Features

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! 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.

It’s been one of those weeks. Sometimes, I know exactly what I want to write about in the Friday Five. Other times, Friday rolls around and I’m scrambling for a topic as the deadline approaches. I mentioned my writer’s block to Arcane, and he suggested that I talk about what I’m looking forward to at the 2015 All-Star Weekend in New York. With the announcement of the All-Star starters and reserves, and the various All-Star Saturday Night participants, it does seem like a good time to talk about just that.

Truth be told, I am definitely looking forward to the 2015 All-Star Weekend. Some years are better than others, but I generally always enjoy the NBA’s midseason classic. I have a feeling that this could be one of the better All-Star Weekends, and not just because we’ve managed to avoid sleeves on the All-Star jerseys. Without any further ado, here are five reasons why I’m looking forward to All-Star Weekend 2015.

Read More »

Following a couple of unremarkable seasons with the Sacramento Kings, and stints playing in the D-League and China, Hassan Whiteside is beginning to capture the attention of NBA fans after stringing together some impressive performances for the Miami Heat. After stepping into a more prominent role, Whiteside is averaging 12.3 ppg, 8.6 rpg, and 4 bpg for the month of January. He also registered a triple double with 14 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 blocks in the Heat’s 96-84 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Sunday.

Whiteside’s recent play certainly has the makings of feel-good story, the tale of a player finally finding his place in the big time and turning heads with some unexpected performances. His exploits certainly haven’t gone unnoticed at 2K Sports, as the latest roster update for NBA 2K15 has seen his overall jump a whopping 18 points, from 59 to 77.

As it stands, that’s one of the biggest boosts since the “Linsanity” craze saw Jeremy Lin’s overall jump from 56 to 69 back in NBA 2K12. And in some ways, Whiteside’s recent run is a little reminiscent of Lin’s emergence three years ago, from grabbing the attention of basketball fans to its impact on basketball video games.

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! 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.

Last week, I talked about the ways in which basketball video games have improved over the years. I still stand by that, and believe it to be true; beyond the advances in graphics and technology that have benefitted video games in general, basketball games have come a long way in replicating the sport. However, there are also still areas in which they leave something to be desired.

That’s what I’m taking a look at this week: five ways that basketball games haven’t improved, or at the very least, haven’t improved to the extent that we would like. They’re the nagging, lingering issues that I believe detract from games that we otherwise enjoy. Issues such as…

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! 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.

Sports games with annual releases are an interesting beast. For developers, it’s a lot of pressure: a shorter development cycle than most video games, with a goal of putting out a release that doesn’t just seem like an expansion pack. For us gamers, especially those of us who do buy those games every year, we want to see significant progress, and not feel like we haven’t gotten value for our money. No release is perfect however, and disappointment often leads to a cynical belief that the games just aren’t showing any improvement.

The fact of the matter is, basketball video games have come a long way, and shown a great deal of improvement over the years. That’s not to say that EA Sports or Visual Concepts can rest on their laurels, or that either game is currently as close to perfection as we’d like, but the improvement over the years is certainly evident. So, in this week’s Friday Five, I’m taking a look at five ways that basketball games have improved.

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! 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.

In years gone by, a few people have been upset that our Wishlists for NBA Live haven’t really paid much attention to online features. There are a couple of reasons for that: first of all, a lot of improvements to the online experience also fall under the category of gameplay fixes, and thus don’t bear repeating in another section of the Wishlist. Secondly, I have to admit that improvements related to online play don’t spring immediately to my mind, because I’m still mainly an offline player. As such, I encourage anyone who is primarily an online gamer to post their feedback, as it’s an area of the game that I’m prone to overlook.

Given the popularity of online play, the strong desire to see proper online leagues implemented, and the outcry when there was dissatisfaction over Crew Mode, I’m guessing the preference that I and many others still have for single player/offline play may be puzzling to a lot of online gamers. So, in this week’s Friday Five, I’m listing the five reasons that I rarely play online.

Read More »

We certainly love our basketball games here at the NLSC, so when it comes to modes like Dynasty, Association, and MyCAREER, some of us like to share the experience with our fellow gamers. In the Basketball Video Game Stories section of the NLSC Forum, several gamers maintain story threads chronicling their adventures and achievements in the virtual NBA. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be running a series of interviews with some of our most prominent storytellers, to get an insight into their experiences and discover why they enjoy maintaining story threads.

We’re tipping off a new year of Story Thread Interviews as we chat to Ezio Auditore, formerly known as Thierry. Ezio/Thierry has created a fair few story threads over the years – infamously so! – and definitely has some interesting things to say about his experiences. Read on for some insight and advice!

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! 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.

As we tip off a new year here at the NLSC, I still find myself in a somewhat reflective mood. As I said in my 2014 Year in Review, and a couple of times in my New Year’s messages, last year was a very good one for the site, and I’m looking forward to making 2015 even better. While preparing to do so, I naturally think back on we’ve done before: what worked and how we can make it better, as well as what hasn’t worked and how we can avoid it. That in turn got me thinking about some of the lessons that I’ve learned while running the NLSC.

So, before I get back to discussing basketball video games, compiling Top 5s, or giving opinions about the NBA, I thought I’d talk a little about some of the things that running the NLSC has taught me. I’d like to think that anyone else who’s looking to start some sort of online endeavour, be it a video gaming website, a YouTube series, or even a modding project, will be able to gain some knowledge and perspective from my experiences. Without any further ado, here are five things I’ve learned from running a video game website.

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! 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.

Another year is almost over, and with next Friday being January 2nd, this week marks the final edition of The Friday Five for 2014. It’s certainly been a fun and interesting year here at the NLSC, so I wanted to use this week’s column to reflect on the past twelve months, throw out a couple of “Best Of”/”Editor’s Picks” lists, and look ahead to what’s in store for 2015.

Before I go on, a big thank you to everyone who checks out The Friday Five each week, spreads the word about it on social media, and comments on the articles themselves. I enjoy writing the Five and (hopefully) giving you all something interesting and entertaining to read every week, so I really do appreciate your support of the feature. With that said, let’s get started with the Year In Review of 2014!

Read More »

This is Dumb Mondays, tipping off the workweek with silly facts, opinions, or predictions that you may or may not find interesting. This was originally JaoSming’s feature, but since he’s now at Visual Concepts and hard at work on 2KTV, I’ll be writing a few articles in his place. A new Monday feature may also be coming soon, so stay tuned!

If there’s one thing that sports fans can agree on, it’s that the referees are dumb. It’s not exactly a fair statement of course, as referees often have to make difficult calls and split-second decisions, with limited use of instant replay. Since no one is perfect, “dumb” is a harsh assessment of human error that unfortunately can occur at the worst possible time. Still, when a bad call goes against our favourite team, we’ll curse out the refs, calling them blind, stupid, and biased.

Bottom line, bad calls are like injuries; they’re an unfortunate part of the game that we hope not to see, but are bound to happen at some point. Therefore, I ask the question: since we want to see basketball video games continually become more and more realistic, would it be a dumb idea for them to include bad calls?

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! 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.

In this week’s Friday Five, I’m taking a look at some buzzwords that have entered common usage within the basketball gaming community. My feeling is that these words do nothing for our credibility as gamers and consumers, and only serve to stifle our ability to properly evaluate basketball games. These words are ill-defined and overused, to the point where they fail to be constructive, or in some cases, accurate.

I’d like to clarify that I’m not writing this article in an attempt to suck up to any video game developers, or indiscriminately dismiss criticism of the games themselves. That doesn’t do us any favours as consumers. However, I also believe that as a community, we should pride ourselves on having expert knowledge of basketball games, as well as the ability to properly critique and provide constructive feedback on them. To that end, here are five buzzwords that I think we need to retire, or at the very least, restrict our usage of.

Read More »

This is The Tuesday Triple! Originally, it was JaoSming’s answer to The Friday Five, but now that he’s at Visual Concepts working on 2KTV, it’s up for grabs whenever I have a topic that I’d like to cover in three points instead of five, or I can’t think of five items for a list or countdown. On this occasion, I’m using it to talk about how we handle realism in basketball video games.

Da_Czar’s creed sums it up in six words: Don’t play video games, play basketball. It’s a catchy slogan, the perfect mantra for anyone who wants to see basketball video games become as realistic as possible. For anyone who considers themselves a “sim gamer”, they’re words for us – and the developers, for that matter – to live by. Six words to eloquently and succinctly sum up what we want: realism in basketball video games, from top to bottom.

Do we really, though? Do we appreciate the realism that’s already present in basketball video games? Do we truly realise what realism means for the basketball gaming experience? Do we really know what we want?

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! 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.

BIG Moments have only been in two iterations of NBA Live to date, but I’m definitely hoping that the mode becomes a staple of the series, as it’s quickly become one of my favourite aspects of the game. I’m liking the improvements and additions that have been made in NBA Live 15, such as the hot spot challenges, scenarios where we’re invited to re-write history, and the wider variety of game situations. If there’s another element I’d like to see added to BIG Moments however, it would be historical challenges.

Now, this would be tricky to pull off, as it would require EA Sports to secure the likeness rights of various retired players. Additionally, the player that I’d most like to see represented in historical BIG Moments – Michael Jordan – is currently signed to an exclusive deal with Visual Concepts, which makes his inclusion in NBA Live impossible. However, let’s put all of that aside for a moment, and pretend that anything and everything is possible. With that in mind, here are the five historical BIG Moments that I’d like to see in NBA Live.

Read More »

This is Dumb Mondays, tipping off the workweek with silly facts, opinions, or predictions that you may or may not find interesting. This was originally JaoSming’s feature, but since he’s now at Visual Concepts and hard at work on 2KTV, I’ll be writing a few articles in his place. A new Monday feature may also be coming soon, so stay tuned!

Did you know? The PC versions of NBA Live 2003, NBA Live 2004, and a few other games in the series featured a developer console that was disabled by default. It’s true; with a quick modification of a configuration file, the console can be re-enabled and used to mess around with the game. It has limited uses compared to, say, a first person shooter, and to that end, some people might be inclined to call the whole thing dumb. But hey, this is Dumb Mondays, so let’s have some fun!

Read More »

We certainly love our basketball games here at the NLSC, so when it comes to modes like Dynasty, Association, and MyCAREER, some of us like to share the experience with our fellow gamers. In the Basketball Video Game Stories section of the NLSC Forum, several gamers maintain story threads chronicling their adventures and achievements in the virtual NBA. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be running a series of interviews with some of our most prominent storytellers, to get an insight into their experiences and discover why they enjoy maintaining story threads.

This time, I’m talking to myself…well, not really, but as someone who’s maintained a few story threads over the years, I thought that I’d offer my own answers to the questions that I’ve been posing to other story thread enthusiasts. I hope that you enjoy the insight into my experiences creating story threads for some of my favourite basketball video games!

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! 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.

From the moment that basketball video games began getting deeper and more sophisticated, properly representing a player’s abilities, skill level, and playing style through their ratings and other attributes became an important area of focus. Both EA and 2K invest a lot of time and effort – and in the case of EA’s partnership with Synergy Sports, money – in making sure that their official updates are detailed, and that player ratings are kept up to date and accurate throughout the entire league.

In years gone by however, and especially before regular official roster updates became a thing, it wasn’t uncommon to see some unusual ratings in the default rosters. Even games like NBA Jam, with its simplified and boosted player ratings, produced some noteworthy oddities. So, for this week’s Friday Five, I’m taking a look at some of the weirdest player ratings that I can recall in various basketball video games.

Read More »