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.
Catch up on the latest basketball gaming highlights that Dee and I have uploaded to the NLSC YouTube channel! Recent videos include our co-op game of Street Hoops, and a game of NBA 2K6 that I played against the CPU featuring a Draft Class showdown.
As we discussed in Episode #510 of the NLSC Podcast, Dee and I revisited Street Hoops for PlayStation 2 in a co-op game over Parsec. We were quite impressed with how well it held up, and what a strong release it was from a developer not known for their basketball games. The session produced some outstanding streetball highlights that’ll evoke memories of the AND1 Mixtape Tour from the early 2000s. Check out the action as we use the Highflying Homies to take on the Mad Bombers!
My NBA 2K6 game was played before my old desktop crashed late last year, so I’ve been sitting on the footage for a number of weeks! I was eager to put together a highlight reel from it, as I had a blast taking on the Draft Class of 2000 with the Draft Class of 2001. Jason Richardson was the star for me, and in looking to dunk as often as possible with him, he ended up putting on a show. As I said in my retrospective, NBA 2K6 for Xbox 360 is a game that’s really grown on me, retroactively becoming one of my all-time favourites.
Check out both highlight reels below, and be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content! As always, Dee and I are open to suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play, so by all means hit us up with those titles!
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.
The community has often displayed incredibly synchronicity when it comes to the NLSC Top 10 Plays, sticking to a theme without the need for a prompt. It’s happened again this week, with alley-oops being a common motif. They’re not the only highlight on display of course, as we also have needle-threading passes, slick dribbling moves, and players being put on posters even without the aid of a lob. Six games are featured in this week’s countdown, ranging from NBA Live 06 and NCAA March Madness 08 all the way through to NBA 2K23 and NBA 2K24. 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.
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.
Today’s NBA 2K14 mod releases feature Pep’s latest jersey updates for the 2024 season, including accurate sponsor patches and City edition uniforms. Check them out at the links below!
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.
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 Team Rankings and Overall Ratings in basketball video games.
It’s interesting how we get attached to the little details in our favourite basketball video games, particularly the ones that served as our introduction to the genre! I can trace many of my preferences related to presentation and UI to NBA Live 96 PC as it was one of the first 5-on-5 sim games that I played, and it was also the very first one that I owned rather than just frequently renting. To that point, growing up with NBA Live conditioned me to expect teams to be sorted alphabetically by location. 2K’s method of sorting by team name thus felt strange at first, though I’m used to it now.
Another detail that I really enjoyed in the early NBA Live games was the rankings that appeared on team selection screens. Mind you, while I associate them with NBA Live given that it was the series that I primarily played as a young basketball gamer, many sim titles ranked and rated the teams in both individual categories and overall. These rankings gave way to Overall Ratings similar to the ones that players have, which didn’t feel as special, but are also nostalgic in their own way. Let’s take a look back…way back…
From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #511 of the NLSC Podcast!
What is the most important and impactful position in basketball? For that matter, is there one that stands above the rest, and has that position changed over the years? This week, both we and our listeners share our thoughts on traditional basketball roles, as well as players stepping outside of them and employing more diverse skillsets throughout the years. Naturally, we also draw comparisons to basketball video games, from Fantasy Draft preferences and overpowered players and positions to how watching and playing real hoops influences our style on the virtual hardwood.
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:07:08 — 46.5MB)
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 NBA 2K14 Retro Series continues with a re-creation of Game 6 of the 1995 Western Conference Finals between the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs! As you may recall, it was the deciding game of that iconic series, as Hakeem Olajuwon battled David Robinson with the season and a trip to the NBA Finals on the line.
As with the other games in the NBA 2K14 Retro Series, my take on Game 6 of the 1995 Western Conference Finals isn’t precise down to the last play and statistic. However, just like the real contest, it was a close one that saw the Spurs attempting some desperation shots in the waning seconds. Although The Dream and The Admiral were at the centre of things, all of the key players on both sides made big dunks, big threes, and big defensive plays in this throwback to the 90s. See for yourself!
In case you missed it, the previous entry in the NBA 2K14 Retro Series flashed back to the 2008 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers. Some more retro matchups are on the way, so stay tuned, and be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel! As always, feel free to suggest other basketball video games that you’d like to see Dee and I play as well.
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.
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!
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.
The NLSC Top 10 Plays has only been getting better and better since Dee revived it, with the community coming through with the goods week in, week out. I don’t envy the task of trying to rank all those submissions, and as Dee noted in the video description over on YouTube, the January 13th countdown has several highlights that might’ve made the top three in other weeks . Of course, that just makes for an even more exciting way to tip off another weekend of basketball gaming! Seven different games are featured this week, from Street Hoops through to NBA 2K24. 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.
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 Live that were seemingly evergreen.
When we look at the struggles that NBA Live endured for over a decade, there are two levels to our critique. The first concerns the minutia of the games; the hands-on experience, from gameplay to game modes. In other words, the technical issues and specific design choices that have resulted in titles which failed to live up to ours or EA’s expectations. That’s an important conversation to have, especially when we’ve compiled Wishlists, or otherwise sent in feedback to the developers. However, there’s also a second level in which we evaluate concepts and approach.
It’s at the conceptual level that you’ll find many evergreen issues with the NBA Live series, which have served to hold it back and take it in bad directions. It isn’t a case of laziness, a lack of knowledge, or even resources, though it could be argued that NBA Live has never received the same support from EA Sports brass as its other franchises. There are common mistakes that are present in all of the problematic NBA Live titles though, and even some of the best releases still suffer from these evergreen issues. A comeback for NBA Live will require many specific fixes and additions from a virtual basketball perspective, but conceptually, it must also break the cycle on these trends.
Today’s NBA 2K24 mod releases feature a retro court, specifically the home of the 1970 Cincinnati Royals by bctrackboi11. Download it at the link below!
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.
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 some throwback stints, as portrayed by the Xbox 360 version of NBA Live 06.
Tinkering with the rosters to set up fun scenarios and minimalist modding projects has become a staple of my retro basketball gaming. I enjoy the challenge of seeing what can be done with the assets I have at my disposal, and it’s gratifying whenever I’m able to cobble together something that I can at least get a game or two out of. Some attempts are more successful than others as far as creating playable scenarios, but if nothing else, I’ll get some interesting screenshots out of my endeavours. That’s what happened while I was on my extended retro kick with NBA Live 06 for Xbox 360.
While exploring the idea of a makeshift classic teams roster – something that fell apart thanks to a roster editing glitch that can happen way too easily – I ended up placing a number of players on their former teams, and taking some screenshots. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with those screens, but I didn’t want my efforts to go to waste, and figured that they’d come in handy for an article somewhere down the line. I may find further use for them yet, but for now, here are some throwback stints that I set up in the Xbox 360 version of NBA Live 06. Let’s take a look back…way back…
From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #510 of the NLSC Podcast!
Are the NBA 2K League competitors actually the best NBA 2K gamers in the world? Both we and the community have some thoughts on that, as well as a ridiculous comparison to real NBA players. Meanwhile, a session with Street Hoops by Black Ops Entertainment has revealed it to be a hidden gem, as we had an absolute blast with it! We also discuss the importance of the unwritten rules of sportsmanship in basketball, and thanks to the NBA Live 2001 Legends, reflect on the real and virtual accomplishments of Keith Van Horn. Finally, since we shared our basketball gaming resolutions last week, this week we open up the mailbag to find out what the community has planned for 2024.
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:16:01 — 52.6MB)
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!
NLSC Your source for basketball video games.
