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Wayback Wednesday

Wayback Wednesday: Familiar Faces Back in Familiar Places (Part 5)

Wayback Wednesday: Familiar Faces Back in Familiar Places (Part 5)

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at another ten players that became familiar faces back in familiar places.

If you’ve been checking out my Wayback Wednesday features for some time now, you probably know the drill when it comes to this topic. For those who are new or perhaps missed the first four instalments, this is a series in which I profile stars and other noteworthy NBA players who returned for a second stint with a team that they previously played for. In other words, they’re the familiar faces back in familiar places. It’s a counterpart to my familiar faces in strange places series, which profiles players in stints that were unusual and sometimes forgotten.

As always, I’m looking at these familiar faces back in familiar places through the lens of basketball video games. I do so because we are a basketball video game site, and as I’m so fond of saying, basketball video games serve as interactive almanacs. When you’re a retro basketball gamer, you’ll often stumble across familiar faces in familiar places and strange places alike, reminding you of stints that may not be talked about all that much. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: NBA Live 98 SNES Was Strange

Wayback Wednesday: NBA Live 98 SNES Was Strange

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m reflecting on how NBA Live 98 for the SNES was rather strange.

The main reason that I love collecting basketball video games is that I get to check out titles that I didn’t play when they were new. Whether it was due to my preference for NBA Live, only owning Nintendo consoles, or releases that were North American exclusives, there are titles that I didn’t experience until decades later. Getting my hands on a PlayStation 3, utilising the backwards compatibility of my PlayStation 2, and picking up a converter cartridge for my Super Nintendo, have all gone a long way in being able to expand my collection, and try out some old games for the first time.

One of those games is NBA Live 98 for the Super Nintendo. NBA Live 98 SNES was, quite frankly, a notably strange release. The PC version made a major leap, and the PlayStation port was solid in its own right. I’ve discussed NBA Live 98 in-depth in my retrospective for the 25th Anniversary of NBA Live, but I want to revisit the SNES version to highlight just how strange it was. Anyone who bought NBA Live 98 on SNES undoubtedly got the weakest version of the game, yet it has some interesting points. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: Attract Mode & The Secrets of NBA Jam TE

Wayback Wednesday: Attract Mode & The Secrets of NBA Jam TE

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the secrets in NBA Jam TE that were actually revealed by the attract mode screens.

If you’ve never known a time before YouTube, social media, and readily accessible information on just about anything you can name, it may be difficult to imagine not having detailed knowledge of a game’s secrets. That’s how it used to be, though. We had to buy (or photocopy!) official hint books and strategy guides, or consult game magazines for tips and cheat codes. Some secrets went undiscovered for years, or gave rise to urban legends. Discussion was limited to your circle of friends, which meant information travelled slower than it can nowadays.

To that point, there are details about some of my favourite video games – basketball and otherwise – that I didn’t know until I finally got online in the late 90s. Of course, when it comes to some games, there are details that I could’ve and should’ve known, but remained ignorant of because I was young and impatient, and thus not properly observant. These include a few secrets in NBA Jam TE on PC, which is one of my all-time favourite basketball games. I don’t know how I missed this information the first time around, and you’ll probably wonder too as we take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: Unusual Roster Players

Wayback Wednesday: Unusual Roster Players

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at some of the more unusual Roster Players that have been featured in various games.

If you’ve played sim basketball titles from the 90s, you’ll be familiar with Roster Players. They’re the fictional placeholders that stood in for the players that couldn’t be licensed to appear under the NBA’s agreement with the NBAPA. Most famously, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley were Roster Players in several games. For those who are unaware, the term comes from the names that those players were usually assigned. EA Sports used “Roster Player” in NBA Live, but similar terms such as “Roster Guard” and “1 Forward” were also used in place of real names.

Although Roster Players are no longer used to replace active players, they are still utilised to fill out the lineups of classic teams in NBA 2K. On top of that, some rather unexpected players have been replaced by Roster Players in various games over the years. I’ve discussed the phenomenon of Roster Players in a previous article, but this week, I’m covering some unusual examples. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: Hot Spots in NBA Live 08

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at Hot Spots in NBA Live 08.

The goal of implementing an increasing amount of realism in basketball video games has resulted in developers experimenting with a variety of mechanics and attributes. Some of these ideas have worked out better than others, or laid the foundation and evolved into better concepts. This is important to remember, as it can sometimes seem as if certain ideas were only implemented for the sake of adding something new to an annual release. It may be a sign that we’ve forgotten the reasons behind those ideas, and that poor execution doesn’t necessarily mean there was never any merit to them.

Case in point: Hot Spots in NBA Live 08. It was a solid idea that paved the way for more nuanced shooting attributes, but that first iteration in NBA Live 08 also had negative effects on gameplay mechanics. It’s all too easy to focus on the undesirable results of that first implementation of Hot Spots, and conclude that there was no value in the idea. However, future games proved that when implemented correctly, it was a step toward achieving the realism that we desired. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: Our First Virtual Championship

Wayback Wednesday: Our First Virtual Championship

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m discussing an achievement that I’m sure is very nostalgic for many basketball gamers: our first virtual championship.

Achieving closure in basketball video games, and most sports titles for that matter, is different to other genres. After all, they can be played in many ways, not all of which have a predefined completion condition. In contrast, games with a storyline or final level/mission/quest can be played through and clearly beaten. Whether they’re linear or non-linear, there’s an end point where the story is over and the final main objective has been completed. There’s less ambiguity as to whether or not you’ve finished such a game, and to that point, gained a sense of completion and closure with it.

NBA games, especially the sim titles, technically do have an ultimate goal of winning a championship in season, franchise, and career modes. However, they can also be enjoyed without ever completing a campaign. You may just play with and against friends in exhibition games, or tournaments that you organise. There are the online team play modes, with no schedule or structure. You can have countless hours of fun on the virtual hardwood without ever vying for an NBA championship. There is something special about getting a ring in video games though, especially hoisting the virtual Larry O’Brien trophy for the first time. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: The Broken Rotation Screen in NBA Live

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the broken rotation screen that appeared in various NBA Live releases.

During my extended NBA Live 10 retro kick, I wondered why I didn’t spend more time with it when it was new. I’ve wondered the same about some of its immediate predecessors, a couple of which were fairly solid in their own right. Issues with lobs and broken plays soon reminded me why. The fact of the matter is that NBA Live 10 does have some quirky moments that were annoying when it was the newest game I owned, but are more tolerable now that the game is nostalgic. My involvement in NBA Live modding also kept me focused on the PC releases.

However, reflecting on it further, I’ve also realised that the quality of Dynasty mode played a large role here. In many ways, I feel that Dynasty peaked with the prior gen version of NBA Live 06, which also included the PC port. It’s not that there weren’t any improvements in the following games, but there were also inaccuracies with the sim engine, and other such annoyances. Oh, and the broken rotation screen, which affected basic functionality, and stood in the way of one of the main joys of roster management: creating different lineups. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: NBA Live 98 Demo on a 486

Wayback Wednesday: NBA Live 98 Demo on a 486

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m reminiscing about the time I tried to get the NBA Live 98 demo to run on my family’s aging 486 PC.

As a teenager in 1998, making do with a 486 DX2/66 IBM compatible PC, there were few things I wanted as much as a shiny new Pentium. I mean, I wanted the Chicago Bulls to be featured on the Game of the Week, to win as many games as possible, and ultimately, take home the NBA Championship. I wanted to stay up late on weekends to watch the NBA and WWF, and play games. I wanted to create rosters for NBA Live 96, and upload them to my Geocities site, the NBA Live Domain. There was a girl at school I wished I was more than friends with. But yes, I wanted a Pentium.

How did that turn out? Well, I got to see quite a few Bulls games that year, many of which they won, and of course they went on to win their sixth NBA title in June. I did fill my weekends with basketball, wrestling, and video games. I continued to hone my skills as a modder, and the NLD began to develop a small but dedicated following. The girl at school…well, let’s not bring the mood down, here! We also didn’t get a new PC until a couple of years later, which led to me attempting to run the NBA Live 98 demo on our rapidly aging 486. How did that go? Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: The Glorious Menus of NBA Live 97

Wayback Wednesday: The Glorious Menus of NBA Live 97

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at the truly glorious menus found in the PC version of NBA Live 97.

The nostalgic rush you get from a beloved old basketball video game begins long before you hit the virtual hardwood. It’s there upon the first glimpse of the boot-up screens and introduction videos. The first notes of the soundtrack will take you back to all the hours you spent with a game when it was brand new. And then, there are the menus. For many of us, our memories of our favourite basketball games also include spending a sizeable chunk of time in the menus: setting up games, creating players, updating the rosters, and sometimes just enjoying listening to the music.

As such, there are some frontends that stick in our minds. If we vividly remember the menu from a particular game, it’s either because it was visually appealing and easy to navigate, or incredibly ugly and clunky. When it comes to the menus in NBA Live 97, I’d definitely describe them as the former. I know I’ve touched on the menus in NBA Live 97 PC in my retrospective of the game, but I believe that they’re worthy of their own article. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: The Oddball Classic Teams

Wayback Wednesday: The Oddball Classic Teams

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at the oddball classic teams that have been featured in NBA 2K.

One of the best things about the classic teams in NBA 2K is that over the years, the developers have sought to include more unorthodox choices. As fantastic as The Jordan Challenge and NBA’s Greatest were, limiting the selection of classic teams to MJ’s squads and their opponents, or teams connected to fifteen of the league’s all-time best players, didn’t demonstrate much imagination. I love that we have teams such as the 2000 Trail Blazers and Raptors, and the 1997 Heat. NBA 2K needn’t only include truly legendary teams, as there are other interesting squads that are fun to play with.

With that being said, there have been some oddball choices when it comes to the classic teams found in various NBA 2K games. That doesn’t necessarily mean they were bad choices that shouldn’t have been included, though in some cases there was arguably a better option. They do stand out as puzzling picks or ill-fitting inclusions, if for no other reason than they lack a suitable opponent. These oddball choices are something that’s been on my mind when playing with classic teams recently, so let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: Direct Shoot, The Overlooked Mechanic

Wayback Wednesday: Direct Shoot, The Overlooked Mechanic

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at Direct Shoot, which I believe is an overlooked gameplay mechanic in older NBA Live titles.

If you’ve played any of the early NBA Live games, you’ll likely remember a feature called Direct Pass. Even if you’re unfamiliar with those old releases, you can probably glean from the name alone that Direct Pass is what has come to be known as Icon Passing. NBA 2K popularised the latter name, though I still tend to use the terms “Direct Pass” or “direct passing”, because it’s the nomenclature from the games that I grew up playing. It’s the same reason that I use the name “Decade All-Stars” more often than “All-Decade Teams”. It’s just the branding that I’m used to.

While the name Direct Pass has fallen out of vogue, the concept is obviously still used in modern titles, without any major changes. Conversely, Direct Shoot – introduced in the NBA Live series around the same time as Direct Pass – has been replaced by other methods of advanced shooting controls. To that end, I’d suggest that it’s an overlooked stepping stone to mechanics that we now take for granted. I know that I’ve certainly underutilised it when playing those older games, so let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: The Way Back in NBA 2K19

Wayback Wednesday: The Way Back in NBA 2K19

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at the MyCAREER story in NBA 2K19, which was titled “The Way Back”.

Since NBA 2K19 is now going on four years old and its servers have been shut down, I believe that it now fits the bill for wayback content. Hey, that’s the rule I set when I looked back at the story of DJ in NBA 2K18 in 2020, and as I said at the time, it’s my feature, so I’ll make and break the rules as I see fit! Besides, we’ve had a couple of fairly well-written and acted MyCAREER stories since then. In particular, The Long Shadow in NBA 2K21 was a strong candidate for the best tale the mode has ever had. With that in mind, it’s worth looking back at NBA 2K19’s story to see how it holds up.

After all, when NBA 2K19 came out, The Way Back was likewise one of the best stories we’d played through in MyCAREER. The journey of AI didn’t just take us from college to the NBA, but around the world. I’ll throw out an obligatory spoiler warning as we take a look back…way back…at The Way Back…

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Wayback Wednesday: The Replacements

Wayback Wednesday: The Replacements

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at the players that served as replacements for missing stars.

“Hold on a moment”, I hear you say. “Didn’t you already cover Roster Players in a previous Wayback Wednesday feature?” I did indeed, and I do also link back to that article whenever I mention them! However, I’m not actually focusing on those old roster players today, except to note that yes, they did serve as the replacements for a handful of real players that couldn’t be licensed back in the 90s. Not every game made use of placeholders to fill in for absent stars, however. So, what did they do when they couldn’t include the likes of Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal?

Enter the replacements: other players on the team that were promoted to the starting lineup in order to fill the void. This produced some interesting results, such as career bench players getting the starting nod, and the occasional player being slotted in at a position they rarely played. It also resulted in other players taking on the role of the team’s de facto star. It’s not something we need to worry about these days, but back in the 90s, it was a recurring phenomenon. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: NBA Returns After Extended Absences

Wayback Wednesday: NBA Returns After Extended Absences

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at NBA players that made returns after extended absences from the league.

Yes, it’s another “interactive almanac” Wayback Wednesday feature, taking a look back at some historical NBA trivia through the lens of video games! This time, I’m focusing on players that made their way back to the NBA – and therefore the virtual hardwood as well – after at least two years away. There have been a handful of very notable names that have made NBA returns following extended absences, as well as some key role players and journeymen that reappeared after their time in the NBA had seemingly drawn to a close.

Indeed, that’s a common theme with most of these players. Whether they retired due to age or injury, they were no longer drawing interest from any teams, or they found a comfortable spot playing in another league, we didn’t expect these NBA returns. Of course, that’s what makes them so interesting, then and now. Incidentally, this topic was suggested by The BBall Pundit on Twitter, so shout out to you! With that being said, let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: Revisiting Fantasy Teams & Quick Pick Play

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a second look back at Fantasy Teams in NBA Live, which debuted as Quick Pick Play.

Although I have many titles and aspects of old basketball games that I want to cover here in Wayback Wednesday, sometimes I do have to revisit topics. As much care and passion as I put into my features, there are times when I don’t do a topic justice, or my opinion changes after some further retro gaming sessions. It’s why I’ve seen fit to post new retrospectives of NBA Live 06 and NBA Live 10. Sometimes my opinion doesn’t change much – as was the case with NBA Live 07 – but another look with fresh eyes can yield something you didn’t notice before, and alter your perspective.

I would definitely say that that’s the case with Fantasy Teams and Quick Pick Play, a mode featured in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of NBA Live 08 through NBA Live 10. I don’t necessarily disagree with what I wrote when I covered Quick Pick Play four years ago, but I’ve developed more of an appreciation for it since then. With that in mind, let’s take another look back…way back…

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