Basketball Video Games

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to basketball video games, the real NBA or another area of interest to our community, either as a list of five items or in the form of a Top 5 countdown.

All genres of video games have their bad releases. Basketball games, be they arcade or simulation oriented, are definitely not exempt from that. However, just as some bad films or television shows are guilty pleasures, so too are certain subpar video games. This week, I’m taking a look at some basketball games that are far from classics, yet are still interesting and even enjoyable in their own way.

I’d like to stress that while I’m calling these games “bad” due to their various shortcomings or the fact that they’re inferior imitations of better basketball titles, most of them do have some redeeming factors, which is what makes them entertaining. These are certainly subjective opinions, so you may not share my view on all of the games and indeed some of them have received positive reviews here and there. With that said, this is my list of five basketball games that are bad, yet still entertaining.

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It seems another week has gone by, so it’s time for another edition of The Friday Five! For those of you who are checking out The Friday Five for the first time and are wondering what it’s all about, this is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to basketball video games, the real NBA or another area of interest to our community, either as a list of five items or in the form of a Top 5 countdown.

We’re often talking about the things that we want to see added to basketball video games in terms of game modes and features. As with any gaming community, there are a lot of good ideas being thrown out there that developers would be wise to keep in mind. It should also be said that basketball game developers certainly come up with some fine ideas themselves. However, every so often a suggestion is made or a feature is introduced that just doesn’t seem like a good idea. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but these are five features that I just don’t believe are needed in basketball video games.

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It’s Friday once again, so welcome one and all to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! If you’re not familiar with The Friday Five and you’re wondering what it’s all about, this is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to basketball video games, the real NBA or another area of interest to our community, either as a list of five items or in the form of a Top 5 countdown.

Many of us have been playing basketball video games for a long time and we’ve seen them come a long way over the years. Although those old games may appear to be quite primitive now, the best of them were actually quite good for their day. Should you go back and play them today, you’ll be reminded why you spent so much time with them all those years ago. However, you’ll also be reminded of a lot of odd, quirky things that you wouldn’t expect to see in one of today’s basketball games. So, this week I’m getting nostalgic once again and taking a look back at some oddities that I remember from old school basketball titles.

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If you’re one of the many people still enjoying College Hoops 2K8 on the Xbox 360, then you’ll be pleased to learn that VTCRB has been working on a 2012/2013 roster for the game, which he has uploaded to our Downloads section. The current demo version of the roster includes 84 teams from the 2013 season and can be downloaded at the link below.

VTCRB
College Hoops 2K8 2012/2013 Roster (Xbox 360)

We’ve arrived at another Friday here at the NLSC, so here’s another edition of The Friday Five! For those of you who are checking out The Friday Five for the first time, this is feature that I post every Friday in which I discuss a variety of topics related to basketball video games, the real NBA and other areas of interest to our community, either as a list of five items or counting down a Top 5.

This week’s topic is Forgotten & Overlooked Basketball Games. I’m taking some liberties with those terms as these games aren’t necessarily that obscure and I’m sure that plenty of people do remember them, but they don’t seem to be talked about all that much and they’re games that I feel are worth reflecting upon. So, without any further ado, here are five basketball games that you may or may not remember, but hopefully will enjoy reading about.

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In the interest of expanding our file archives to cover basketball games beyond the NBA Live and NBA 2K series, and to ensure that they don’t get lost over time, I’ve added some more demos for various basketball games to our Downloads section. Please note that we will not be providing the full versions of any of these games to download, except in the unlikely event that they are re-released as freeware.

NBA Full Court Press Demo by Microsoft
NBA Action 98 Demo by Sega
NBA Jam Extreme Demo by Acclaim Entertainment
Backyard Basketball 2007 Demo by Humongous Entertainment
Fast Break College Basketball 2003 Demo by Grey Dog Software
Fast Break College Basketball 2010 Demo by Grey Dog Software
Fast Break Basketball by HeavyReign Software