20th Anniversary of NBA Live

To mark the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live, we’re posting content for every game in the series, including retrospectives, patches, countdowns, and more. Whether you’re a long-time basketball gamer who grew up with the NBA Live series and would like to take a drip down memory lane, or you’ve only recently started playing basketball games and would like to learn a little about what they used to be like, we hope that you enjoy the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content here on the NLSC!

NBA Live 2000 has long been considered one of the best games in the NBA Live series. It’s the crowning achievement of the original development team, a great all-around release that long-time basketball gamers are rightfully nostalgic for. Of course, looking back on it today, some of its flaws are more apparent, and certain aspects naturally don’t hold up as well, given how far basketball games have come since the late 90s. Nevertheless, I would say that it’s still worthy of the acclaim it receives. Let’s take a look at why many basketball gamers consider NBA Live 2000 to be a classic.

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To mark the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live, we’re posting content for every game in the series, including retrospectives, patches, countdowns, and more. Whether you’re a long-time basketball gamer who grew up with the NBA Live series and would like to take a drip down memory lane, or you’ve only recently started playing basketball games and would like to learn a little about what they used to be like, we hope that you enjoy the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content here on the NLSC!

I’ve mentioned this before in a couple of articles, but NBA Live 99 is a somewhat overlooked and forgotten game. It doesn’t help that it came between NBA Live 98, a game that saw a really big leap from the year before, and NBA Live 2000, one of the best games in the NBA Live series. The lockout that threatened the 1999 season is also a factor, as it meant that NBA Live 99 shipped without updated rosters, in a transitional year for the NBA. On top of that, its cover player, Antoine Walker, has consistently topped “worst cover player” polls that we’ve run. It’s a shame though, because NBA Live 99 is actually a really good game.

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To mark the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live, we’re posting content for every game in the series, including retrospectives, patches, countdowns, and more. Whether you’re a long-time basketball gamer who grew up with the NBA Live series and would like to take a drip down memory lane, or you’ve only recently started playing basketball games and would like to learn a little about what they used to be like, we hope that you enjoy the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content here on the NLSC!

In one of my Friday Five columns a couple of years ago, I discussed the five biggest leaps in basketball video games, within the span of one production cycle. While I stand by the choices I made when compiling that countdown, I have to admit that it was a mistake not to at least include NBA Live 98 as an honourable mention. When I went back and played NBA Live 98 for this retrospective, I not only recalled a lot of the improvements that were made over NBA Live 97, but also discovered that it was a better game than I remembered. I actually found myself wondering, how could I have underrated this game for so long?

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Welcome to Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! This is a feature where we look back on yesteryear, digging into the archives to indulge in some nostalgia, and in some cases, wonder just what we were thinking. Check in every Wednesday for features and retrospectives on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, reflections on big announcements from years gone by, and other flashback content.

As I discussed in a previous edition of Wayback Wednesday, league expansion can lead to some unique features being added to NBA video games. Such was the case with NBA Live 96, with the league’s expansion across the border into Canada and the addition of the Vancouver Grizzlies and Toronto Raptors. When the Grizzlies and Raptors joined the league twenty years ago, an Expansion Draft was held to help them fill out their rosters, as is the norm. The twenty-seven other teams were able to protect eight players, which needless to say limited the pool of available talent outside of the deeper squads.

In most versions of NBA Live 96, the rosters were updated for the 1996 season with Class of 1995 rookies and offseason transactions. This wasn’t the case with the Super Nintendo version of NBA Live 96, which was missing the rookies (though there were codes to unlock them, along with Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and some bonus Legends), and also did not account for major moves like the Chicago Bulls’ acquisition of Dennis Rodman, nor the results of the Expansion Draft. What the SNES version of NBA Live 96 did have was the unique feature of the Expansion Draft itself.

Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Welcome to Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! This is a feature where we look back on yesteryear, dig into the archives, indulge in some nostalgia, and in some cases, wonder just what we were thinking. Check in every Wednesday for features and retrospectives on old basketball video games, old NLSC editorials published as-is with added commentary, and other flashback content.

For those who are unaware, I didn’t found the NLSC – then the NBA Live Series Center – way back in 1996. That was the work of Tim, Lutz, and Brien, and it was their efforts that inspired me to create my own NBA Live website: the NBA Live Domain, or NLD for short. Yes, I was definitely inspired by the NLSC in a lot of ways.

There were a lot more NBA Live fan sites back in the day, especially as everyone tended to host their own patches. Generally speaking, you don’t see a lot of sites like that anymore. We’re obviously still around…now covering NBA 2K and basketball games in general as well as NBA Live…and you’ve also got Operation Sports, with their excellent coverage of the entire genre of sports games. Beyond that, most sports gamers seem to provide content through YouTube and other social media platforms.

So, with this being Wayback Wednesday, and given our ongoing celebrations of the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live, I thought I’d offer up some reflections on my old site. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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We’re picking up our 20th Anniversary of NBA Live celebrations once again with a clip from Episode #129 of the NLSC Podcast, in which I chatted to Sean O’Brien, Executive Producer of NBA Live. While the interview was mainly centred on NBA Live 16 – at the time, a couple of weeks away from its release – we also took some time out to talk about the history of the series, and Sean’s experience working on it, beginning with NBA Live 97. As noted in our chat, he was even featured as a cheat code in that game!

With such a long history working on the series, Sean definitely has some interesting stories to tell about how he got involved with the development of the game, and how things have changed over the years. He recalls his experiences providing motion capture back in 1996, and describes what it was like to develop a basketball game back in the 90s. In reminiscing about his experiences working on NBA Live, Sean also touches on the future of the series, mentioning that he’s excited about what he believes the team can do with the next couple of releases.

Catch it here on our YouTube channel if you’re having any issues with the embedded video. If you’d like to listen to the entire interview, you can tune in to Episode #129 of the NLSC Podcast here.

Stay tuned for more 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content!

As we pick up our 20th Anniversary of NBA Live celebrations once more, we’re heading back to NBA Live 95 with another new file addition: the long lost NBA Live 95 demo for PC!

Yes, I was recently able to track down the NBA Live 95 demo, and upload it to our Downloads database for posterity. In the demo, you can play an exhibition game between the East All-Stars and the West All-Stars, with one minute quarters. Although the artwork for all 27 NBA teams from the 1995 season is included in the game, trying to select any of those teams will only lead to the game picking the two All-Star teams, East at West, on the 1995 All-Star court in Phoenix.

With the release of the NBA Live 16 demo, I thought it would be a good time to share the discovery, and offer up the opportunity for a (limited) hands-on look back on the first game in the NBA Live series. It also shows how far we’ve come with sports game demos: whereas the NBA Live 95 demo offers a very quick glimpse at what’s on offer, the NBA Live 16 demo features six playable teams in Tip Off (exhibition) play, LIVE Pro-Am, and the Learn LIVE tutorial and practice modes. While NBA Live still has a long road ahead of it, it’s come a long way, too.

Download the NBA Live 95 demo here! You’ll need to run it in DOSBox, so be sure to check out this guide if you need any assistance.

Stay tuned for more 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content!

To mark the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live, we’re posting content for every game in the series, including retrospectives, patches, countdowns, and more. Whether you’re a long-time basketball gamer who grew up with the NBA Live series and would like to take a drip down memory lane, or you’ve only recently started playing basketball games and would like to learn a little about what they used to be like, we hope that you enjoy the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content here on the NLSC!

NBA Live 97 was another step up from NBA Live 96…depending on which platform you were playing on. If you were playing the game on Super Nintendo, you’d notice a couple of new features, and some new animations. On PC and PlayStation, however, the jump was a little bigger. Not quite NBA Showdown to NBA Live 95 big, but still fairly noticeable, especially in terms of the visuals. Let’s take a look back at the game that described itself as the “soul of hoops”, and proudly announced that it featured Shaq.

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As previously mentioned, we’re not just posting feature articles and retrospectives as part of our 20th Anniversary of NBA Live celebrations. We’re also releasing a little something for every PC game in the series, for anyone who wants to dust off old favourites.

Continuing on from the Definitive NBA Live 95, we have the Definitive NBA Live 96! This is a final 1995/1996 roster patch for NBA Live 96 that adds missing players, accounts for all the trades and signings that took place during that memorable season, contains a few fixes, and adjusts some ratings. Once again, this is something that I’ve gone back and crafted having had years of experience making roster updates, to create what I feel is a “director’s cut” patch for NBA Live 96.

There aren’t any issues with compatibility when it comes to NBA Live 96 rosters, so this update can be used in any game mode you choose. Please note that it also updates the portrait files, or at least, blanks out the portraits for players I’ve overwritten…just in case you’re wondering why it’s a slightly larger download than usual, for a roster update for such an old game.

Download Definitive NBA Live 96 here! If you need help getting NBA Live 96 to run under DOSBox, be sure to check out this guide in our Wiki.

Stay tuned for more 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content!

It’s time to go Easter Egg hunting in the executable file of NBA Live 96 PC! While the editor that Tim and Brien made for NBA Live 96 was sufficient for most of our needs when creating roster updates, at other times, we needed to open the exe file with a Hex Editor. Doing so allowed us to change things like the year of the previous season’s statistics (for example, from the default 94/95 to 95/96), edit team names, or watermark a patch by adding a message to the credits and copyright screens.

This was all done quite easily, as all you had to do was search for the appropriate text strings in the Hex Editor of your choice. As long as you didn’t try to make any team names longer than they already were, or touch anything that you really shouldn’t, you couldn’t really go wrong.

While poking around in the NBA96.exe file, you can find a few interesting and amusing Easter Eggs. As part of our 20th Anniversary of NBA Live celebrations, I thought it’d be fun to fire up HxD, comb through the NBA Live 96 executable file once again, and share some of my discoveries. Let’s get started!

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To mark the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live, we’re posting content for every game in the series, including retrospectives, patches, countdowns, and more. Whether you’re a long-time basketball gamer who grew up with the NBA Live series and would like to take a drip down memory lane, or you’ve only recently started playing basketball games and would like to learn a little about what they used to be like, we hope that you enjoy the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content here on the NLSC!

NBA Live 96 on PC was the first game in the series that I actually owned – I used to regularly rent the Super Nintendo version of NBA Live 95 from the local video store – and it’s also the game that I was looking up content for when I first discovered the NLSC way back in 1997. As such, it’s fair to say that I have something of a sentimental attachment to it, and it’s one of my favourite games in the series. Beyond that, though, was the game any good? Let’s take a look back at the game that proudly proclaimed itself a “Back-to-Back Champion” on the back of its box.

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Yes, really! It’s been a long, long time since we had a new file addition for NBA Live 95, but as part of our 20th Anniversary of NBA Live celebrations, we’re releasing a little something for every PC title in the series.

We’re tipping off those releases with a roster patch for NBA Live 95, which I’ve titled “Definitive NBA Live 95”. In a nutshell, it contains final 1994/1995 rosters with several missing players added, adjusted ratings, and various fixes. I’ve used all my experience from years of working on roster updates for NBA Live, as well as all the resources that are now available online, to put together what I feel is the best possible NBA Live 95 experience, with accurate 12-man 1995 season rosters.

You’ll find a season-compatible version of the rosters that uses incorrect portraits, and an exhibition-compatible version that removes the portraits of overwritten players, so you won’t see Larry Krystkowiak smiling at you whenever Michael Jordan goes to the free throw line. Please see the included readme file for full details.

Download Definitive NBA Live 95 here! And, if you need help getting NBA Live 95 to run under DOSBox, be sure to check out this guide in our Wiki.

Stay tuned for more 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content!

Over the past few days, we’ve been sharing some memories of NBA Live 95, plus a couple of fun things from the archives. But what if you want to play NBA Live 95 PC yourself? Or the PC version of NBA Live 96, or NBA Live 97 for that matter?

Doing so can be difficult in recent versions of Windows, unless you use DOSBox. And if it’s been a while since you used DOS – or if you’ve just picked up the games off eBay, and have never used DOS before – that can feel like a daunting task. Fortunately, we’ve got you covered with a new addition to our Wiki resources: a step-by-step guide to running NBA Live 95, NBA Live 96, and NBA Live 97 in DOSBox!

In case you haven’t felt inclined to dust off those old games just yet, you may want to keep that page bookmarked, as I’ll be releasing some patches for the PC versions of Live 95-97 as part of our ongoing 20th Anniversary of NBA Live celebrations. Working on them has certainly been a nostalgic experience for me, so I hope that at least a few of you will feel inclined to fire up those old games, and give the new releases a spin once they’re available.

Stay tuned for more 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content!

If you can’t catch NBA games live on TV, you might be familiar with the play-by-play live scores on NBA.com, as well as ESPN.com and Yahoo! NBA. Well, you really should look into NBA League Pass Broadband if you can, but if a subscription is too expensive, or just not feasible for whatever reason, the live scores are pretty much your best (legal) option for following along with NBA games.

Many, many years ago, there was a period in my NBA fanaticism when I didn’t have the opportunity to watch a lot of games live. My cousin, who had pay TV, recorded games for me to watch later on VHS, and I also made use of PonTel. However, when I wanted to keep up to date with a big game, I’d have to jump online – dialup Internet, no less – and fire up the live scores. Incidentally, the first game I followed along with online was Game 5 of the 1999 NBA Finals. At the time, I thought it was pretty cool, though it obviously has nothing on League Pass Broadband.

As I’ve previously mentioned, back in high school, my cousin would always come to stay with us in the holidays, and we’d spend a lot of time playing NBA Live and NBA Jam. You know, in between watching NBA videos, and trying to emulate our favourite players on my hoop in the backyard. Since we loved NBA Live 95 on PC – even though it was a few years old at that point – we were playing through a season with the Houston Rockets. We had a lot of fun with that season: as may have seen, we brought Larry Bird out of retirement, and we once held Shaquille O’Neal to just 17 points (1 point in the second half!) in a full length game.

We also documented one of the games we played, play-by-play, on audio cassette. VHS, audio cassette, dial-up Internet…be sure to look up these ancient technologies on Wikipedia kids, you’ll get a kick out of it! Anyway, we documented the entire game, and then transcribed it to post on the NBA Live Domain, which I was running at the time. For your enjoyment, and indeed, for posterity, here is the play-by-play from that game, documented in the style of the NBA.com live scores back then.

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I’ve never been a big online basketball gamer, but that doesn’t mean I’ve always played them alone. Back in high school, my cousin – also a huge basketball fan and hoops gamer – would come to stay with us every school holidays. Whenever we weren’t watching basketball, or out in the backyard emulating the moves of our favourite players, we were playing basketball video games. NBA Live and NBA Jam were our titles of choice, and as the years rolled by and my collection grew, we had a few different versions of NBA Live to choose from. At one point, we started replaying the 1995 season in NBA Live 95 PC, with the Houston Rockets.

We always used to play co-op, because we preferred being on the same team and trying to win as many games as we could, together. Of course, when it’s two human users vs. the CPU, you need to find ways to keep things fresh, challenging, and interesting. In our NBA Live 95 season, we did that in the usual manner: making a few trades, aiming for certain statistical marks and records, and trying to blow out the CPU by the largest margin possible.

Oh, and Larry Bird made a comeback for our Houston Rockets, part of the way through the season.

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