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Dumb Fact Monday: Moving Hair

This is Dumb Fact Monday, serving up random facts about basketball video games that you may or may not find interesting.

For the first entry, I’m taking a look at dynamic hair physics in basketball video games. While I was certain this was a recent breakthrough for the genre, I was surprised to find out that I completely missed the first game to feature player hair that wasn’t cemented in place.

Click Read More to find out more about it.

Since NBA Live 14 was released, you may have heard me on the NLSC Podcast and on my YouTube Channel ranting and raving about how it took us until 2013 to get a basketball video game with hair physics for its players. While yes, NBA Live 14 does feature moving hair physics for some players, it was not the first game to do so.

Dirk's Moving Hair in Live 06 (360)Wub Wub, Wub Wub, Wub Wub.

Yes, that is the one and only Dirk Nowitzki with moving hair physics. Not as good as the physics seen in NBA Live 14, but it got the job done. Dirk wasn’t the only player with the hair physics either as Steve Nash still had his long hair, and created players with longer hair styles had these rudimentary physics applied to them as well.

So, which basketball video game was the first to feature moving hair physics?

NBA Live 06 Xbox 360 Cover Art BoxNo, not the PC version.

Yep, NBA Live 06. EA Sports’ introduction to last generation’s next generation basketball game. I was not able to confirm whether or not 2K has ever done hair physics in their games (just checked, 2K7 does have animated hair for Steve Nash), but I know for a fact that NBA 2K9 through NBA 2K14, including the PS4/Xbox One versions, do not have hair physics. Yet, I honestly believed NBA Live 14 was the first to feature them and was wrong by eight years. Now, if only EA Sports would enable the hair physics for Kelly Olynyk…

Kelly Olynyk Crazy Face - NBA Live 14Seriously, before he Feeds Again.

So, after weeks of excuses, I finally got this out.  If you know of any other basketball video games that have moving hair physics, please let me know in the comments below, same with impressions on this series idea. I hope you enjoyed, and hopefully see you back here next Monday!

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Andrew
NLSC
Andrew
February 3, 2014 9:11 pm

Great to see this launched. 🙂 I actually didn’t know that about NBA Live 06 on Xbox 360, having spent far more time with the PC version. I’ll have to fire it up sometime and see it in all its last gen glory!

deepen07
deepen07
February 4, 2014 5:18 am

Nba 2k6 and 2k7 on the 360 had Nash with moving hair.. I think that’s actually your screenshot on the top right corner of this page.