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Wayback Wednesday: Timberwolves Franchise in NBA Live 2003

Wayback Wednesday: Timberwolves Franchise in NBA Live 2003

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 my Franchise game with the Minnesota Timberwolves in NBA Live 2003.

I’ve had a number of memorable franchise and career mode games over the years. My Dynasty games with the Chicago Bulls in NBA Live 2004 and NBA Live 06 are among my all-time favourite basketball gaming experiences. Likewise, I had a blast with MyCAREER in NBA 2K13, NBA 2K17, and NBA 2K19, and I’m still playing through the mode in NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4. At the same time, I’ve had some games where I haven’t achieved completion or closure, such as my 1998 season in NBA Live 96 PC, and my Sacramento Kings Franchise in NBA Live 2002.

My Franchise with the Minnesota Timberwolves in NBA Live 2003 PC is another example of a “failed” game. Of course, labelling such games as “failures” probably isn’t the right way of looking at things. I’d actually like to delve into that topic in more depth sometime, but my Timberwolves Franchise does stand as an example of how completion is what we make it. Or, to put it another way, as long as it was fun while it lasted, it’s ultimately neither a failure nor wasted time. That Franchise was certainly memorable for me even if it wasn’t successful, so let’s take a look back…way back…

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The Friday Five: 5 Limitations With A Sensible Explanation

The Friday Five: 5 Limitations With A Sensible Explanation

Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five limitations in basketball video games that actually have a sensible explanation.

It’s always frustrating when we encounter limitations in basketball video games that stand in the way of having fun with them. It’s even more frustrating when those limitations aren’t present in other games – in some cases, in the very same series – which suggests that it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. However, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t technical roadblocks when a particular game was released, or a reason for a particular feature or function being designed a certain way. Quite often, there’s a sensible and reasonable explanation for these limitations.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily make it less frustrating, especially if we don’t learn the reason until much later. Furthermore, in the early days of basketball video games, we couldn’t be blamed for dreaming big as far as the things we wanted to see, and video game developers have clearly had similar visions. To that end, some limitations have been overcome as technology has improved, and programmers have found a way to make ambitious ideas work. Even so, it’s important to acknowledge that there are sensible explanations as to why those limitations were once in place, or why a mode or feature is still restrictive by design. Here are five that we’ve often grumbled about!

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NLSC Podcast #519: Infinite NBA Modes To Keep Us Hooked

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #519 of the NLSC Podcast!

We’re tipping things off this week with a strange (but not altogether surprising) incident on Twitter/X. Indeed, the quality of discourse on social media is on our minds this week, as we feel compelled to respond to the latest ridiculous narrative being pushed about Michael Jordan and NBA history. We also check in with Troydan’s quest to pull a 100 Overall card in NBA 2K24 MyTEAM, and discuss the new mobile game, NBA Infinite. In this week’s mailbag/featured discussion, we join the community in reminiscing about the basketball video game modes that have kept us hooked over the years, and the titles that we played them in.

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

The Friday Five: 5 Unexpected Retro Kicks

The Friday Five: 5 Unexpected Retro Kicks

Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five unexpected retro kicks.

As I said in my first Friday Five for February 2024, I’m not going to stop retro gaming anytime soon! It’s a habit that I’ve picked up again with the help of Dee, and I’m quite grateful for that, as grinding up a new MyPLAYER year after year had become an absolute chore. We’ve connected to play a number of different titles over Parsec these past few years, with some of them becoming staples of our co-op rotation. In many cases, I’ve also been inspired to revisit these games solo, leading to some fun sessions and more than a few Wayback Wednesday articles.

Of course, not every game that I revisit turns into a retro kick. I’ll have some fun with it, and then it’s back on the bench, so to speak. However, other games do capture my interest and become regulars in my basketball gaming rotation. These unexpected retro kicks take me by surprise, but I’m always delighted when they happen. Quite often, it leads to me spending time with a game that I didn’t play much when it was new, if at all. As someone with a predisposition to enjoy retro gaming, it’s never too late to give games a second chance and make up for lost time. I have been surprised by some of the titles that ended up hooking me years later though, such as these five.

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Monday Tip-Off: Our Players Before MyPLAYERs

Monday Tip-Off: Our Players Before MyPLAYERs

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some reflections on the bygone practice of creating ourselves in basketball video games, long before we had MyPLAYERs.

When we think about creating players in basketball video games these days, it’s usually to either add a missing player to the current or historical rosters, or to create our avatar for career mode play. It makes sense, of course. Even though we have official roster updates, community rosters are not outmoded. Indeed, they’re essential as far as adding retro players that can’t be licensed. Career modes have been popular since their introduction, and have only become a bigger part of basketball gaming with the advent of the connected online team play experiences.

Obviously, we’ve been creating rosters and career mode avatars for years now. Although not everyone chooses to give their MyPLAYERs their real name and face – either via a scan or a close-enough approximation with the in-game creation tools – many of us do or previously have created ourselves for use in MyCAREER. Most of my MyPLAYERs have been “me”, aside from the fictional scenario where I’m good enough to play in the NBA! However, long before MyCAREER and its connected modes, many of us created ourselves on the virtual hardwood. It may seem like a quaint notion nowadays, but it was fun thing to do before we had these deep modes.

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NBA 2K24 Season 5 Patch Out Now

NBA 2K24 Season 5 Patch Out Now

The Season 5 patch for NBA 2K24 is out now on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and should be available for all platforms by the time the new season tips off on February 23rd. To that point, it should come through automatically as long as you’re online. If it doesn’t, try restarting, or checking for updates manually.

In addition to preparing NBA 2K24 for Season 5 in MyCAREER and MyTEAM, the new patch includes three player likeness updates, stability fixes for MyCAREER and its connected modes, and a few other bug fixes for MyTEAM, MyNBA Online, and MyWNBA. Please see below for the full patch notes.

You can also find complete update histories – at least to the best of our ability, given the information that 2K has provided this year – for the Next Gen and Current Gen versions of NBA 2K24 over in our Wiki. Feel free to share any thoughts in the comments below, as well as join in the discussion in our NBA 2K24 Forum.

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NLSC Podcast #515: NBA Live 2002, Jam vs. Street, & Broadcast Views

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #515 of the NLSC Podcast!

Following up on last week’s discussion, we react to Take-Two’s shady defense of Virtual Currency as “fictions” that it can legally remove at any time. On a slightly contentious note (for the most part), in response to a post on our Discord, we weigh in on the NBA Jam vs. NBA Street debate. Which arcade hoops game do we believe is king? We also recap a co-op session of NBA Live 2002, and make some potentially controversial comparisons to NBA Live 2001. Joining the community for a discussion of our favourite camera angles leads us to declare our appreciation for broadcast views once again. In this week’s mailbag, we share how we’d handle microtransactions in a Triple-A release if it was our call.

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

NBA 2K14 MyCAREER Highlights: Year 6, Games 31-40

NBA 2K14 MyCAREER Highlights: Year 6, Games 31-40

My journey through Year 6 of MyCAREER in the PlayStation 4 version of NBA 2K14 continues, and I have the highlights to prove it! At Dee’s suggestion, I’ve been compiling a highlight reel every ten games to post on our YouTube channel, and now that I’m halfway through the season, there’s already been an assortment of spectacular moments.

Alley-oops are a recurring motif in the highlight reel for Games 31-40, as Philadelphia has been turned into The City of Brotherly Lobs! Although I’m enjoying putting the ball on a wire for Terry Hanson and Nerlens Noel to rack up those glorious assists, I’ve also loved being on the receiving end of lobs, including some ambitious inbounds alley-oops. The poster dunks in NBA 2K14 also remain extremely satisfying, with the Eco-Motion engine producing some beautiful animations. Throw in some flashy passes, ankle-breakers, and a few defensive highlights, and it should be clear just how much I’m enjoying Year 6 in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER!

I hope that highlight reel was just as fun to watch as it was to put together! There’ll be more reels on the way as the journey continues, as well as other basketball gaming content on the NLSC YouTube channel. As always, feel free to hit Dee and I up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play, and we’ll see what we can do.

The Friday Five: 5 Times My Games Imitated Real Moves (Part 2)

The Friday Five: 5 Times My Games Imitated Real Moves (Part 2)

Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five recalls another five times I encountered real life moves being made by CPU-controlled teams in my games.

As I’ve previously discussed, it’s difficult to determine what constitutes a realistic or unrealistic trade or signing by CPU-controlled teams in franchise and career modes. After all, the real NBA has seen a number of lopsided deals, unexpected departures, and unlikely reunions. At the same time, too many highly unlikely deals, or downright illogical moves such as readily trading away your best player in the midst of a good season, are examples of unrealistic trades that sim heads don’t want to see. Still, we have to acknowledge that reality can sometimes be stranger than fiction!

To that end, some of the real moves that have coincidentally happened in my career and franchise mode games might seem far-fetched, if not for the fact that they came to pass. While four of the examples that I’m sharing today happened after the fact, one of the moves did actually occur in my game before it became a reality, making it eerily prophetic. Whether they serve as surprisingly accurate predictions or they’re simply fun coincidences, I do enjoy seeing CPU-controlled teams making moves that turned out (or will turn out) to be real; even if they don’t involve any big names. With that being said, let’s get to five more examples of my games imitating real NBA moves!

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Monday Tip-Off: Would Two 2K Games Be Better Than One?

Monday Tip-Off: Would Two 2K Games Be Better Than One?

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on the idea that having two separate NBA 2K games would be better than one.

In case you’re unfamiliar with this idea, there have been times when gamers have suggested that there should be two editions of NBA 2K on the market; essentially, an online-oriented release, and a more traditional offline version. The logic behind this unusual suggestion is that online and offline play can adversely affect one another during the design process, leaving fans of one or the other (and sometimes, both) to be left disappointed. It’s also been suggested that one version could be fully-priced, while the other is free-to-play and based around microtransactions.

When you put it like that, the idea of having two NBA 2K games isn’t as strange as it first seems. It’s highly unlikely though, and it would undoubtedly have drawbacks. Of course, even the best ideas have their downsides, and no concept will be universally popular. With that being said, could it work, and would it be a better approach than what we have now? I’ve previously broached the idea of having a spinoff “Legends” version of NBA 2K that focuses on historical content, and EA Sports has arguably set a precedent with World Cup editions of FIFA. Let’s take a look at what having two NBA 2K games would mean for the series, both for 2K and us as basketball gamers.

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NLSC Podcast #512: NBA 2K25 Gameplay Wishlist

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #512 of the NLSC Podcast!

It’s Wishlist season once again, so this week, we join the community in listing our top three gameplay wishes for NBA 2K25! Not surprisingly, many of us have similar thoughts on what we want to see out of this year’s game. Following our recent sessions with them, we also discuss NBA ShootOut (aka Total NBA ’96) and Sony’s NBA 08, and compare them to their contemporaries. We’ve also got an injury update to share, and spend some time reflecting on past-their-prime players still having something left in the tank in real life, as well as being fun to play with in video games; especially when they’re familiar faces in unfamiliar places.

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

Monday Tip-Off: Messing Around On The Virtual Hardwood

Monday Tip-Off: Messing Around On The Virtual Hardwood

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some reflections on how fun it can be just messing around with basketball video games.

I don’t want to harp on the horrors of grinding in basketball gaming nowadays. It’s a well-known issue, and it would be rather ironic and hypocritical of me to repeatedly grumble about something being repetitive! However, it is worth noting that one of the biggest problems in modern basketball games is the focus on the grind, whether it’s levelling up a MyPLAYER or building a MyTEAM squad. We’ve gone from a fun journey that keeps us hooked for hours on end, to needing to put in hours of work just to have fun. I’m grateful to have changed my habits in that regard!

However, while it’s been refreshing to return to NBA 2K14 PS4 for five full seasons and counting in MyCAREER, and also free up time for a potential return to franchise play, frankly I’m enjoying having less structure to my basketball gaming. Don’t get me wrong; I love the depth that keeps us hooked on franchise and career modes, with the tangible goals of playing through seasons and winning championships. At the same time, when you’re not dedicating yourself to grinding or you feel like a break from a more structured mode, simply messing around in a game can be just as engaging. It’s actually one of the things that I enjoyed the most about my basketball gaming in 2023.

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The Friday Five: 5 Evergreen Issues with NBA 2K

The Friday Five: 5 Evergreen Issues with NBA 2K

Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five issues with NBA 2K that are seemingly evergreen.

Since I’ve taken a look at some evergreen issues with the NBA Live series, it’s time to examine similar problems with NBA 2K. Obviously, NBA 2K is a powerhouse in the basketball gaming space, with a virtual monopoly on sim titles. Even in the years that NBA Live was released during the past generation, the NBA 2K series outsold it by a significant margin to say the least. The competition hasn’t been close in terms of sales and critical reception since 2008, in large part because NBA 2K has maintained a high level of quality, while NBA Live has suffered from its own evergreen issues.

However, there are definitely problems that continue to plague NBA 2K to this day. They’re in too comfortable of a position to fail, which once again is the result of them maintaining a generally pleasing level of quality through the years. At the same time, these evergreen issues do affect the quality of NBA 2K games, as well as the overall image of the series. As NBA Live stumbled, NBA 2K became the darling for hoops gamers and the yardstick for its genre. Without competition though, its flaws have been exposed, and its reputation has been tarnished. The evergreen issues that NBA 2K has failed to address are responsible for that, so let’s take a look at five of them.

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Monday Tip-Off: Half a Decade in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER

Monday Tip-Off: Half a Decade in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some reflections on playing half a decade (and counting) in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER.

It’s wild that my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER is now in Year 6. That would’ve been unthinkable just a few years ago, as it took me a long time to warm up to the game! On top of that, I began a proper playthrough of the mode for a Wayback Wednesday feature posted in August of 2021, and by October that year, I’d decided that finishing my rookie season would be a good way to say goodbye to MyCAREER; at least for the moment. Three years later, I’m not only still playing that game, but I’ve finished four more full seasons on top of that!

There’s no doubt that it’s become one of my all-time favourite basketball gaming experiences. NBA 2K14 still holds up superbly on the sticks, and while MyCAREER is missing a few key features that I’ve enjoyed in later iterations of the mode, I also appreciate its simplicity and focus on the NBA. As far as the journey itself, I’ve been impressed by how each season has held my attention and provided its own subplots, even though the cutscene-driven story basically concluded after my rookie year. It’s been fascinating to see how the league has changed, and also, how some things have stayed the same. As I’m sure you can tell from my recaps, it’s been a fun half decade.

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NBA 2K24 Patch 4.0 Released; Season 4 Update

NBA 2K24 Patch 4.0 Released; Season 4 Update

In case you missed it, Patch 4.0 (aka the Season 4 Patch) is now available for NBA 2K24 on all platforms. As always, it should come through automatically as long as you’re online. If it doesn’t, try restarting your console or Steam client, or checking for updates manually.

Patch 4.0 prepares NBA 2K24 for Season 4 in MyCAREER and MyTEAM, and also includes a few likeness updates. The New York Knicks PA Announcer audio has been improved, there are some gameplay changes including a reduction to the effectiveness of the “Cut to the Basket Pass”, and various stability and bug fixes have been made in The City, MyCAREER, MyTEAM, and MyNBA. You can find the full patch notes below. Unfortunately, no patch notes for the PC/PlayStation 4/Xbox One version are available at this time.

You can also find full update histories for the Current Gen and Next Gen versions of NBA 2K24 in our Wiki. As always, feel free to share any thoughts in the comments below, as well as join in the discussion in our NBA 2K24 Forum!

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