We’re a little light on basketball video game news this week, but there’s plenty going on in the NBA to talk about. Join Arcane and myself for Episode #69 of the NLSC Podcast!
NBA Live 14 has received a post-trade deadline roster update, but it’s a few days out of date.
We’re collecting feedback for our NBA Live 15 Wishlist. Start posting your ideas and suggestions ASAP!
A few noteworthy players have been bought out and subsequently picked up by other teams. We give our thoughts on those late season signings.
We also take a quick glance at some recent winning and losing streaks, while expressing our support for former Australian Boomers head coach Brett Brown in his current gig with the Philadelphia 76ers.
LeBron James had a big night with 61 points, though Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins wasn’t as impressed as others were by the performance. Do we agree with the Human Highlight Film?
Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash may be done for the season. Should they even consider returning at this point?
New NBA commissioner Adam Silver had some interesting things to say at the 2014 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. We comment on some of his ideas.
We wrap up this week’s show with some talk about the games we’ve been playing lately, basketball or otherwise.
Click Play to listen to the show!
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:21:49 — 43.1MB)
As always, we welcome your thoughts on this week’s show, as well as any of the topics we discussed. Feel free to hit us up in the comments below, as well as in this thread in the NLSC Forum. We also invite you to send in your mailbag submissions and topic suggestions here.
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 I’ve mentioned several times before, I’m a huge fan of Dynasty Mode, as it’s been my game mode of choice in NBA Live since it was implemented as Franchise Mode way back in NBA Live 2000. Before the game came out last year, I talked about the things that I wanted to see in NBA Live 14’s Dynasty Mode, though I did temper my expectations somewhat as I knew there was much to focus on as the development team looked to relaunch the series.
As it turns out however, I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised by what Dynasty Mode has on offer in NBA Live 14. While there are still improvements to be made, features to be added and elements to be tweaked, the mode has returned fairly well-rounded and with some pleasing additions. As such, this week I’m listing the five best things in NBA Live 14’s Dynasty Mode.
It’s that time of the week again. Join Arcane, JaoSming and myself for Episode #68 of the NLSC Podcast, where we recap the 2014 NBA trade deadline, discuss its impact on this year’s video games, talk about a new(ish) modding breakthrough and more.
The trade deadline has come and gone. NBA 2K14’s rosters have been updated, but NBA Live 14’s have not. We talk about the issues with NBA Live 14’s roster updates and reflect on EA’s good track record with NBA Live 09 and NBA Live 10.
What are some of the features that we miss from previous NBA Live and NBA 2K titles? When do we think we’ll see some of them again, if ever?
On a similar note, today’s games are fully featured, but are they truly deep, well-rounded and varied experiences?
JaoSming talks a little about a new update for NBA 2K14 that actually modifies the game’s animations.
We run down all of the deadline trades and commiserate our ill-fated predictions. Also, is being bought out the new “dealt at the deadline”?
Raymond Felton adds to the New York Knicks’ embarrassment this season.
Bill Simmons was allowed to call last week’s Boston Celtics/Los Angeles Lakers game. It was far more entertaining than the game itself.
We wrap up the episode with a couple of other news items from around the NBA.
Click Play to listen to the show!
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:24:51 — 44.0MB)
Let us know what you thought of this week’s show along with your take on any of the topics that we discussed, either in the comments below or here in the Forum. Topic suggestions and mailbag questions/comments are also welcome in this thread.
This is Dumb Fact Monday, serving up random facts about basketball video games that you may or may not find interesting.
While I am talking about playing underneath the Moon in a basketball videogame, for once I am not talking about anything Street related. This may or may not have affected me, because this week’s Dumb Fact Monday has completely confused me. I have no idea why this is in the game or if it is even on purpose. After researching it, I don’t believe this is grounded in any sort of reality or included for accuracy purposes. So please share in my confusion.
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 you may have heard in our chat with NBA Live 14 Gameplay Designer Scott O’Gallagher, the NBA Live development team at EA Tiburon is eager to get our feedback on the current game and the official patch, as well as our ideas and suggestions for NBA Live 15. As such, we’ll be compiling our NBA Live 15 Wishlist very soon.
I’ll be going into more detail when I create our official NBA Live 15 Wishlist thread in the NLSC Forum, but since Scott and the rest of the developers are interested in hearing each of our top five to ten suggestions for the game, I thought I’d use this week’s Friday Five to get the ball rolling and briefly talk about some improvements for the next NBA Live. Without any further ado, here are five things I want to see in NBA Live 15.
The 67th episode of the NLSC Podcast is out now, featuring Arcane, JaoSming and myself in the booth. Join us as we talk about our latest Ultimate Team experiences in NBA Live 14, new dunks in NBA 2K14, the 2014 NBA All-Star Weekend and more, including some brilliant segues.
The Ultra Premium Gold Pack in NBA Live 14’s Ultimate Team offers an opportunity to build a ridiculous team, but does such a shortcut have its disadvantages?
Andrew and JaoSming discuss their respective thoughts on Dynasty Mode in NBA Live 14, as well as their patch impressions.
Once again, we talk about the new tech in NBA Live 14, what needs to happen starting in NBA Live 15 and how we feel about the future of the franchise.
We also follow up on a few of JaoSming’s comments on NBA 2K14 from his mini-review in this week’s Tuesday Triple.
A new Locker Code unlocks a couple of Harrison’s Barnes dunks in NBA 2K14’s Slam Dunk Contest…well, kind of. We react.
After a Tweet got us excited about the possibility of a new NBA Jam game, it seems we’re not getting one…yet, anyway. We speculate.
We discuss a few recent events in the modding community, including a new breakthrough.
The 2014 NBA All-Star Weekend is recapped, the format of the dunk contest is criticised and a couple of our predictions escape mockery.
We wrap up the show with some trade deadline discussion. Will it be as boring as last year’s quiet deadline?
Click Play to listen to the show!
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 2:10:38 — 67.9MB)
We’re always eager to hear your feedback, so let us know what you thought of this week’s show along with your take on any of the topics that we discussed, either in the comments below or here in the Forum. Topic suggestions and mailbag questions/comments are also welcome in this thread.
This is The Tuesday Triple, where I attempt to break down random topics into three points, and maybe an “and one” if I need it. Similar to the established Friday Five by Andrew, the topics will be related to basketball video games and their communities as a whole.
Even though Andrew does a great job reviewing basketball games for the NLSC, I have never felt that any review of a basketball videogame would ever truly apply to me. At the same time, I’ve always felt my opinions on these games are so skewed that any recommendations I could make on my experiences with a game wouldn’t apply to anyone else. So, now that I have this lovely weekly feature to write, I figured I’d give it a shot and write quick reviews for my main 3 basketball games this year. NBA 2K14 on PC, NBA Live 14 on PS4, and NBA 2K14 on PS4.
EA Sports continues to provide hints and tips for NBA Live 14 as they’ve posted another tutorial video over on the game’s official Facebook page, this time focusing on defensive positioning. The video provides an overview of the on-ball defensive controls and also offers a few tips on how to effectively steal the ball and double team opponents.
Watch the defensive positioning tutorial below or check it out here on the official NBA Live Facebook page if you can’t see the embedded video. If you’d like to share any defensive tips or impressions of the game, feel free to have your say in the comments below, as well as join in the discussion in the NBA Live 14 section of the NLSC Forum.
The roster updates for NBA Live 14 have received considerable scrutiny and criticism since the game’s release, with a delay in transactions being added to the game, missing players and errors such as incorrect jersey numbers. As of the latest roster update however, the situation appears to be a little better.
In the latest roster, all players have their correct jersey numbers, which wasn’t the case as recently as earlier this week. A couple of players have also been added and no one is on a team’s roster they shouldn’t be on. Having said that, nine players are still missing from the game in the latest roster, across eight teams. A couple of those players are admittedly on 10 day contracts, but a couple of others have been on their team’s roster since September. You can check out a full list of the missing players below.
Finally, it doesn’t look as though the All-Star teams have been updated as yet, though the 2014 All-Star court and jerseys were of course added by the title update that was pushed through earlier this week. I’ve started a thread here in the NBA Live 14 section of the Forum to keep a checklist of issues with the game’s rosters, as well as collect any other feedback that we can pass along to the NBA Live development team. Feel free to post your observations, error reports, corrections and suggestions in there.
Get your kicks with the NLSC Podcast, Episode #66! Join Arcane and myself as we talk NBA Live 14 and NBA 2K14, mention some upcoming modding projects and prepare to embarrass ourselves with some predictions for the 2014 All-Star Weekend.
The big patch is out for NBA Live 14. We’ll have some more detailed impressions in the coming weeks, but for now we encourage everyone to check out our interview with Scott O’Gallagher.
Unfortunately, the NBA Live 14 demo doesn’t appear to be receiving the patch. It’s a missed opportunity, but we consider the possibility it might be technically unfeasible.
Once again, we reflect upon the depth and accuracy of professional reviews of basketball video games.
Both Andrew and Arcane have some ideas for new mods that will hopefully come to fruition in the not too distant future.
We encourage everyone to check out JaoSming’s latest Tuesday Triple, containing some excellent advice for new and experienced modders alike.
The 2014 All-Star Weekend is almost upon us! We give our thoughts on the changes to this year’s events, along with our picks for all the winners.
We wrap up the show with a couple of other NBA related topics.
Click Play to listen to the show!
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:23:44 — 45.4MB)
As always, feel free to hit us up with your thoughts on this week’s show, as well as any of the topics that we discussed, either in the comments below or here in the Forum. Topic suggestions and mailbag questions/comments are also welcome in this thread.
NBA Live 14 Gameplay Designer Scott O’Gallagher returns in another special edition of the NLSC Podcast, in which he chats to Arcane and myself about the new title update that’s just come out for NBA Live 14 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We talk about the various fixes and enhancements included in the patch, the reactions to NBA Live 14 so far, the face scans for NBA Live 15 and much more.
Click the Play button below to listen to the episode! As always, feel free to share your thoughts on this special edition of the NLSC Podcast in the comments below, as well as here in the NLSC Forum. For those who may have missed it the first time around, you can check out our pre-release interview with Scott here.
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:11:59 — 36.9MB)
The big patch for NBA Live 14 is out now on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It addresses a variety of issues from the lighting and textures to animations, control responsiveness and passing speeds. It also adds a new Shootaround mode, additional Hardwood Classics jerseys and the 2014 All-Star jerseys and court.
You can check out the full patch notes and some screenshots over on the official NBA Live 14 website, as well as below or after the jump. Feel free to share your impressions of the new title update in the comments below, as well as here in the NBA Live 14 section of the NLSC Forum.
EA Sports has published another open letter from NBA Live 14 Executive Producer Sean O’Brien, discussing the upcoming patch for the game which is expected to be pushed through next week. The letter goes into detail about some of the additions and enhancements that we can expect to see in the patch, including:
New Shootaround mode, as seen in the recent tutorial videos.
Visual upgrades including tuned lighting, with enhancements to players and uniforms.
Gameplay improvements including improved responsiveness, ball and passing physics, momentum and animations.
The 2014 All-Star court and jerseys.
Additional Hardwood Classics jerseys
The new basketball with Adam Silver’s signature.
Some changes and fixes for the camera in LIVE Season games; the default camera is now the broadcast view, rather than the player lock camera.
Various bug fixes in LIVE Season and Ultimate Team.
Sean also mentions that the game has seen over 13,000 updates from Synergy Sports, while confirming that the recent player face scans that have been mentioned on the game’s official Twitter are actually being done for NBA Live 15. On that note, Sean stresses that the work the team has been doing on the update for NBA Live 14 has not been at the expense of NBA Live 15, as all of their efforts are geared towards building for the future, while also providing some fixes for the current product.
Feel free to share your thoughts on the upcoming patch in the comments below, as well as in this thread in the NBA Live 14 section of the NLSC Forum.
As they’ve been doing for the past few weeks, EA Sports have posted another quick tutorial video for NBA Live 14, this time covering offensive playcalling. Similar to the defensive playcalling tutorial that was posted last week, the video provides an overview of the playcalling controls and a succinct rundown of how to call the advanced team specific plays, as well as run the four different types of quick motion plays.
You can watch the latest tutorial below, or check it out here over on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded video. If you’ve got any tips for offensive playcalling and strategies in NBA Live 14, feel free to share them in the comments below, as well as join in the discussion taking place in the NBA Live 14 section of the NLSC Forum.
EA Sports’ Marketer Ty Stover has Tweeted out somedetails regarding the oft-mentioned patch for NBA Live 14. He mentions that the patch, and a video explaining it, will be coming as early as Monday. The patch will include updates to lighting and gameplay, as well as add the practice mode we’ve been seeing in recent official NBA Live videos. No other details have been provided regarding the contents of the patch, or any other specific changes outside of adding the practice mode.
You can tell us your hype level for the upcoming update in the comments below or in the NBA Live 14 Forum. Thanks to TOMBA over at Operation Sports for the Tweet that brought the information out, and reporting on it.
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