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 another list of five brief stints that were captured for posterity in video games.
Yes, it’s time for another Five that underscores once again that basketball video games end up being interactive almanacs! Last June, I recalled five brief stints that made it into the official rosters of basketball video games, from Rasheed Wallace’s unlikely appearance as an Atlanta Hawk in NBA Ballers to Anfernee Hardaway’s frequently forgotten comeback with the Miami Heat, as seen in NBA 2K7. A combination of late releases, revised editions, and official roster updates have preserved a number of these odd stints for players that we generally picture in a different uniform.
To that point, if we’ve spent a considerable amount of time with a game – especially in the days before official roster updates – we may come to think of these brief stints as lasting much longer than they actually did. That’s definitely the case for me when it comes to at least one of the examples that I’m covering here today. As for the other brief stints, while I do remember them and that they didn’t last long, it’s still thanks to unusual and fortuitous circumstances that they were preserved in the official rosters of video games. Long-time readers will know how much I love trivia like this, so let’s not delay any further; here are five more brief stints that were captured in 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 PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 version of NBA 2K9.
I had to double-check that I hadn’t already covered NBA 2K9 in a previous Wayback Wednesday retrospective. It’s not that I won’t revisit games that I’ve already profiled if I have new thoughts to share, but if it is my second opinion, I want to acknowledge my previous take. As it happens, I specifically reflected on NBA 2K9 coming to PC, but it wasn’t a detailed retrospective. My only real commentary on the game itself was to say that it doesn’t hold up as well as its successors. Irrespective of how accurate or inaccurate that critique of NBA 2K9 is, it’s hardly an in-depth retrospective or review!
Since then, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for the games that came before NBA 2K13. NBA 2K6 and NBA 2K7 have even retroactively become a couple of my all-time favourite basketball games! However, as I’ve previously explained, I wasn’t as impressed with NBA 2K8. It felt like a misstep, a sentiment reflected in many of the contemporary reviews. In any case, I was due to revisit NBA 2K9 next, so it’s been in my rotation in anticipation of this retrospective. With that being said, does it hold up, and has it also become a retroactive favourite? 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 reflections on developing more of an appreciation for MyCAREER stories over the years.
I’ll admit that as a creature of habit, I can be resistant to change. I’d like to think that I’ve grown in that regard. For example, I’m no longer the really picky eater I was as a kid! When it comes to basketball video games, I’ve come to enjoy a number of titles that left a poor first impression, and modes that I never thought I’d be interested in. What still bothers me though is change for change’s sake, or any changes where the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. I think we can all relate to the frustration of having something we really like being drastically changed in a way we didn’t want or ask for.
That brings me to MyCAREER, and the stories that the mode has featured since 2013. Originally, I had no interest in the mode. I was a franchise gamer, after all! However, just as I overcame picky eating habits by deciding to try new cuisine, I came to enjoy MyCAREER after giving it a proper shot in NBA 2K13. A year and a new generation of consoles later, the mode introduced a narrative-driven approach, and I felt that it took away from an experience that I was now enthusiastic about. As such, I’ve been critical of MyCAREER stories, yet also fascinated by them. Now that I’ve finished all of the stories up to NBA 2K20, I now appreciate what they’ve meant for the mode.
Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee! 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, send Dee a message, or hit him up on X.
The community continues to have a blast producing wild moments on the virtual hardwood, as this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays demonstrates! A block party that turns into a bucket, a crazy shootout to end regulation, ridiculous buzzer beaters, perfectly-timed alley-oops, and devastating poster dunks, are all part of another spectacular countdown. As always, the variety extends beyond the array of highlights as eight different games are featured, from NBA Streel Vol. 2 all the way up to NBA 2K25. Without any further ado, 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 changes that NBA teams have made to their branding that I’ve found quite baffling.
Look, I’ll put my hand up and admit to being a creature of habit that sometimes needs to be pushed – or indeed, dragged kicking and screaming – through the proverbial door of change. With that being said, I do still believe that change for change’s sake opens the door to bad ideas. To quote a classic pearl of colloquial wisdom, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. That certainly applies to a number of branding changes that NBA teams have made over the years. As a Chicago Bulls fan, I’m rather lucky that they’ve kept their iconic look decades beyond the championship years!
Although I’m not as personally affected by changes that other NBA teams make to their branding, I still have my likes and dislikes when it comes to what I see when they’re on the court. It’s understandable that teams want to freshen up their look, and admittedly, there have been many times when I’ve really liked the new designs that a franchise has introduced. Other times however, an NBA team will make changes to their branding that are simply baffling, either because it feels like such a step down, or the team didn’t seem that committed to the design because they change it again soon afterwards. With that being said, here are five baffling NBA team branding changes!
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 controversy that surrounded the NBA 2K14 server shutdown.
The unfortunate reality of games with online features is that at some point, support for those titles will end. Obviously, this is a useful way for companies to push us towards buying a newer release, but in all fairness, it’s also understandable that the servers are shut down once a game’s userbase has largely moved on. Naturally, this happens even quicker with annual sports games. As much as we hate to lose online support for older classics, most gamers do move on every year, making it difficult to justify the expense and effort of maintaining the servers indefinitely.
It’s still a bummer though, especially when we’re locked out of save files and content that should be able to function in a limited capacity offline. While we’re never pleased to see the end of online support, the NBA 2K14 server shutdown ten years ago proved to be particularly controversial. Not only did it impact the way that Take-Two handled online support for future titles, but it also hinted at future controversies with a lack of communication and goodwill when it comes to the NBA 2K series. To that end, it was a significant event with lasting ramifications! 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 the notion that gamers just always complain about everything.
When you’re part of multiple fandoms, it’s interesting how the same conversations take place in every bubble. What we like is the best, so much better than the rest! We love our thing, but man, we also have some of the worst fans! We complain too much. We aren’t critical enough! Everyone pretends to like what’s new. Everyone always hates the new thing! No matter whether it’s basketball gaming or real basketball, a different genre of video games, an iconic film or TV series, or professional wrestling, I’m sure that all of these phrases sound extremely familiar.
To that point, I happened to be browsing the Mortal Kombat subreddit, and ended up reading some comments that I’ve seen the basketball gaming community utter so many times. Specifically, it was opined that the latest game in the series is always bashed unfairly, while the previous game – which itself was once subjected to the same scorn – is held up as perfect. This of course prompted someone to basically say that gamers are never happy, and constantly complain about every little thing. See what I mean about the same conversations across multiple fandoms? There is merit here, but personally, I’m tired of all the self-flagellation that we gamers partake in.
Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee! 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, send Dee a message, or hit him up on X.
It’s hardly a secret that we love dunks in the NLSC Top 10 Plays, but those aren’t the only spectacular highlights in basketball, real or virtual. To that point, dunks are actually in the minority in this week’s countdown, as the community demonstrates that an elusive layup, slick move into a jumper that finds all net, or a big defensive stop, can be just as entertaining as a slam. Dunk lovers needn’t worry however, as you’ll still see some awesome jams. There’s great variety all around this week, as seven different games from NBA 2K6 to NBA 2K25 are on display. But enough talk; 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 moments in modding that are extremely satisfying.
Needless to say, modding has long been a major part of what we do here at the NLSC. For nearly thirty years now, talented people in our community have added missing content, fixed and updated content that was in the games by default, made unofficial fixes for bugs and other issues, and created brand new experiences with amazing total conversions. These efforts have not only enhanced the virtual hardwood experience for a lot of people, but also been creatively satisfying for those who enjoy tinkering with video games. Indeed, some people mod the games more than they play them!
Naturally, modding can also be a frustrating and tedious activity. From repetitive data entry to tasks that are complex to complete and all too easy to mess up, certain parts of modding aren’t as enjoyable as others. The fun steps, breakthroughs, and technical triumphs along the way, are what keep modders going until the job is complete. As someone who has both successfully released major projects and unfortunately had others fall through for a variety of reasons, I’m quite familiar with some of the most satisfying moments in modding. To that end, here are five that I’ve experienced while messing around with some of my favourite basketball games throughout the years.
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 sharing 30 fun facts about NBA Live 95, in honour of the PC version’s 30th Anniversary.
Can you believe that it’s been some 30 years since NBA Live 95 came to PC? The calendar says so and the maths checks out, but it’s still tough to get my head around! In any case, three decades have passed since EA Sports’ basketball games made a triumphant return to PC, and in doing so, ultimately inspired the creation of the NLSC and our modding community. With that in mind – and since we didn’t end up running any “official” 30th Anniversary of NBA Live content last year – it’s only appropriate that we mark the milestone with another look back at this iconic game.
Obviously, between Wayback Wednesday, our previous anniversary content, and other features, I’ve covered NBA Live 95 rather extensively at this point. A game of its quality and importance deserves its due though, especially on an anniversary. And so, I’ve decided to compile 30 fun facts about NBA Live 95 to celebrate the occasion. As you can imagine, it’s difficult to find 30 things about the game that haven’t been said before, but there are a few points of interest that aren’t talked about all that often. Hopefully, some will be news to you! 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 why we should never say never when it comes to basketball games and modding, even though I probably will.
As a Millennial, Don Bluth movies were part of my childhood. Some of them I saw a bit later on because I was too young (or not yet born) when they first came out, but they certainly had an impact on me. That includes An American Tail, the story of a young mouse named Fievel who is separated from his family during their journey to the United States. It’s a classic children’s film with some memorable musical numbers, one of which is the uplifting “Never Say Never”. It’s one of those iconic scenes from a movie that I watched when I was very young that became embedded in my memory.
I’d like to say that the message also resonated with me. In a way it did, but I’ll admit that as much as I try to be optimistic, open-minded, and imaginative, there have been times when, like Fievel, I’ve resigned myself to the notion of “never”. To that point though, it’s refreshing when your pessimism is proven wrong, and a lesson that we should never say never…well, to some things, anyway! When it comes to basketball video games and modding, I’ve been prone to writing off possibilities out of hand. This has led to some incorrect predictions and reminders to think outside the box! So, while I’d like to pledge that I’ll never say never again, I’m sure that it will happen.
Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee! 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, send Dee a message, or hit him up on X.
The real NBA has produced some ridiculous buzzer beaters from long range this week, so it’s only appropriate that the latest edition of the NLSC Top 10 Plays reflects that trend on the virtual hardwood! In addition to those clutch shots, you’ll also find perfectly-timed alley-oops, crafty moves, and the usual assortment of thunderous poster dunks. Six different games are featured in this week’s countdown, from the often-underappreciated NBA Live 09 through to NBA 2K25. You know that our community is going to put on a show, so 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 mistakes I’ve made while working on roster mods over the years.
When it comes to modding – no matter what the game or series – it’s absolutely fine to be proud of your work. Unfortunately, this sometimes goes beyond pride and creative satisfaction, and dives straight into egotism. This goes for any mod, but I’ve noticed that roster makers whose work receives acclaim for its accuracy and quality often begin to get a big head. It’s how we come to see a long-time, well-regarded roster maker claim that Al Horford is a better, more skilled player than Hakeem Olajuwon! Seriously, how does that not utterly destroy your credibility?!?
As a roster maker for many years, such egotistical bluster and confident inaccuracy greatly bugs me. I’ve received some kind compliments about my rosters for various NBA Live titles throughout the years, so I’d like to think that I know a thing or two about basketball, the NBA, and modding. However, I’ve strived to remain humble about my work, in part because I value humility, but also because I’m well aware that I’m not infallible. Beyond any issues with ratings and lineups, I’ve made mistakes while planning and assembling roster projects, and failed to fix technical errors before public releases. To that point, here are five mistakes that I’ve made with roster mods.
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 Magic Johnson’s BIG Moment in NBA Live 14.
The eighth generation was a rough and ultimately unsuccessful attempted comeback for the NBA Live series. At the same time, those releases also demonstrated flashes of brilliance and meritorious ideas that were worthy of far better games. Appropriately, NBA Live 14 exemplifies the duality of the generation of games it tipped off, being notably flawed while also featuring some excellent concepts. That includes a couple of modes that were powered by live service content and EA Sports’ partnership with Synergy Sports, namely NBA Rewind and BIG Moments.
I ended up quite enjoying BIG Moments in NBA Live 14. Granted, that was in large part due to their brevity which allowed me to avoid becoming too bothered by all of the gameplay flaws, but I genuinely had fun with them, too! I was also pleasantly surprised to see a couple of historical BIG Moments come through, including games for Dominique Wilkins and Magic Johnson. However, Magic Johnson’s BIG Moment – which was added eleven years ago today – also showed that NBA Live 14 definitely wasn’t the best game for such a cool idea. 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 Vic Van Lier from NBA 2K16’s MyCAREER story “Livin’ Da Dream”, and media literacy in general.
When the NBA Centel’s Twitter/X was temporarily shut down in February, it led to an outpouring of support for the satirical social media account. Several teams dedicated their victories on February 26th to NBA Centel, and there was much rejoicing when it was reinstated. Unsurprisingly, the official NBA 2K account jumped on the trend, but took it a step further by including a headshot of Vic Van Lier in their tribute. While I’d normally be tempted to cite Alex Krokus’ “Life of a Meme” comic here, I have to tip my hat to 2K’s social media team for making an enjoyable reference.
Since then, NBA Centel’s account has been reinstated, which means they can go back to fooling alleged analysts into believing fictional stories. And while we’re on the subject of stories and media literacy, let’s talk about Vic Van Lier and Spike Lee’s “Livin’ Da Dream” in NBA 2K16. Quite a few people replied to 2K’s aforementioned post with memories of that tale, paying tribute to Vic Van Lier and referring to his fatal accident as one of the saddest moments in the history of MyCAREER. Look, entertainment is subjective, and we’re all entitled to our opinions. However, when it comes to Vic and NBA 2K16’s story, I have to wonder…did people pay attention?
NLSC Your source for basketball video games.
