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 attending a midnight launch for the PlayStation 4 here in Australia, and my first impressions of the console.
My Facebook Memories reminded me that in the early hours of November 29th 2013, I returned from a midnight launch of the PlayStation 4 at a retailer here in Australia. The console had launched in North America a couple of weeks earlier, so I’d already heard others share their initial impressions of NBA Live 14 and NBA 2K14. Needless to say, I had some concerns – especially about the former – but I tried to keep an open mind. After all, I wanted to be excited about the new generation of basketball gaming that I’d be experiencing from Day One; or near enough, anyway.
That first experience with the PlayStation 4 and two new next generation basketball video games – as well as a third title that I picked up – is certainly interesting for me to reflect upon. Suffice it to say, my feelings towards the console and at least one of those releases have changed over the years. I still have some mixed thoughts about the eighth generation, though to date I like it a lot more than the ninth! With PlayStation celebrating its 30th Anniversary, and November 29th marking 12 years since the Australian launch of the PlayStation 4, it’s a good time to look back…way back…
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…
From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #481 of the NLSC Podcast!
How long does the allure of the latest basketball game last? How often does it hold our attention until the next game comes out? This week, we’re joining the community in discussing when and why we’ve chosen to move on from the current release in recent years. We also follow up on last week’s look back at NBA Live 15 by revisiting the even more controversial NBA Live 14. Suffice to say, we were once again surprised by some of the details that we noticed! Naturally we draw a few comparisons to NBA 2K14, which we also continue to enjoy with Year 6 of MyCAREER, and a Legends season in MyGM.
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:06:30 — 46.0MB)
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!
Following our session with NBA Live 15, Dee went back a year to NBA Live 14, and put together some highlights from the game! Dee took control of the Chicago Bulls – moving an injured Derrick Rose back into the starting five – and faced Charlotte, who were in their last season as the Bobcats.
With some rough animations and other gameplay quirks, it isn’t easy to create highlights in NBA Live 14. However, Dee did a superb job of making the game look better than anyone else I’ve seen play it! From nifty midrange floaters and shots from Derrick Rose, to Jimmy Butler’s snatch-back into a jumper, to Carlos Boozer finishing strong around the rim, he pulled off some great plays. The CPU had some fine highlights of its own, and overall, Dee was able to spotlight the stronger points of an admittedly troubled release. See for yourself!
Dee and I will be discussing NBA Live 14 in this week’s NLSC Podcast, which drops this evening Australian time/tomorrow morning US time. In the meantime, you can listen to us revisit NBA Live 15 in last week’s episode. Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content, and don’t forget to hit us up with any suggestions for games that you’d like to see us play!
To mark the 25th Anniversary of NBA Live, we’re taking a look back at every game in the series with retrospectives and other fun content! This also includes re-running some features from our 20th Anniversary celebrations, with a few revisions. Whether you’re a long-time basketball gamer who grew up with NBA Live and are keen on taking a trip down memory lane, or you’re new to the series and want to learn about its history, we hope that you enjoy celebrating the 25th Anniversary of NBA Live here at the NLSC! Next up is a retrospective of NBA Live 14.
At long last, the NBA Live series returned in 2013 with NBA Live 14. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 had been left behind, with the game being a launch title for the new Xbox One and PlayStation 4. There were a lot of expectations heading into NBA Live 14, and there’s no point burying the lead here: it didn’t quite live up to them. There were bright spots and interesting ideas in the game though, so it wasn’t for a lack of effort. For better or worse, it’s still part of the series’ lineage, so it’s important that we reflect upon it; especially as we look to the future and hope that NBA Live can one day make a strong comeback. We’re on the home stretch now, so let’s get into it.
Episode #288 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! This week, Arcane and I are sharing our thoughts on the big gameplay update in Patch 1.25 for NBA Live 19, and reacting to some other recent NBA Live news.
The show tips off with a few thoughts on the NBA Finals that we knew would be outdated by the time it went live; we apologise for the jinxes! We then turn our attention to the announcement that online support will be ending for NBA Live 14 later this year, noting our surprise at how long the servers have been kept up and running. After that, we dive into Patch 1.25 for NBA Live 19. Despite the best efforts and good intentions of the developers, the tweaks unfortunately haven’t all been for the best. This leads us to once again glance ahead to NBA Live 20, and talk about what must be done for this year’s release to deliver a great game of virtual basketball.
Tune in below!
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:28:12 — 60.6MB)
What are your thoughts on Patch 1.25 for NBA Live 19 and expectations for NBA Live 20? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as suggestions for topics that you’d like to hear us discuss in future episodes. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki.
In a post over on the series’ official subreddit, the NBA Live development team has announced that online support for NBA Live 14 will be ending on November 1st, 2019. Until then, Ultimate Team and other online elements will continue to function as normal. The official announcement reads as follows:
We are sad to announce that as of November 1, 2019, NBA LIVE 14 will be retired. Until November 1, 2019, you will still be able to enjoy NBA LIVE 14 and use any existing Ultimate Team™ Points.
The decisions to retire games are never easy. Our development team and operational staff have poured their hearts into this game, and have loved seeing our community play. It is hard to see it retired, but the number of players has dwindled to a point where it’s no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping NBA LIVE 14 up and running. We hope you have gotten many hours of enjoyment out of NBA LIVE 14 and we appreciate your ongoing patronage.
NBA Live 14 was released November 19th 2013, meaning that the game will have received online support for almost six years by the time the servers are shut down. This is definitely rare among annual sports titles, although EA Sports has provided extended online support for previous NBA Live titles, including roster updates for NBA Live 10 following the cancellation of NBA Elite 11. After the issues that followed the shutdown of NBA 2K14’s servers in 2015, 2K also extended their online support period for all of their games to 27 months. Barring any changes to that policy, the servers for NBA 2K18 are set to be shut down December 31st this year.
With fewer and fewer gamers regularly playing the older releases, we can very likely expect the servers for NBA Live 15 and NBA Live 16 to be shut down within the next couple of years. We’ll be sure to post any updates on those titles as further details are made available. In the meantime, if you’re a completionist and haven’t yet acquired the Trophies/Achievements related to Ultimate Team and other online features, you may want to start grinding ASAP!
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 Ultimate Team in NBA Live 14.
The concept of Ultimate Team actually originated in EA Sports’ UEFA Champions League 2006-2007, released for the Xbox 360. It didn’t debut in the FIFA series until FIFA 09, launching in March 2009 as paid downloadable content. Other games in the EA Sports lineup began adopting their own versions of Ultimate Team, with Madden adding the mode as free DLC for Madden 10 in January 2010, and NHL 11 including it at launch. It has since become a staple game mode in EA Sports games, alongside the various franchise and career experiences.
However, with the NBA Live series being derailed by the attempted revamping and rebranding with NBA Elite 11, it wouldn’t be until the release of NBA Live 14 that we finally saw Live Ultimate Team. It was reasonably solid upon its debut, and while it hasn’t been greatly expanded upon in subsequent games, it remains a mode with a lot of potential. Let’s take a look back…way back…
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 BIG Moments, which debuted in NBA Live 14.
Since I covered NBA 2K17’s College DLC last week, I’d say it isn’t too soon to go back to the beginning of the current generation of NBA Live this time. It’s been a long time since EA Sports’ game was the premiere NBA sim, and this generation has once again seen the game rebuilding over the course of a few years, as it’s fought to regain its share of the market. The process has had its up and downs and it seems to be paying off with NBA Live 19, but even when the series was in rough shape, there were flashes of brilliance and good concepts. One of those ideas was BIG Moments.
A fresh mode that brought dynamic content to the game, BIG Moments is an idea that EA Sports could stand to revisit in future releases, even as NBA Live explores new modes of play such as LIVE Events and Court Battles. Let’s take a look back…way back…
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 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 recent episodes of the NLSC Podcast, Arcane and I have been discussing the future of NBA Live, particularly how it’s a case of “now or never” when it comes to certain features and improvements. Likewise, back in October of last year, I engaged in a little early Wishlist talk in The Friday Five, with a piece titled 5 Things NBA Live 17 Absolutely Has To Do. Suffice to say, we have some strong feelings about what we feel the series has to achieve with this year’s iteration, as do other members of the basketball gaming community.
Since it is just about time to start creating our official Wishlist threads, I thought I’d use this week’s Five to revisit the topic of what needs to be done with NBA Live. There’s obviously going to be some overlap with the previous discussions, as I haven’t changed my mind about what I believe are the most important areas that Live needs to improve in. That said, on this occasion, I’m focusing on five features that I’d like to see return, and prioritising them in the form of a Top 5 countdown. Without any further ado, let’s tip things off with number five.
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.
Generally speaking, when it comes to subpar basketball video games, we don’t have too many good things to say about them. However, even the worst basketball video games can sometimes boast really good features. Those features may not be enough to save the game from bad reviews and the scorn of basketball gamers, but they’re still worthy of recognition. Indeed, it’s frustrating to see such appealing features, and not be able to enjoy them because the rest of the product isn’t up to scratch.
Perhaps even more frustrating, however, is when those great features in bad games are never really followed up on, and end up being absent in future releases. In this week’s Friday Five, I’m taking a look at five of the best features in five of the most notably subpar basketball video games that I’ve played. Let’s begin.
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.
Well! It’s certainly shaping up to be an interesting – and somewhat controversial – offseason so far. Some big names are staying put, a few significant players are moving on, and at least one key free agent has completely changed his mind. I was considering writing about a topic related to the offseason for this week’s Friday Five, with the DeAndre Jordan situation being an obvious frontrunner. However, I can pretty much sum up my thoughts on that in ten words: it was a situation that was handled very, very badly.
Besides, as I mentioned in last week’s Five, I want to concentrate on putting out some articles about basketball video games, since that is the focus of the NLSC after all. The Finals and Playoffs offered an incentive to talk about real basketball, but as we find ourselves in the offseason and waiting for more news on both NBA Live 16 and NBA 2K16, I feel some game related topics are in order. To that end, this week I’m talking about five game modes in basketball video games that I ended up enjoying more than I thought I would. Let’s tip things off with a mode from NBA 2K!
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.
Please be advised that we have now launched the Help & Requests, Releases & Previews, Tutorials, and FAQs subforums to the NBA 2K15 section of the NLSC Forum. We’ve also added the appropriate NBA 2K15 Downloads sections to our database, ready to accept uploads from the community.
At this time, our community is still figuring out how to work with NBA 2K15 PC’s files, which are very different now that the game is a port of the PlayStation 4/Xbox One version. Nevertheless, everything is in place for when modding finally gets underway.
Please also note that the forums for NBA 2K14 and NBA Live 14 have now been moved to the Previous Games section on the Forum index.
With a steady stream of NBA Live 15 and NBA 2K15 news coming our way, we had a lot to talk about in Episode #96 of the NLSC Podcast. Join Arcane and myself as we chat about the latest developments, fully aware that there would be even more stuff to talk about not long after we finished recording.
The Return of Leftos in Episode #95 was a success, as we enjoyed talking to our good friend and getting some great info on MyGM and MyLEAGUE for the community.
We bid JaoSming a fond farewell from the NLSC Team and Podcast, and wish him all the best in his new gig at Visual Concepts.
Moving on to gaming news, we tip things off with the ratings reveals for NBA Live 15. Were we surprised by any of the initial ratings?
We discuss the latest NBA Live 15 screenshots, which have featured all 30 NBA arenas, several players, and a collection of shoes.
As we consider the future of NBA Live and what the game needs to do to continue to improve this year and beyond, we briefly segue into the topic of fanboys and haters.
NBA Live 14 has continued to receive some patches and content updates. Have they made a difference?
PlayStation 4 and Xbox One users will be able to scan their faces into NBA 2K15. Will it persuade us to invest in a PlayStation Camera?
2KTV, which will deliver content geared towards NBA 2K gamers, has been announced. Personally, we’re looking forward to JaoSming’s contributions.
Details on MyCAREER are beginning to come through. We discuss what we know so far, and whether our attitude towards the mode has changed at all.
We also know a little more about Badges in NBA 2K15, and we’re liking what we hear.
Discussion of real basketball this week includes Rajon Rondo’s coachability, a couple of players taking their talents to China, and an obligatory NBL mention.
We close the show on a story that leaves us feeling rather flushed.
Click Play to listen to the show!
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:30:56 — 48.8MB)
As always, we welcome your thoughts on this week’s show, as well as any of the topics that we discussed. Have your say in the comments below, or here in the Forum! Mailbag submissions and topic suggestions are also welcome, so feel free to hit us up in this thread.
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