. The trajectory of those ripples gives away the enemy's location. The water deforms uniquely wherever pressure — like the smack of a giant hammer — is applied. That's progressive, but when the action is viewed from the default height of the game's camera, first-glancers might not be convinced they're seeing a next-gen game. Zooming in reveals an intricacy to the heroes' clothing and snarling beast hides that proves the machine is something new. The development team is 52 people strong and is aiming to get the game out for the U.S. PS3 launch November 17. ...

Discussing his creation of the "NBA 2K7" soundtrack, Dan the Automator (Gorillaz, Handsome Boy Modeling School) explained that the eclectic roster he assembled for the album had to follow some unique ground rules. Whether you're Fabolous, Ghostface Killah, Charlie 2na or Lupe Fiasco, you still have to obey some NBA rules when rhyming for the game. Explained the Automator: "There's some weird rules. [If you're rapping about] one basketball player, you have to name at least six. If one is retired, you have to name six retired players. Stuff like that." More obviously, references to money, drugs and "girls in certain ways" are also prohibited. Despite the restrictions, the MCs got a full 11 tracks recorded for the disc. The game and soundtrack will be released in late September.

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