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.
Alley-oops are a common sight here in the NLSC Top 10 Plays, and rightfully so. However, this week’s selection of lobs is certainly special, featuring stylish and ambitious passes, incredible finishes, and one particularly ludicrous play that we discussed in the latest NLSC Podcast! And of course, there are some ankle-breaking moves sprinkled in, along with jaw-dropping dunks that didn’t need an alley-oop to get off the ground. A total of seven games are featured in this week’s countdown, ranging from NBA 07 through to NBA 2K23. 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 Part 13 in an ongoing series looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.
We’ve reached the unlucky thirteenth instalment in this series about phantom stints! Mind you, I’ve actually been rather lucky when it comes to this second run of articles all about players who only appeared on certain teams in games. As I’ve said, I thought that I’d exhausted all of the worthwhile examples after the first seven instalments. It turns out that I’d overlooked some prominent names and lesser-known players alike, but fortunately David L has been doing some research of his own, and passed along that information so that I could cover those omissions.
To that point, Part 12 covered Mike Miller, as well as four more obscure players that are likely only remembered by the most hardcore basketball fans and gamers. No judgement or gatekeeping here, of course. Even if you do recall them, I can attest to it being easy to forget that they’re examples of players who only appeared on certain teams in games! This instalment features some more familiar names, but at the same time, their phantom stints can still fly under the radar; especially when they only appear in a certain version of a game, or official roster updates have erased the stint. All the more reason to compile these lists, so that we can reflect on some fun trivia!
From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #483 of the NLSC Podcast!
We’re taking a look back at Sony’s NBA 07 for PlayStation 3 this week, after successfully connecting to play a H2H game using PS Rewired. Although it was a bit of an oddball title in many ways, it had some strong points that highlight the importance of having alternatives to NBA 2K and NBA Live. Our experience with PS Rewired also prompts us to reflect on the different ways that we’re able to connect to play basketball video games these days. We also touch on the recent Twitter debate between members of Sim Nation and the Left-Right Cheesers; you can probably guess whose side we’re on! Meanwhile, in honour of a crazy alley-oop from our NBA 07 session, this week’s mailbag is all about bad mechanics.
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 56:23 — 39.1MB)
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!
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.
Big dunks, big swats, explosive moves. That’s the theme of this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays! And when I say dunks, I’m not talking about wide open rimgrazers. You’ll see some wild alley-oops with acrobatic finishes, and some absolutely vicious poster dunks. There’s also great two-way plays, broken ankles, and even a clutch dagger in there for good measure. On top of that, there’s the usual great variety as six different games are spotlighted in the countdown including NBA in the Zone 2000, as well as NBA Live 09; a game we’ll be revisiting soon on the NLSC Podcast. 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 player absences in various basketball video games that you may not remember.
What’s a sure sign that someone has been playing basketball video games since the 90s? They remember a time when sim titles weren’t guaranteed to feature every player in the NBA! These days, the agreement with the Players’ Association allows all active players to be represented in licensed video games. Roster updates will take care of anyone who’s missing at launch, adding new players as the season progresses. Back in the day, we had to resolve player absences ourselves, either by customising our own rosters, or downloading community-made updates whenever possible.
Even if you don’t remember those days from personal experience, you’ve probably seen and heard people like me talking about them! As such, prominent examples of player absences like Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley are well-known. There have been some other noteworthy player absences through the years however, some of which have likely been forgotten. Since I enjoy NBA and basketball game trivia, I’m sharing five examples of potentially overlooked player absences that I recall. Please note that I’m referring to players who were absent when they were still active in the league, so historical players that remain unlicensed in NBA 2K don’t count here.
From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #482 of the NLSC Podcast!
What will the basketball gaming landscape look like in five years, as a new generation of consoles likely tips off? This week, we join the community in speculating on the future, from what we expect from NBA 2K to whether we anticipate NBA Live or any other competition returning. Recapping fun sessions with NBA 2K9 and NBA 2K14 leads us to reflect on why those older games hold up, and are often held in higher regard than more recent titles. We also send out our congratulations to the Denver Nuggets and their fans on the team’s first NBA Championship, reminisce about the 2009 Orlando Magic, and celebrate another outstanding Top 10 Plays of the Week.
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:15:02 — 51.9MB)
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 a PSA to hold on to your old saves whenever possible.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that more recently, I’ve preferred to stick with an old favourite – or new favourite old release, as is the case with NBA 2K14 for PS4 – rather than play the latest NBA 2K. It’s not just a matter of liking the gameplay better in older games, though admittedly that is a key factor. To be blunt, I’m tired of grinding and starting over from scratch every year, knowing that I won’t be able to enjoy the fruits of my labour when the servers are shut down. And yes, the use of the word “labour” is deliberate here, because it does end up feeling more like work than play.
And so, I’ve gravitated towards games that hold up well, and I can continue to dust off and play for years to come. Reaching my sixth year in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER is far more rewarding than anything I could achieve in NBA 2K23’s mode, which will one day be inaccessible. Retaining access to my Chicago Bulls Dynasty in NBA Live 06 PC holds far more appeal than any cards that I could collect in NBA 2K23 MyTEAM. With care, I can preserve those experiences and revisit them whenever the mood strikes, which isn’t the case when live service content is involved. However, thanks to a lack of foresight, there are long-lost saves that I’ll never be able to revisit.
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.
This week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays features a dazzling assortment of dunks – as always – but it’s not just about leaving the rim rocking. There are some incredible moves setting up the drives that culminate in those fantastic finishes, including some unique ones that you may not have ever seen before; even if you’ve spent hundreds of hours with the game! There’s also a move by Derrick Rose that shows how NBA Live 14 had promise amidst its roughness, and a play demonstrating why Terry Hanson is a Virtual Hardwood Legend. 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 factors that are drawing me towards playing older games rather than more recent titles.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have a predisposition for playing older games, basketball or otherwise. My earliest forays into gaming came with a system that was already outdated before I was born, thanks to the Video Game Crash of 1983. I’m also a creature of habit prone to sentimentality and nostalgia, so I’m not one to readily throw the past away and never look back. I didn’t always have the latest hardware growing up, so sometimes I had to stick with the older games that I could run. It’s why I was still keen to update NBA Live 96 PC as others were gearing up for NBA Live 98.
Old habits die hard, so it’s no surprise that I remain open to playing older games, even though I own and can play more recent releases. Still, it’s not just nostalgia that has me reaching for old favourites over the last few NBA 2K games. It’s part of it, sure, but in all honesty, as far as my experiences on the virtual hardwood, I’ve had more fun going back to NBA 2K14 and an assortment of other older titles. Even though I was impressed by NBA 2K23 – and all of its nostalgic content – I soon put it aside to play my favourites from yesteryear, as well as search for new retro kicks. When I reflect upon it, there are five main factors that are continually drawing me to older 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 reflecting on it being 25 years since the Chicago Bulls’ sixth championship, aka The Last Dance.
I admire fans who continue to support teams that haven’t won a championship, or even had the opportunity to compete for one by making it through to the NBA Finals. As rough as it’s been to be a Chicago Bulls fan in the 21st century, I’m comforted by the memories of watching their incredible run in the 90s. That’s not to say that I don’t want to see them get back there, but I had it pretty good growing up as a Bulls fan; far better than fans of most other teams! As such, with so many bandwagoners, and fans that follow players rather than teams, I respect loyalty to clubs despite tough times.
Of course, those memories of the glory days are getting further into the past! To put it into perspective, there were fewer years between Bill Russell’s last championship and Michael Jordan’s first, than there are between MJ’s first ring and today. Sure, that’s just how the passage of time works, but it doesn’t make it any less wild to get your head around! As the 2000s became the 2010s, and the 2010s became the 2020s, every Bulls title began passing milestones that would’ve felt like such a long time ago to a kid like me in the 90s. As an adult in 2023, it seems like it was only yesterday! And now, The Last Dance is a quarter of a century old. Let’s take a look back…way back…
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 creating clickbait content in lieu of actual news.
I’m a content creator in the basketball gaming community. I think it’s fair to claim that; I write articles, co-host a podcast, produce videos, and even occasionally create mods. To that point, I’m all too aware of the desire to see your content clicked on, downloaded, shared, and hopefully enjoyed. I realise that we all need to aim for SEO, jump on trends and hashtags, and attempt to appease whatever convoluted algorithm is steering people towards content on any given platform. I’m not puzzled as to the reasons why content creators engage in clickbait, because it’s a highly effective tactic.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a cheap, lousy practice. Mind you, if the content is at least halfway decent, then having some clickbait-y elements is somewhat excusable. Indeed, if the content is enjoyable and there’s nothing really misleading about it, you could argue that it isn’t actually clickbait. Some things are pure clickbait however, and it does exist in the basketball gaming community. With an extremely short preview season nowadays, not to mention NBA Live’s absence, it’s inevitable – and logical – to fill in the silence with speculative content. That needn’t be a problem, but it depends on how it’s presented. A lack of news is not an excuse for clickbait.
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.
I try not to say it too often so as not to diminish the meaning, but this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays is one of the best yet! The community really brought the goods with an array of flashy moves and spectacular finishes, from ankle breakers and crafty passes to rim-rocking dunks and acrobatic layups. That includes a DeAndre Jordan windmill in NBA Live 15, and a play from the 2023 NBA Finals in NBA Live 06, as set up by the NBA Live 2001 Legends. Indeed, the NBA Live series was quite popular this week, accounting for four of the eight games featured in the countdown. 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 teams that were fun to use in video games, despite being unsuccessful in real life.
Unless you’re a diehard fan of them – or looking for a challenge – you’re probably not going to choose to play with a bad team in a video game. Mediocre teams can be more enjoyable as long as they have some talent at their disposal, but they’re generally not our first choice either. We tend to gravitate towards the teams with the top stars and talent, with whom we can win games and make spectacular plays. They’re far more appealing choices in franchise modes as well, since their deeper lineups facilitate a wider variety of trades, without having to completely gut the rotation.
Of course, many unsuccessful teams throughout the years have been much better on paper. Injuries may have derailed their season, or their players might’ve been a poor fit with no chemistry. Some years the competition is particularly tough, or they’re a young team that’s still developing. Whatever the case, these teams are actually fun and interesting to play with in video games, despite their lack of success in real life. In the hands of gamers, they can overachieve well beyond the most optimistic predictions. Here are five unsuccessful teams – which for the purposes of this list, means missing the Playoffs – that were exciting and intriguing options to play with in video games.
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 role that humour plays in basketball gaming.
So, a quick note before we get into this week’s topic: yes, I do mean “humor”. I’m spelling it “humour” because Australian English, like British English, tosses the letter “u” into a bunch of words that American English doesn’t. I know it’s not an issue for most people, but I have received the occasional comment about supposed “mistakes” and “typos” in my articles because I’m not using American spelling. It’s a subject that’s bound to come up from time to time on a site discussing basketball, thanks to “centre” and “center”! In any case, humour, humor…I’m talking about the same thing.
With that out of way, humour is something that we do find in basketball video games, both sim and arcade. It obviously has its place in the genre, though the tone of a game tends to influence how heavily it leans into being humorous. Needless to say, personal preference is also a factor here. In a sim game, too much humour may have a negative effect on the atmosphere, making it feel too silly. Then again, how much is too much depends on how seriously you’re taking your virtual hoops! Conversely, arcade titles invite more humour in their presentation and gameplay, and can seem dry without it. When a game is able to strike the right balance, it adds fun to the virtual hardwood.
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.
I know what you’re thinking. Of course we have poster dunks in this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays, but that isn’t all! You’ll also see players making uncanny no-look passes, breaking ankles, spinning into crazy finishes, and taking advantage of a wild sequence off of a missed free throw to slam home the putback. Retro rosters are on display, reminding us that young Ray Allen was more than just a shooter, and that Kobe Bryant was simply incredible. On top of that, six different games are represented in the countdown, spanning a decade from NBA 2K13 to NBA 2K23. 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.
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