NLSC Your source for basketball video games.

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 One in NBA Live 18.

There’s a simple reason that I’ve had far more to say about the career modes in NBA 2K than their counterparts in NBA Live. While I’ve played MyCAREER in several NBA 2K games – in some cases finishing multiple seasons – I’ve yet to play through a single NBA campaign in Rising Star or The One. I’ve tried them out so that I can at least offer up some informed impressions, but I wasn’t hooked by them. Granted, the gameplay in the eighth generation NBA Live titles was a major factor here! When I did spend time with NBA Live 15 and NBA Live 18, it was in Ultimate Team.

However, since revisiting eighth gen NBA Lives with fresh eyes and an open mind, I have developed more of an appreciation for them. That’s not to say that I completely disagree with my previous criticisms or consider them classics, but I’ve noticed some of their strengths. This goes for modes as well as gameplay, as I’ve made a point of giving both a chance to make a new impression. I found myself revisiting The One in NBA Live 18, and while the mode does have some issues and weaknesses compared to MyCAREER, I actually had a good time with it. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #546 of the NLSC Podcast!

NBA 2K25 has been out for about a couple of weeks now, which means the annual honeymoon phase is drawing to a close. To that end, this week we join the community in following up on our first impressions with a rundown of our key likes and dislikes of the game so far. It’s still mostly good news in our book, but we’re not quite ready to declare it the best NBA 2K ever as some of our fellow gamers are. We also recap a co-op session in which we took on Dwight Howard’s Magic with Derrick Rose’s Bulls using the LeBron era rosters, leading us to reflect on those two squads. Finally, a new segment makes its debut, inspired by a surprising observation while playing NBA 08.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:02:27 — 43.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

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!

Today’s new NBA 2K25 mod releases feature an arm texture fix for Kemba Walker by Thunder Shaq, and a Boston Celtics court update by Manni Live. sticky-fingers has also updated his file extraction tool. Download them all at the links below!

Thunder Shaq
Kemba Walker (Tattoos Removed)

Manni Live
Boston Celtics TD Garden Court Update

sticky-fingers
NBA2K25 Extract Files GUI (Updated to v1.3.1)

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

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 how it can be extremely difficult to put aside a beloved basketball game that you’re really enjoying.

Basketball games – and sports games in general – have a ticking clock. I’m not talking about the one that counts down while we’re on the virtual field of play, but rather the countdown to the release of the next title. Annual releases give us a year to get the most out of a basketball game before its successor is out, but sometimes, that won’t be enough. After all, an 82-game season on twelve minute quarters will take over 100 hours to finish. That’s certainly feasible for an enthusiastic basketball gamer, but with multi-season play, that may only be the beginning of the journey.

Needless to say, if a basketball game is good enough to keep us hooked even as the next release is on the horizon, then that’s fantastic! We’re not always so lucky, as I can attest to souring on games long before the end of their life cycle. Furthermore, we’re under no obligation to buy the new game every year or to bench a beloved basketball game if we still want to play it. We can always revisit old favourites too, though we’re seeing games become increasingly disposable. With that being said, many of us are still interested in seeing what a new release has to offer, so the need to make room in our rotation ends up clashing with our reluctance to bench a game we’re hooked on.

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Modders are still enthusiastically working on NBA 2K14 to this day, and to that end, we have some new mod releases to spotlight! Pep has released 2024 season jersey updates for the Los Angeles Clippers, while Sastre Matulin has released an updated WNBA logo pack. Check them both out at the links below!

Pep
NBA Nike Los Angeles Clippers 2024 Uniforms

Sastre Matulin
WNBA Current Logos Mod (Updated)

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee4Three! New and old games alike are featured in this celebration of spectacular moments on the virtual hardwood. To submit your clips, post them in this topic, or hit up Dee on Twitter.

Basketball gamers have been coming through in the clutch recently, as this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays has a distinct buzzer beater motif! It’s one of the few plays in basketball that can beat a spectacular dunk, but with that being said, this week’s countdown still features an assortment of exciting jams. Also, despite NBA 2K25 being fairly well-received so far, the classics are definitely still in many hoops gamers’ rotations. Incidentally, that includes a 2008 season title for PlayStation 3 which you’ll read about in Wayback Wednesday later this month. Let’s get to the action!

What was your favourite highlight this week? Sound off in the comments below, and once again, get in on the fun by sending us your best plays! Remember, as long as it’s a basketball game, it’s eligible for the countdown. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to us on YouTube for more basketball gaming videos.

Patch 1.4 has come through for the PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X version of NBA 2K25. As always, it should download automatically as long as you’re online. If it doesn’t, try restarting your console or Steam client, or checking for updates manually.

The patch includes a couple of PC-specific fixes, resolving issues with “Sim To Next Appearance” in MyCAREER when playing on a monitor with a particularly high refresh rate, and long hangs when launching the game. An exploit in The Track has also been patched, and various bugs involving functionality and gameplay quirks have also been addressed.

As was the case in previous years, a larger patch including a broader set of fixes and improvements is planned for the beginning of Season 2. In the meantime, these smaller fixes are being pushed through to resolve what 2K are describing as the most user-impacting issues that the community has been reporting so far. To that end, keep hitting up the developers with your feedback! We’ve also got a topic for bug reports in the Forum, which you can find here.

Check out the full release notes for NBA 2K25 Patch 1.4 below, as well as over in our Wiki. Feel free to share any thoughts in the comments, as well as join in the discussion here in our Forum.

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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 basketball video games that are somewhat overshadowed by their immediate successors, or even predecessors.

As I’ve acknowledged in previous articles, “underrated” and “overshadowed” are relative and subjective terms, as are “overrated” and “overexposed” for that matter. They assume some level of consensus, and to that point, once we start talking about how something is underrated or overshadowed, it often ceases to be either. With that being said, when it comes to basketball video games, there are some that always seem to fly under the radar. Even if they were well-received at the time, they still don’t get their due in hindsight, because another title from the same era is more acclaimed.

This can easily happen in the annual sim titles when they’re at their peak. While there may be several strong releases during a series’ golden age, we tend to focus on the ones that always land on lists of all-time great basketball video games. It can happen to arcade titles as well, even when the games were released a couple of years or more apart. I hesitate to declare all of them to be hidden gems as they were popular, and it might be swinging the narrative too far in the other direction. Nevertheless, in my opinion, these overshadowed games deserve some more love. I would definitely recommend them to anyone looking for some retro basketball gaming inspiration!

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Presenting our first NBA 2K25 mod releases for the year! Long-time modder in our community Manni Live has returned with a couple of court updates, while sticky-fingers has released a tool that allows you to extract game files using a GUI. Pick them up at the links below!

sticky-fingers
NBA2K25 Extract Files GUI

Manni Live
Miami Heat Court Update – LeBron Era
Fictional Kobe Black Mamba Court

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

As mentioned in Episode #545 of the NLSC Podcast, Dee has been showcasing the gameplay in NBA 2K25 with several uploads to the NLSC YouTube channel. A variety of teams and players are on display, along with different experiences; namely, solo, head-to-head, and co-op play. The NBA and WNBA are also both represented.

The very first NBA 2K25 gameplay video that Dee uploaded saw him taking on the CPU-controlled Knicks with the Celtics. He followed this up with a showdown between the Pelicans and Warriors, controlled by Dee and his brother respectively. The game that we recapped in the latest pod, in which we defeated the Kings with the Nuggets, shows off some co-op play over Parsec. As noted, you’ll also find a couple of WNBA reels, including a solo game in which Dee faced the Mercury with the Fever, and a head-to-head game where Dee played with the Mercury and his brother used the Dream.

His latest NBA2K25 gameplay highlights feature another solo game pitting the Bucks against the Trail Blazers. Dee also demonstrates the depth of instant replay in this year’s game with ten different angles on an alley-oop from Jason Williams to Stromile Swift. Please note that all of these reels are from the PC version of NBA 2K25, which is of course a New Gen port.

Check out all of those videos below! Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content – from the classics right through to NBA 2K25 – and feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of teams that you’d like to see us use, and games that you’d like to see us play. Also be sure to tune in to Episode #545 of the NLSC Podcast to hear our first impressions of NBA 2K25!

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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 Ben Gordon becoming my favourite active player after Michael Jordan retired, and using him in video games.

Just as the Chicago Bulls remain my favourite NBA team all these years later, my all-time favourite player will always be Michael Jordan. However, although MJ is the player that got me and so many of my fellow 90s kids into basketball, my interest in hoops doesn’t end with him. Sure, I may have some quibbles with the modern game, and certainly the discourse that’s being led by so many talking heads with highly questionable agendas, but I’m still passionate about real and virtual basketball alike. In short, I didn’t drift away from the sport when MJ hung up his Air Jordans.

Of course, maintaining my interest in the NBA as my beloved Bulls fell from grace and MJ rode off into the sunset – temporarily once again, and then for good – required a change in how I approached my fandom. I’d never had trouble enjoying other stars and teams, but with the Bulls nowhere near contention, that interest beyond “my” team became even more important as far as remaining invested in the NBA. While MJ would remain my all-time favourite player, I needed a new active favourite to cheer for. In time, that would become Ben Gordon. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #545 of the NLSC Podcast!

NBA 2K25 is out now, so this week, we join the community in sharing our first impressions of the gameplay! Our time on the sticks has revealed a number of pros and cons, though we certainly reserve the right to change our minds as we continue to play the game and it receives updates. As such, we’ll definitely have plenty more to say in the coming weeks and months! In the meantime, we give our views on ProPLAY, dribbling, shooting, player movement, and everything else that has jumped out at us so far, good or bad. We also reflect on some of the pre-release footage proving to be misleading, and feeling considerably better about NBA 2K25 once we got our hands on it.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:25:38 — 59.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

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!

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 duality of MyNBA Eras.

Look, I realise how annoying it can be when someone qualifies their criticism with compliments. After all, it can come across as disingenuous, or too timid to stand by critique. Unfortunately, when the discourse is rooted in finding contrarian gotchas to dunk on someone who has dared to criticise what you like, it’s a necessary evil. On top of that, when it comes to a feature such as MyNBA Eras, credit where credit’s due. It’s a fantastic concept with some great features that once seemed like a pipe dream. I don’t want to downplay that.

However, there is a duality to MyNBA Eras. It’s impressive in so many ways, and yet rather underwhelming in others. There are aspects that feel lazy and lacking, despite the fact that a ton of hard work and effort has gone into the mode. The ambition is admirable, but there are examples of putting the cart before the horse. There’s depth to the experience, but there’s also quantity over quality. In short, MyNBA Eras is indeed awesome, but there are ways that it could and should be better. Some of them may be easier said than done due to matters of licensing, but to that point, it makes the mode simultaneously comprehensive and half-baked. This is the duality of MyNBA Eras.

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Patch 1.3 is now available for the PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X version of NBA 2K25. As with all title updates, 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.

The release notes for NBA 2K25 Patch 1.3 are as follows:

• Addressed an issue that could cause multiple versions of MyPLAYER to appear in the NBA in MyCAREER and potentially prevent certain quests from completing.
• Fixed a hang that some users were reporting when attempting to use the Social menu.
• Resolved error messages and other reported problems when attempting to launch the PC version under certain conditions.
• Fixed connection issues that could occur when playing Starting 5 games in the City.
• Stability and performance changes have been made to improve the overall playing experience.

I’ve created an article in our Wiki to document all of the patch notes for the PC, PS5, and XSX version of NBA 2K25, which you can find here. As always, the community is welcome to help us keep our Wiki resources up to date, so by all means add future patch notes if I don’t get there first. Feel free to share any thoughts on the update in the comments below, as well as join in the discussion here in the Forum!

Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee4Three! New and old games alike are featured in this celebration of spectacular moments on the virtual hardwood. To submit your clips, post them in this topic, or hit up Dee on Twitter.

NBA 2K25 is out now, and the community hasn’t wasted any time in using it to create highlights for the NLSC Top 10 Plays! To that point, the new game makes a few appearances and has even produced the #1 play in its launch week. Retro gamers shouldn’t worry though, as the classics are still well-represented in the countdown, and will continue to be moving forward. You know what to expect by now: huge dunks, acrobatic layups, clutch plays, slick moves…everything that’ll get you fired up to hit the virtual hardwood this weekend. Let’s get to the action!

What was your favourite highlight this week? Sound off in the comments below, and once again, get in on the fun by sending us your best plays! Remember, as long as it’s a basketball game, it’s eligible for the countdown. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to us on YouTube for more basketball gaming videos.