NBA Live 2002

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 revisiting NBA Live 2002, and creating some makeshift 90s teams.

Minimalist modding has become a staple of my retro gaming. It’s a way to indulge nostalgia in multiple ways: the mechanics and aesthetics of my chosen game, the teams that I assemble, and the process of modding. I do also enjoy simply playing with the default rosters, or a roster update set in the same season as the game, for a more authentic step back in time. However, the creativity of minimalist modding so often steers me towards discovering what I can do with the content that’s available in any game that I’ve chosen to revisit.

In games such as NBA 2K6 and NBA Live 10, it’s difficult to go back to the 90s with any makeshift classic teams, at least without creating a bunch of players. After all, by that point, most the stars and role players who were active in the 90s had retired. Not all of the big names had signed on to be Legends around the time of NBA 2K6, and NBA Live 10 doesn’t have any historical teams or players at all. However, since NBA Live 2002 came out closer to the 90s and includes several stars from that decade, is it possible to cobble together some retro teams? Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 my Sacramento Kings Franchise in NBA Live 2002 for the PlayStation 2.

It recently occurred to me that while I have mentioned my NBA Live 2002 Franchise with the Sacramento Kings in previous articles – including a re-creation of it for our 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content – I’ve never actually profiled it for Wayback Wednesday. Writing about it as an example of a failed basketball gaming idea, and in a handful of other features, had me thinking that I’d already covered it in detail. That really isn’t the case though, and since I’ve reflected on my other memorable season, franchise, and career mode games, it’s only fair that it gets a proper retrospective, too!

On top of that, on a recent dig through my archives, I unearthed some screenshots and an article from my “coverage” of that NBA Live 2002 Kings Franchise, similar to the story topics in our Forum. Not only is it a blast from the past to see those again after all this time, but for the purposes of a retrospective like this, they also allow me to recall some details that have slipped my mind over the years. What I haven’t forgotten though is how much fun that NBA Live 2002 Kings Franchise was, at a time when I definitely sought distractions…even when I probably shouldn’t have been! Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 investigating some alleged cheat codes for NBA Live 2002 that are listed on various websites.

Here’s a statement that will blow your mind: you can’t believe everything that you read on the internet. I’ll give you a moment to recover from the utter shock of that revelation! In all seriousness, it’s hardly a secret that the internet is as convenient a means of spreading misinformation as it is researching verifiable facts and figures. I’m not going to delve into the Big Issues here, because that’s beyond our scope as a site dedicated to basketball gaming, and I’m not looking to court controversy. Of course, there’s plenty of hoaxes and misinformation when it comes to video games.

All genres of games are subject to what TV Tropes creatively dubs an “Urban Legend of Zelda“. Indeed, the Zelda series itself has one of the all-time famous video game hoaxes, namely the claim that the Triforce was obtainable in Ocarina of Time. Hoops titles have their own urban legends, from claims of certain players being hidden in NBA Jam when they weren’t, to supposedly unlockable modes that in reality would be too big of a selling point to tuck away as an obscure secret. And of course, like other genres, there have been fake cheat codes. I’ve discovered some questionable codes for NBA Live 2002 that bear investigating, so let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 rookies that were missing in NBA Live 2002.

Official roster updates are something that we take for granted these days, especially on console. As long as we’ve had modding tools on PC, adding missing rookies and other players – eventually complete with their proper faces – has usually been a fairly straightforward task. Of course, there’s always been value in players being added through official updates. It allows them to appear in the default rosters, and in some cases utilise correct audio. They also don’t stand out from original players, as was the case in older games with more primitive Create-a-Player functionality.

Since playing with the new rookie class is an appealing prospect every year, it’s disappointing when a noteworthy draftee is absent. In older titles, that could arguably be more frustrating than the absence of holdouts such as Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley. At least in their case, developers were unable to license them. With missing rookies, their absence came down to simply not being signed to an NBA contract in time. Funnily enough, NBA Live 2002 did include MJ as an active player due to his comeback with the Washington Wizards, while a handful of prominent rookies were missing instead. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 Michael Jordan and his time with the Washington Wizards, as well as its impact on video games.

For those keeping track, it was twenty years ago this Saturday that Michael Jordan announced that he was coming out of retirement to play for the Washington Wizards. Although it’s a chapter in his career that many people gloss over, MJ’s Wizards years did have their bright moments. His second comeback and third NBA stint overall also had an obvious effect on basketball video games, especially given his history on the virtual hardwood throughout most of the 90s. In that regard, it actually had more of an impact than when he said “I’m Back” almost 27 years ago!

As a Michael Jordan fan and avid basketball gamer who had just taken over running the NLSC, his comeback with the Wizards stands out quite vividly in my memory. Given that it’s the 20th Anniversary of a comeback that saw His Airness become a familiar face in a strange place, I felt that it would only be appropriate to reflect on both the real event, and how it affected basketball games. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 the rosters in NBA Live 2002.

As I’ve previously discussed, NBA Live 2002 is a game that I’m oddly nostalgic for. To echo the assessment I made in my 25th Anniversary of NBA Live retrospective, it’s a mixed bag. It has some problems and it wasn’t everything we hoped it would be, but it also featured some welcome improvements. It’s arguably slightly underrated, and I’ve come to look upon it more favourably over the years. Still, if you do go back and spend some time with it, the same issues that were an annoyance when the game was new will soon become apparent. I do enjoy revisiting it, though.

One of the reasons I’m nostalgic for NBA Live 2002 is that it came along at a very memorable time for me. I was entering my final year of high school, I’d just taken over as webmaster of the NLSC, and the NBA landscape was continuing to change. To that last point, Michael Jordan returned to the NBA to play for the Washington Wizards, and while I wasn’t overly thrilled with it at the time – I am a diehard Bulls fan, after all – it was obviously an interesting development. Whenever I look back through the rosters of NBA Live 2002, I’m reminded of that time in my life, and in the NBA. I’m feeling that nostalgia today, so let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 the interesting case of the fake PC version of NBA Live 2002.

As I’ve mentioned in my 25th Anniversary of NBA Live retrospective and a few other articles, NBA Live 2002 is a game that I’m oddly nostalgic for. It has its quirks and I definitely wouldn’t call it the best game of its generation, but it’s one that I did have a good amount of fun with when it was new. It was also the upcoming game when I took over the NLSC back in 2001, so it’ll always stick out in my mind for that reason. Oh, and also the fact that it was the first game in the NBA Live series not to come out on PC. That definitely made it a controversial release in our community.

For a while there however, people were reporting that a PC version of NBA Live 2002 did exist, because they’d found a pirated version of it on peer-to-peer file sharing applications. Searching for NBA Live 2002 PC on those platforms did yield results, but what was the story behind those downloads? Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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! Today, it’s a retrospective of NBA Live 2002.

NBA Live 2002 is always an interesting game for me to revisit. I played the game a lot when it was new and did get genuine enjoyment out of it, but I also recall many frustrating moments as well. As such, whenever I fire it up, the good and the bad memories come rushing back the moment the intro starts playing. It’s a game that I’ve described myself as being oddly nostalgic for given my mixed feelings towards it, and indeed the time in my life when it came out. Within our community, it proved to be a very controversial release, and altered our perception of and attitude towards the NBA Live series as much as any other title. Let’s take a look back at this infamous game!

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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 the Japanese version of NBA Live 2002, which featured Michael Jordan in a Wizards jersey on the cover.

I like to think I’m fairly knowledgeable when it comes to the history of basketball video games, but from time to time, I learn something new about one of my favourite hobbies. Back in the 90s, I had no idea that one of my favourite hoops games on the Super Nintendo, World League Basketball, was released as an NCAA game in North America. I knew about NBA Action ’98, the precursor to the NBA 2K series, but I didn’t know that the PlayStation version was titled NBA Fastbreak ’98. And I certainly didn’t know that Michael Jordan was on the Japanese cover of NBA Live 2002!

Based on the responses to a Tweet I made, it seems I’m not alone on that last point. It wasn’t until I happened across Japanese copies of NBA Live 2002 on eBay several years later that I became aware of it, as it was never referenced in any other region. It’s an interesting collectable for many reasons, from the rarity of seeing His Airness in early video games or on video game covers, to him being featured in a Wizards jersey. I was delighted to add it to my collection, knowing that it would also make for a fun Wayback Wednesday topic. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 dusting off NBA Live 2002 to see if I can reconstruct Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in Franchise Mode.

Even though it’s definitely not the pinnacle of the series, NBA Live 2002 is a game that I find myself thinking about and returning to every now and again. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a game that I’m oddly nostalgic for, in large part because of a memorable Sacramento Kings Franchise that I finally gained closure on years later. Of course, I also had a less successful Franchise experience with the Utah Jazz, in which things got a little too wacky. As I previously remarked, if I wanted to shake things up and do something a little unusual, it might’ve been more fun to try to reconstruct Michael Jordan’s championship-winning Chicago Bulls.

It’s not too late to explore that idea, though. Just as I recreated my Kings Franchise to finish it off all these years later, I thought that it’d be fun to attempt to reconstruct the core of the Jordan-led Bulls teams. Not all of the key players from those squads are still active in NBA Live 2002, but more than a couple are available to acquire. Can it be done? Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 the dominance of Shaquille O’Neal in NBA Live 2002.

If you grew up watching him play or you’re at least familiar with your NBA history, you’ll know that Shaquille O’Neal was one of the most dominant players in league history. Although he was a force to be reckoned with for over a decade, the most dominant stretch of his career came between 2000 and 2002, when he led the Los Angeles Lakers to three straight championships. Putting up huge numbers in the NBA Finals became a trend for Shaq, beginning on this day in 2000 when he scored 43 points in Game 1 against the Indiana Pacers, after scoring 46 points, 37 points, and 41 points in the opening games of the first three rounds.

As you might expect, Shaq was generally also a beast in NBA video games. He was particularly unstoppable in NBA Live 2002, especially in the hands of the unforgiving AI on higher difficulty levels. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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.

On this day in 2002, Michael Jordan became the fourth player in NBA history to score 30,000 points. His Airness did so as a member of the Washington Wizards – yes, I know I’m not supposed to mention that – but funnily enough, he set the mark in a win over the Chicago Bulls, the team with which he won six NBA championships and established himself as the greatest player of all-time. Although the career scoring feat is more historically significant, that game is perhaps more often remembered for a sequence which ended with Michael Jordan emphatically blocking Ron Mercer.

As I noted in my retrospective of NBA Live 2002, and a few other articles, it was the first game in the NBA Live series in which Michael Jordan appeared as an active player. He’d appeared in EA’s earlier basketball titles, but apart from his Roster Player stand-in, he was absent from NBA Live during his second run with the Bulls. To mark the fifteenth anniversary of MJ’s milestone game, I thought that I’d dust off NBA Live 2002 once more, and try to replicate it. 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.

I’ve been playing basketball video games for a long time now, and I know that I’m far from the only person in our community with a long history on the virtual hardwood. If you go back a long way with basketball video games, chances are you have a healthy appreciation for how far they’ve come, while also harbouring a certain amount of nostalgia for the more primitive games from yesteryear. You probably remember many of their quirks, some of which you may miss, whereas others will definitely leave you feeling very grateful that they’re no longer an issue.

Of course, we gamers have plenty of quirks of our own, whether it’s some kind of superstitious ritual with the controls (“Yeah, tapping the button at that time totally works!”), or just something we do because it’s kind of fun, such as timing movements with the soundtrack. When it comes to basketball games, there are also certain things that we old school gamers did that probably seem a bit strange and amusing to younger gamers, because technology is so much better now. Just for fun, I thought I’d make a list of some of those quirky rituals and old fashioned activities that it seems many of us old school basketball gamers indulged in at one time or another.

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As I said in my retrospective of NBA Live 2002, it’s a game that holds up a little better than I remembered. For all its flaws, for all the controversy that surrounded it as the first game in the NBA Live series not to be released on PC, it’s a game that I spent a lot of time with. Despite its problems, I can definitely say that I enjoyed playing it back in the day.

In fact, NBA Live 2002 actually produced one of my favourite basketball gaming experiences to date: a Franchise game with the Sacramento Kings. Unfortunately, as much fun as I was having playing through that first season – 82 games, twelve minutes quarters, of course – I never actually completed it. Needless to say, that save file is long gone, so there’s no chance of ever picking it up again. It’s a shame, because I was pretty close to the end of the regular season; close enough that it wouldn’t have hurt too much to sim through to the end, and then just play through the Playoffs.

When I went back and reflected upon my most memorable failed basketball gaming endeavours in The Friday Five, I mentioned that if I still had that save file for NBA Live 2002, I’d probably make some time to finish it off with a combination of simming and playing the remaining games. Well, the save file might be gone, but I still have NBA Live 2002, and an urge to do some fun stuff for the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live. You can probably see where this is going, so let’s not beat around the bush any longer. Join me as I gain some closure and finish what I started, with a helping hand from the simulation function!

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To mark the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live, we’re posting content for every game in the series, including retrospectives, patches, countdowns, and more. Whether you’re a long-time basketball gamer who grew up with the NBA Live series and would like to take a drip down memory lane, or you’ve only recently started playing basketball games and would like to learn a little about what they used to be like, we hope that you enjoy the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content here on the NLSC.

NBA Live 2002 was an interesting game for me to revisit. While I did play it a lot when it came out, and I definitely did enjoy my time with it, I also remember it being very frustrating at times. Upon replaying NBA Live 2002 to write this retrospective, I found myself encountering a lot of the issues that bugged me back in the day – and a couple that I’d forgotten about – but I also discovered that it held up a little better than I remembered. Let’s take a look back at one of the more controversial releases in the NBA Live series.

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