NBA Full Court Press

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 roster updates for NBA Full Court Press.

While Microsoft’s NBA Inside Drive series was respectably popular in the early 2000s, many long-time gamers may forget about its predecessor, NBA Full Court Press. It’s understandable, of course. Its name didn’t spawn a series of titles like Inside Drive, Live, 2K, ShootOut, and so on, and it was also exclusive to PC. Additionally, although it has its strong points and it’s interesting to revisit it today, it didn’t have the best gameplay or most well-designed modes. I’d suggest that Microsoft made similar mistakes with NBA Inside Drive 2000, before the series took a big leap with 2002.

One of the interesting aspects of NBA Full Court Press is that it was a 1997 season title that featured 1996 season rosters. A few years earlier, it wouldn’t have been unusual for a game to launch without updated lineups and a new rookie crop, but that approach had fallen out of vogue by 1996. I’ve previously covered NBA Full Court Press with a retrospective back in 2018, but the issue of its outdated rosters deserves another look; especially because there were actually some official roster updates that I neglected to mention! Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #464 of the NLSC Podcast!

After some messing around, we were able to connect to play a co-op session of NBA Full Court Press. Although it isn’t one of the all-time classics, it’s nevertheless an intriguing game to revisit today. We’ve also got some further progress reports on modding projects, including the revival of the All-Time Teams roster for NBA Live 96. With the 30th Anniversary of NBA Jam upon us this year, we’re itching for a new release, and we’re not alone in that regard! We discuss our ideas for a hypothetical new NBA Jam, as well as the community’s responses of what they’d like to see. Finally, we make some plans for our basketball gaming rotations through the rest of February.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:10:14 — 48.6MB)

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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!

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at Microsoft’s NBA Full Court Press for PC.

NBA Full Court Press is a game that I’ve wanted to talk about in detail for some time. I’ve mentioned it in passing in previous articles, but an in-depth retrospective is long overdue. Developed by Microsoft, the game is a forerunner to the NBA Inside Drive series, and was released in 1996 as a competitor to other sim-oriented titles such as EA Sports’ NBA Live 97, and Sony Interactive’s NBA ShootOut 97 (also known as Total NBA 97). During that era, a handful of developers were throwing their hat into the ring with NBA games, and most games had their own hook or feature that made them worth checking out.

Notably a PC exclusive release, NBA Full Court Press is a game with a certain amount of flair and a few concepts of merit, but one that comes up a little short as a sim title, even for its era. At the same time, it could still be enjoyable, and some of its better ideas and features wouldn’t make their way into other NBA games for several years. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown. This week’s Five is a list of five interesting coincidences where basketball games seemingly predicted the future.

With a bit of creative thinking and hindsight, it’s not too difficult to find “correct predictions” everywhere. Take Michael Jordan’s “Total D” basketball trading card from 1995, for example. Noting that the one-time Defensive Player of the Year is still generally known more for his dunks and scoring outbursts than lockdown D, the back of the card refers to him as an “Aerial Wizard”. A reference to his high flying exploits, or a prediction of his second comeback with Washington, as well as the team’s name change a year before it was even announced? I’ll let you be the judge.

If you’re thinking rationally, you’ll have correctly written off the above suggestion as nothing more than a couple of fun coincidences. As I said though, it isn’t too difficult to take those coincidences and spin a story about them eerily predicting the future. To that end, this week’s Five is all about basketball video games that predicted one thing or another…or so it would seem. And no, the inclusion of the Charlotte Bobcats in NBA Live 2004 doesn’t count; they’d already been unveiled, and we all knew they would be making their debut the following season.

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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

As most of you are probably aware by now, with last year’s re-launch and re-branding we have officially become a website that not only covers NBA Live, but also NBA 2K, NBA Jam and basketball video games in general. While our coverage is mostly comprised of content for NBA Live, NBA 2K and NBA Jam, we will be posting content for other games from time to time and expanding our file archives to accommodate other titles.

To that end, I’ve added a new section for Other Basketball Games along with some files for Microsoft’s NBA Full Court Press, inspired by discussion of the game here in our Forum. These files are difficult to track down and were previously stashed away on Microsoft’s FTP, but are now available in our Downloads section for your convenience. If you’re in the mood for some retro gaming, check them out!

NBA Full Court Press Official Patch with 1995/1996 Rosters
NBA Full Court Press Official Patch with 1996/1997 Rosters
NBA Full Court Press Theme Pack