The other day our friends over at 2K Sports invited us over to check out the new NBA 2K10 and we couldn’t have been more impressed. But while the game won’t come out until October, they dropped something yesterday that will get us ready for the upcoming season – NBA 2K10: Draft Combine.

For those of you that can’t wait to create yourself in the game, Draft Combine has you covered. The download-only title allows you to create your own custom player with ridiculous detail and (for the first time in the NBA 2K series) begin your career by experiencing the on-court life of an NBA hopeful going through the actual NBA Draft Combine at the world-renowned, ATTACK Athletics center in Chicago.

Basically, Draft Combine is Chapter 1 of NBA 2K10, and depending on how you do on the summer circuit, you could end up in the D-League instead of the NBA.

“We’re giving our dedicated NBA 2K fans an incredible opportunity with NBA 2K10: Draft Combine,” said Greg Thomas, senior vice president of sports development for 2K. “Gamers will have exclusive access to online content and get to test drive NBA 2K10’s new gameplay features, advanced player progression system and the all-new My Player career mode before the game launches this fall.”

Here are some of the features that Draft Combine includes:

– Building custom players by working with a mentor, the 2K Insider, and increasing your NBA stock through a variety of challenging basketball drills and 5-on-5 games.
– Over 300 different signature customizations, including player-specific shooting animations, dunk and dribble packages and more to allow each created player to have his own unique personal style.
– Ability to strengthen all parts of the created player’s game with a variety of drills, such as shooting, post offense and defense, attacking the basket, dribbling, challenging shots, boxing out for rebounds and more to progress through the NBA Draft Combine.
– Organized games that will allow players to gain valuable skill points and offer a variety of specific in-game objectives that will need to be accomplished in order to gain them. At the end of each game, a full analysis will be available for players to review their performance and strategize their further improvement.
– All players created in NBA 2K10: Draft Combine will wear a special patch on their uniform throughout the rest of that player’s career to denote that they have completed the NBA Draft Combine.
– Online leaderboards to track the highest ranking custom built players, and where a player stacks up against the competition.
– Opportunity to unlock special achievements on Xbox 360 and trophies for PS3 system.
– Fans can take their custom built players from NBA 2K10: Draft Combine and use them in the all-new My Player career mode in NBA 2K10 launching this fall, allowing them to continue their journey towards becoming an NBA legend.

We also got to check out some of the other new features in the game. For example, if you’re hooked up to the internet, NBA Today brings you all the latest news and info with dynamic VO during the games. So if Kobe dropped 60 last night in real life, the announcers will be talking about it. Also on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day games, the display will change. It’s these little presentation elements that make the game so authentic.

Another new feature in the game is that you can have up to 15 of your boys play on your “crew.” You can upload real photos to the game, and then challenge other crews on the net. Also, there are tons of new signature intros in the game to the Cavs’ photos and homeruns to KG pounding the hoop to LeBron‘s chalk.

The “signature style” element also makes the game even more real. For example, the Warriors will always run and gun, while the Lakers will implement the triangle. And the soundtrack once again is top notch with tracks from Kanye, Twista and Wale, along with an original track from The Game. Turns out Game is a huge 2K fan and is No. 2 on the online leaderboard for PS3.

NBA 2K10: Draft Combine is available now for XBLA and 9/3 for PSN for only $5.