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 provides five more corrections to errors in previous articles.
It’s been a while since I last issued some corrections to errors I’ve made in previous articles, so that must mean I’ve been completely accurate since then! Well, possibly not, though once again going back and correcting my mistakes a couple of times now has encouraged me to be more thorough with my research and fact-checking. I’d like to think that I’ve been successful in those efforts, though when you are your own editor and fact-checker, you’re definitely at risk of oversight! Whenever that happens, the best that you can do is to be transparent and provide the necessary corrections.
Obviously, that includes editing the original articles and adding the relevant footnotes, which I recently did for my NBA Jam 99 retrospective. However, I also believe that there’s value in spotlighting my mistakes like this. It feels even more transparent, as edits to the original articles can go unread. Additionally, it gives me the opportunity to dive back into those topics with the accuracy I wish I’d had the first time around, and share some interesting stories and trivia. I’d also prefer to be someone who can admit when they’re wrong and learn from their mistakes, rather than just double-down out of foolish pride. To that end, here are five more errors in my articles that I must correct!
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 pondering another historical NBA What If, specifically what if Charles Barkley was traded to the Lakers in 1992?
When I think of Charles Barkley, I generally picture him in the Phoenix Suns’ iconic sunburst uniforms of the 90s. After all, that’s where he was playing when I started taking a keener interest in basketball. Hoop heads who have been watching longer than I have may well picture him on the Philadelphia 76ers instead, and indeed that stint accounts for half of his career. With that being said, it wouldn’t surprise me if the MVP and NBA Finals appearance in 1993 has led to those fans likewise coming to associate Chuck with the Suns more than the 76ers (or the Houston Rockets).
Of course, had a proposed trade gone through in 1992, it seems a safe bet to say that we’d have never seen Sir Charles in a Suns or Rockets uniform. For a brief moment, Charles Barkley was set to join the Los Angeles Lakers, before the deal went up in smoke. As with any What If involving legendary players, it’s fascinating trying to imagine an alternate history and all of the possible ripple effects. It’s all speculation at the end of the day, but Charles Barkley going to the Lakers is undoubtedly a huge What If, in real life and on the virtual hardwood. 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 how despite some interesting ideas here and there, MyCAREER keeps telling us the same old story.
When the Next Gen version of NBA 2K14 launched with the very first MyCAREER story, it was a bold attempt to innovate with the single player career experience. The mode had already been expanding since its debut in NBA 2K10 as My Player, but introducing a narrative with cutscenes and further role-playing elements continued to differentiate it from the franchise modes. Once 2K began working with big name filmmakers and actors, MyCAREER came to feature impressive production values and deeper stories, which I’ve come to appreciate.
There are some recurring problems with the story-driven approach to MyCAREER, of course. Not everyone is interested in flavour content like that, especially if they just want to build up a player for the online scene. The quality of the stories has varied over the years, with a few of them being very obnoxious in tone. There have been some distracting disconnections between the story and the MyPLAYER protagonist, where a very specific back story doesn’t suit the concept of avatar customisation. If nothing else, we’re not rated like we’re a future star! However, the biggest issue is that even in the best case scenario, we end up being told the same old MyCAREER story.
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.
Today is Valentine’s Day, and this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays is undoubtedly a love letter to basketball! Granted, we usually don’t like to think of rejection on Valentine’s Day, but on the court it sets up spectacular two-way plays like the ones you’ll find in the latest countdown. NBA players are also getting fancy on the blacktop, some great mods are on display, and of course, the rim is getting rocked. Eight different games are featured this time around, from NBA Live 2000 all the way through to NBA 2K26. 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 superstitions that many of us may have succumbed to while basketball gaming.
Video games and sports are interests that invite a lot of superstitions, so it’s hardly surprising that there are superstitions surrounding basketball gaming! While I don’t consider myself a particularly superstitious person, I’ll admit that there are times when I’ve engaged in unusual and illogical rituals under the pretence that they’ll somehow have an impact on the virtual hardwood, or indeed a real game being played on the other side of the world. It’s silly, I know that it’s silly, and even when a superstitious ritual “works”, I’m well aware that it wasn’t actually a factor!
Besides, while superstitions may imply a belief in supernatural forces, there’s also a psychological explanation for them. They can provide us with a sense of control, which is comforting in situations we can’t influence. There’s also evidence that lucky charms and rituals boost confidence. Free throw routines and favourite jersey numbers are good examples of this. It only makes sense that this psychology also applies to basketball gaming, with superstitions both soothing us and pumping us up when we face challenges, from technical issues to moments that test our stick skills. Therefore, there may actually be some merit to a few of these basketball gaming superstitions!
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 how my attitude towards the Courtside Comedy cutscenes in NBA Live 2003 has changed over the years.
When I wrote about NBA Live 2003’s Courtside Comedy cutscenes almost ten years ago, my perspective was definitely still influenced by the disappointment I felt back in 2002. Although I noted that they were undoubtedly nostalgic in a weird kind of way, I reiterated that the tone wasn’t ideal for a sim game. Indeed, I still feel that way! As such, I believe that dropping the silly hi-jinks in NBA Live 2004 was the right move. After all, while video games are meant to be fun and not everything has to be super serious, atmosphere is important, and unwanted silliness can easily ruin the vibe.
However, as the years have gone by, I’ve developed more of an appreciation for the Courtside Comedy cutscenes. That’s not to say that I wish they’d continued to appear in future NBA Live games – again, I do stand by my criticism of them – but they were a bold experiment that, for better or worse, were undeniably memorable. Besides, it’s not as though they were universally disliked! On top of respecting differing opinions on the Courtside Comedy cutscenes, I’ll admit to enjoying them on some level myself. Why the change of heart? 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 finding basketball gaming’s answer to Tecmo Super Bowl.
Tecmo Super Bowl is undoubtedly an iconic video game. Fully-licensed NFL teams and players, well-designed gameplay, stat tracking, and the dominance of virtual Bo Jackson, all helped cement it as a legendary release. That legend has only grown over time, thanks to emulation facilitating a modding scene that has kept the game dutifully updated and enthusiastically played right through to today. When it comes to a cult following in the retro gaming and modding scene, Tecmo Super Bowl is right up there with the original Doom games.
Basketball is my sport however, so I’m left wondering: is there an equivalent retro hoops title to Tecmo Super Bowl? For that matter, could there be? Obviously, there are a handful of old favourites still being updated, but these days those titles rarely approach the same vintage as Tecmo Super Bowl. It stands to reason. It could be argued that sim basketball games that hold up decades later didn’t come along until the mid 90s, or even the mid 2000s. Once they evolved to that point, we ended up with several great releases that remained moddable and playable years later. With that in mind, which titles could potentially be basketball gaming’s Tecmo Super Bowl?
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.
One of the best parts of the NLSC Top 10 Plays is that it’s a weekly reminder that older hoops titles needn’t be forgotten. People in the community are currently meeting up weekly to play NBA Hangtime, and those sessions have delivered another exciting alley-oop for the countdown. Elsewhere, NBA Live 19’s servers may be gone, but the spectacular moments live on. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, as five different basketball video games are featured in this week’s array of poster dunks, two-way plays, and other great virtual hardwood highlights. 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 inaccuracies regarding the All-Stars in various basketball video games.
Another All-Star Game will be upon us next week. I admit that I highly doubt I’ll be watching it. What was once a spectacular exhibition of the best players in the NBA competing in the ultimate pick-up game has turned into a boring display that we can’t even call basketball. From the lack of effort by a spoiled generation of players to ridiculous formats under the tournament-obsessed Adam Silver, the All-Star Game absolutely stinks now. It’s a damn shame, as its spits on the legacy of all the great players who paved the way for today’s “stars” to get paid $40 million to load-manage.
Whoops, I went full Grumpy Old Man there! It is tough not to grumble though, as the All-Star Game used to be something I really enjoyed. Sadly, over the past decade or so, it’s completely lost its appeal and competitive spirit. I still have fond memories of what the event used to be of course, and that also carries over to the virtual hardwood. Over the years, it’s been a blast to play with the All-Star teams in games, as well as the Rookie Challenge/Rising Stars squads when they’re available. As with many other aspects of basketball video game rosters though, the virtual All-Star teams have had some rather weird and interesting inaccuracies. Here are five that I’ve encountered!
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 going back to NBA Live 95 to trade players and create jersey swaps that represent their past stints.
Since another trade deadline is upon us, I feel like putting some players in different jerseys! Last month, I fired up NBA Live 95 for Super Nintendo to create some jersey swaps that represented future stints for a bunch of players. As I said in that article, I really enjoy the combination of video game nostalgia, NBA history, and a challenging exercise. Furthermore, I’ve always found the jersey swaps for traded players in NBA Live 95 for SNES to be a cool feature, one that I’ve come to appreciate even more on a technical level as a solution to the limited storage space on cartridges.
So, let’s talk about past stints for players that we can trade in NBA Live 95 SNES. As someone who really got into basketball in the mid 90s, I tend to associate the players from that era with the teams they were playing for when I first started watching the NBA and playing basketball video games. Of course, I soon found out that a number of players had begun their career elsewhere. It was sometimes difficult to imagine; a retroactive familiar faces in strange places situation! We can depict some of those past stints in NBA Live 95 using jersey swaps, so 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 how the door has seemingly closed on NBA Live.
Although NBA Live has remained dormant since 2019, I’ve still had plenty of reasons to write about it. Older releases have re-entered my rotation, and I’ve developed more of an appreciation for them. There are some that I’d like to dust off more often, and even mod. I’ve talked about the opportunities the series has had, and some of the ones that it’s squandered. I’ve lamented how both the series and its long-time fans deserved better. Above all, I’ve continued to champion the need for alternatives, and noted how despite numerous setbacks, somehow the door has remained open for NBA Live.
However, with the shutdown of NBA Live 19’s servers and no new release on the horizon, it feels as though the door has finally closed. I could be wrong here, and it’s certainly not the outcome that I wanted. I still believe in the importance of having at least two viable sim options on the market, and I’ll continue to advocate for that. Even if a return for NBA Live is as highly unlikely as it seems, there’s arguably still a better chance of that happening than another developer stepping up to try to compete with NBA 2K. For now though, with online support for NBA Live 19 ending and NBA Live Mobile being the last vestige of the series, the door has seemingly slammed shut.
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 easy to just default to dunks as the definitive highlight in basketball, real or virtual. However, as the variety in this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays demonstrates, we see all kinds of spectacular moments in hoops! We’re ending January with a bang as poster dunks are joined by self alley-oops, ankle-breakers, a heave from midcourt, and game-winning shots. Some cool mods are also on display, including retro NBA rosters and classic NCAA teams. These plays from NBA 2K14, NBA 2K16, and NBA 2K26 are ready to get you hyped for a weekend of basketball gaming, 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 improvements in basketball video games that I believe are somewhat underappreciated.
Basketball video games have come a long way, in ways that are extremely obvious. Technological improvements have allowed them to look more realistic, include more modes, content, and features, and generally achieve more accuracy throughout the years. However, the little things do matter, and often go a long way in making games more enjoyable. Of course, sometimes the big improvements are underappreciated as well, particularly if we focus on their potential drawbacks rather than how they’ve benefitted the genre.
If nothing else, some milestone improvements are underappreciated because they’ve been a part of basketball video games for so long, leading us to simply expect to see them and thus take them for granted. As such, I’d like to spotlight five improvements that I believe are underappreciated these days. Sure, they’ve become standard features so they’re not necessarily exciting anymore, and it’s not as though we need to grovel in gratitude. Nevertheless, they still deserve recognition for improving the games and pushing them forward. As someone who has been playing basketball games since the 90s, I’d suggest that these five improvements are among the most underappreciated.
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 30 years since I bought the PC version of NBA Jam Tournament Edition, aka NBA Jam TE.
These days, I have a sizeable collection of basketball video games – I’m overdue to take a new photo with the additions that I’ve made since 2022 – but it all had to start somewhere! As it happens, I purchased my very first basketball video game 30 years ago yesterday. That game was of course NBA Jam Tournament Edition, or NBA Jam TE as it’s also commonly known. A minor technical issue prevented me from playing it on January 27th 1996, but a day later that was all sorted, so today marks 30 years since I hit the virtual hardwood in NBA Jam Tournament Edition for the first time.
Needless to say, as one of the earliest titles that turned my interest in basketball and basketball gaming into full-blown fandom – some might say obsession – NBA Jam Tournament Edition is an all-time nostalgic favourite. It certainly helps that just like the original NBA Jam, it still holds up superbly three decades later. Of course, even if I wasn’t able to enjoy it today, it’d still be a special part of my history with the virtual hardwood and real hoops alike. As such, I’ll never pass up the opportunity to reflect on it, especially on a milestone anniversary! 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 how NBA 2K gamers that are still playing on Last Gen consoles deserve better.
I’ll admit that I’m surprised we’re still seeing NBA 2K come out for the Last Gen consoles. Back in 2023, I speculated that we might be reaching the end of the road for NBA 2K on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, based on the minimal previews and lack of substantial post-release support. Obviously that didn’t turn out to be the case, with NBA 2K25 and NBA 2K26 both receiving Last Gen releases. While I wouldn’t be shocked if the series leaves PS4 and X1 behind in 2026, there’s actually a decent chance that NBA 2K27 will still be released on those consoles.
And you know what? I have absolutely no problem with that! Although I can play the New Gen version on my PlayStation 5 or PC, plenty of people don’t have that option, either by choice or circumstance. To that end, I truly loathe the elitist attitude that a contingent of Next Gen/New Gen gamers display, from mocking people for financial hardship to believing that Last Gen gamers don’t deserve a good product. The fact of the matter is that everyone who is still playing NBA 2K on a Last Gen console for whatever reason has deserved better than what they’ve received and how they’ve been treated the last few years. Only a shameless corporate shill would argue otherwise.
NLSC Your source for basketball video games.
