The Friday Five

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 examines the five best parts of retro basketball gaming.

Contrary to what you may believe given how often I’ve talked about going back and playing old titles, I’m not just about retro basketball gaming. I spend plenty of time with the latest release as well, and have the MyCAREER and MyTEAM progress in recent years to show for it. However, I’ll always advocate for retro basketball gaming, especially as it receives odd pushback from some gamers. I’ve seen more than a few people ask about getting older games to run over on the official NBA 2K subreddit, only for them to be mocked and told to just play the newest game.

Putting aside the rudeness of being so dismissive as to answer a question with an unwanted and irrelevant suggestion, there are reasons why people want to play older games, if only from time to time. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they have no interest in the latest release, or are unaware of its benefits. Of course, they may be well aware of its drawbacks as well, and seek a more enjoyable experience from an old favourite. There are pros and cons to retro basketball gaming, just as there are pros and cons to playing the newest release. I’m focusing on the pros today, because there is value in going wayback on the virtual hardwood, or sticking with a game you most enjoy.

Read More »

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 ways that Parsec is changing basketball gaming within our community.

As recently as early 2021, Dee4Three and I were struggling to remember the name of Parsec when referring to it on the NLSC Podcast. We were interested in trying out “that program” which would allow us to connect with each other and play basketball games – or indeed, any games – without official or third party servers. At long last we installed it, and from that point on, we’ve been hooked. In the months that followed, we’ve tried a multitude of games with varying degrees of success, and discovered an array of titles that will work well enough with our connections (particularly mine).

It’s incredible how fun and reliable Parsec has been. Obviously, connecting with someone on the opposite site of the world isn’t as mind-blowing as it was some 25 years ago. Still, the possibilities of Parsec are exciting, especially when it comes to basketball gaming. Dee has strongly advocated for Parsec on the NLSC Podcast, and I echo that enthusiasm as it facilitates some fantastic virtual hardwood experiences, with minimal difficulty setting up. It’s fair to say that Parsec could usher in several changes to basketball gaming. This isn’t a paid promotion, as Parsec is free. It’s full of potential for our community though, and these are five ways that we can explore that.

Read More »

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 moments in basketball gaming that were rather creepy, for one reason or another.

Halloween is looming, so just for fun, I’m reflecting on some of the creepy moments we’ve seen in various basketball video games. Generally speaking, there aren’t a lot of moments in basketball gaming that are downright horrifying. Like most sports games, they’re intended to be family friendly, and the genre doesn’t invite jump scares, gore, or other things that are inclined to scare us. I mean, the Skeleton Crew is there in NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, but they’re cartoonish Halloween decorations at the end of the day. Unless you’re very young, they’re not especially creepy.

Besides, if you’re looking for creepy stuff connected with the virtual hardwood, you really have to consider things that weren’t intentional, or aren’t immediately noticeable during gameplay. One could also consider humour and imagery that just came across as weird or uncomfortable instead. To that end, there are a few examples that we can name here, and since I’ve been mulling ideas for Halloween-themed features for at least a couple of years now, I’m going to run with five that come to mind for me. So, in the spirit of the holiday – pun fully intended – here are five moments in basketball gaming that make for creepy stories, or at least left us feeling rather weirded out.

Read More »

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 yet another list of five cover players that you may not recall.

Yes, we’ve made it to Part 3 in this series! There have been a lot of NBA video games over the years, which has resulted in a number of different cover players. Obviously, some of the greats have appeared on the covers of multiple series, or multiple games within a series. Over the years, publishers have been able to sign the NBA’s biggest names to promote their brand of virtual basketball, especially with gaming increasing in popularity, and players who grew up playing video games subsequently entering the league. Regardless, not all cover players have been superstars.

While these names may not be obscure or forgotten – again, some of them were very prominent names in their day – one may not recall that they were cover players at one point. Video game series come and go, with some games being far more popular and successful than others. In some cases, you might remember the game, but – contrary to Fort Minor’s famous song – you might not remember the name. And of course, there are regional covers that aren’t as well-known, some of which have become appealing collectibles for anyone into that sort of thing (not mentioning any names here). With that being said, let’s refresh our memories about these five former cover players.

Read More »

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 unlockables in basketball video games that shouldn’t have been locked in the first place.

I have a love/hate relationship with unlockables, particularly in basketball and pro wrestling games. The concept is fine on paper, and I definitely prefer it to paid DLC and cosmetic items tied to recurrent revenue mechanics. However, certain games do approach their unlockables better than others. Specifically, I’m not a fan of titles that require too much repetition to unlock content, and some of the WWE games back in the PlayStation 2 era were notably bad in that regard. Ideally, you shouldn’t be sick of a game by the time you’ve unlocked everything of interest.

Basketball games have tended to be fair in their approach to unlockables, but there are examples of content that frankly shouldn’t have been locked in the first place. It may be because they’ve now become impossible to unlock due to requiring a connection to servers that are no longer online. Others feel more like gatekeeping than worthwhile rewards. At the very least, they seem more like pointless busywork, and content that should be readily accessible from the first time you fire up the game. Whatever the case may be, I can think of at least five examples of unlockables that should’ve been handled differently, or not been unlockables to begin with. I’m sure I’m not alone here.

Read More »

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 drawbacks of awesome features that tend to be overlooked.

Even though I’m an advocate for deep and detailed critique, I would agree that it’s possible to veer too far into the realm of nitpicking. That doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to criticise minor annoyances, but perfection is an unrealistic standard. However, I don’t think it’s unfair to point out that some of the most awesome features we’ve seen in basketball video games have had drawbacks that we’ve overlooked. They may not be immediately apparent or a problem for everybody, but they are issues that we’ll end up noticing, and may stand out as weaknesses in aspects that we otherwise really like.

Again, despite the title that I’ve used for this article, I don’t want to come across too negatively here. After all, something we can take away from each of these examples is that the drawbacks in question didn’t prevent the features from being awesome! They are drawbacks nevertheless though, and it’s important to be able to recognise that even our favourite modes and features aren’t perfect. It’s how we constructively criticise games, and suggest ways that the experiences we enjoy can become even better. With that being said, here are five drawbacks that ultimately didn’t prevent features from being awesome, but still caused some frustration or held them back in some way.

Read More »

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 recalls fives times that basketball video games featured moments that weren’t completely family friendly.

Generally speaking, basketball games don’t push the envelope with controversial content. It’s not something the NBA is keen to sign off on, and it’s not really the genre for content that isn’t exactly family friendly. There’s no risqué material, or violence beyond hard fouls in sim titles and shoving in arcade games like NBA Jam. It’s simply not the right genre for that. If I want a more adult-themed game with combat, I’ll play a Fallout title. If it’s bawdy humour I’m after, I might dust off a game in the Leisure Suit Larry series. If I’m after something gorier, there’s always Mortal Kombat.

We play basketball games for the sport they represent, whether it’s a realistic or more cartoonish depiction of hoops. With that being said, there are a handful of times that basketball games have surprised us with content that pushed the boundaries of their family friendly rating. It’s seldom been in poor taste, and never anything close to the violence, profanity, and lewdness of some of the aforementioned games. At the same time, it’s not something you’d expect to see or hear in a game that’s aimed at all ages. I should note that this isn’t meant to be a stuffy pearl-clutching article, but rather a light-hearted reflection on unexpected content in otherwise family friendly games.

Read More »

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 fleeting moments that have been preserved in official rosters.

It’s a phrase that I’m no doubt overusing in my articles and on the NLSC Podcast, but basketball video games are interactive almanacs, preserving a snapshot of the season they were released in. It’s not always a completely accurate picture, of course. Older games didn’t receive official roster updates, and were guaranteed to be outdated by the time they were released. It’s how we ended up with players who appeared in more video games than real NBA games, or on teams they ultimately never suited up for. Nevertheless, with or without updates, games preserve a moment in NBA history.

However, depending on when the games were released and what kind of updates they received, they can end up preserving some fleeting moments. Again, this is something that could technically be said of all games at launch, but I’m referring to particularly noteworthy or unusual examples such as stints that were only accounted for due to a late release, or specific lineups that represent a very precise time. Also, although I’m technically including it as an honourable mention by noting it here, I’m foregoing the example of Michael Redd on the Mavericks, as I’ve covered it plenty of times before! With that being said, here are some fleeting moments, and the games they’re found in.

Read More »

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 basketball video games where every player is able to dunk.

I realise the three-pointer is in vogue these days, but I’m all about a flashy dunk. In fact, I’m old enough to remember when the debate was between dazzling dunks and basketball bloopers! To be fair, it’s not as though the dunk has gone completely out of style. Dunks still make the highlight reels, and many gamers who play MyCAREER and its connected modes want a build that can throw it down just as well as stroke a three. Sure, it’s only two points like any other shot within the three-point arc, and analytics insists twos are bad, but many of us are still suckers for spectacular slams.

In real life, while it’s assumed that everyone who makes it to the NBA can probably dunk – even if it’s just a rim grazer – not everybody does. Smaller players who threw it down in college tend to dunk far less in the NBA, where there are bigger and stronger defenders crowding the paint. Sim games usually reflect this, with a combination of ratings and animation packages that ensure specific players will only ever perform layups. Arcade titles naturally take liberties with reality, but even a few sim-oriented games aren’t very strict about which players can slam it home. If dunks are your thing, here are five basketball video games where every player is able to throw it down.

Read More »

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 ideas that could really benefit the modding scene.

When it comes to our modding community, there’s never been a question of talent, passion, or fantastic releases. There have been changing trends in the community throughout the years and challenges that we’ve faced, but one thing has remained the same: people are releasing some really cool stuff. Of course, there are ways that we could improve upon what we’re doing, and how we go about it. In previous articles, I’ve discussed the need to be cooperative, collaborative, and generally helpful. I like to think that we collectively do a good job of that, but things could be better.

If you look at the most impressive modding projects in the history of our community, you’ll see that they were the work of several people. Likewise, the reason that new faces are able to get involved with the hobby is that the people that came before them were willing to share knowledge and resources in the form of modding tutorials and mod templates. I’m grateful that those individuals have made those contributions in addition to their own releases, but I believe that we can do more. To that end, today I’m suggesting five ideas that could benefit the modding community, particularly in regards to big projects, working with multiple games, and helping others get started.

Read More »

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 outlines the five stages that we go through every time there’s a new basketball game release.

We’re on the road to a new basketball game release, namely NBA 2K22. Obviously, we’re all hoping for the best as far as gameplay improvements, enhancements to game modes, and a fairer approach to recurrent revenue mechanics. Alright, we probably shouldn’t hold our breath on that last point! Nevertheless, the preview season always brings a mixture of excitement, intrigue, scepticism, and cynicism. We’re hoping for good news and want to be open-minded, but we’re also leery of being disappointed, having been burned by previous releases.

Of course, we gamers – and the content creators, influencers, and pundits within gaming communities – are creatures of habit. We don’t always learn from the past, though that is admittedly a very human problem. Having covered basketball games for the NLSC for twenty years now, I’ve noticed the same cycle repeating with every game and preview season. In fact, it’s so consistent that I can apply the “five stages of grief” model to the steps we collectively go through whenever a new basketball game release is looming. Do I expect to break the cycle simply by pointing this out? No, but if nothing else, spelling it out may explain why many of us feel so cynical at times.

Read More »

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 things that I’ve learned in the twenty years that I’ve been running the NLSC.

Yes, as of yesterday, I’ve officially been running the NLSC for twenty years! It was an overwhelming thought when I realised a few years back that I’d been running the site for as long as I hadn’t been running it, and now the scales have tipped in the other direction. As I’ve been saying as I’ve hit milestone after milestone, I don’t know how long I’ll end up running the site, except to say that as long as I’m enjoying myself and am able to put in the time and effort, I’ll keep doing it. Right now, I have no plans to stop anytime soon, as it’s both a passion and an immensely satisfying creative outlet.

Of course, even though the NLSC is about having fun with basketball video games, the task of running the site hasn’t always been fun and games! I’ve connected with some great people over the years thanks to our mutual appreciation of the virtual hardwood, had tremendous opportunities such as attending community events in the USA and Canada, and produced content that I’m quite proud of. At the same time, there has been unpleasantness, difficult people, and stressful times where I’ve thought about stepping away. Still, the tough times have been learning experiences as much as the good ones, and to that end, running the NLSC has taught me these five things.

Read More »

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 items that were often included in or suggested for our old Wishlists, which now seem odd and unnecessary.

If you want to see how far basketball video games have come over the past twenty years or so, one only needs to fire up an old favourite from the turn of the millennium. If you don’t have one of those games or the necessary hardware set up, you could also take a glance at our old Wishlists. So many things that we wanted to see added to the virtual hardwood have made it into games at some point, from franchise and career modes to deeper controls and retro content. Between NBA Live and NBA 2K, many of our wishes have come true.

Not all of them have of course, and while that’s disappointing in some respects, it’s arguably a good thing in other ways. If nothing else, in hindsight some of our wishes and suggestions weren’t particularly good or useful ideas. Now, basketball gaming has obviously changed, which means our needs and desires have also evolved. It’s very easy to dump on the past because as the old saying goes, hindsight is 20/20, and not everything ages well. Still, it’s funny to look back on those Wishlists, not only to see some seemingly lofty suggestions that became a reality, but also a few ideas that NBA Live and NBA 2K simply didn’t ever need to seriously consider, let alone implement.

Read More »

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 recalls five annoying quirks with officiating in various basketball video games.

Is there a more unpopular figure in professional basketball than the referee? Perhaps the commissioner, but game-to-game, the officiating is what tends to draw the most complaints. We never want to see our favourite team lose thanks in part to a bad call, and there have been incidents over the years that have led us to question how far the officials will go in trying to influence the outcome. Of course, as my old coach always told us, you can’t rely on the officiating being perfect if you want to win games. It’s true, though it doesn’t lessen our frustration with questionable calls.

Poor officiating is something that’s difficult to represent on the virtual hardwood, as we’re already at the mercy of so many other gameplay mechanics. To that end, bad calls in basketball video games tend to be more the product of undesirable tuning and technical issues, or a deliberate attempt to maintain competitive balance, rather than an intentionally realistic element. It’s just the way it goes in most games that represent the rules of basketball realistically, but certain titles do have some annoying quirks in their officiating. Well, they’re annoying when they happen to you. When you benefit from them, you’ll probably feel like you’ve got a Scott Foster on your side!

Read More »

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 weird quirks that you can find in basketball games from the 90s.

As someone who was born in 1984 and thus grew up and became a teenager in the 90s, I have a lot of nostalgia for the decade. It’s become a popular decade to hate on, perhaps because it’s the one that people were starting to feel nostalgic for as social media really took off. Perhaps if the Internet had been a bigger thing earlier in the 90s, 60s and 70s nostalgia would be the popular subject of scorn instead. Then again, I suppose people have been railing against nostalgia for as long as they’ve been feeling nostalgic. History suggests that both of these feelings are cyclical, and inevitable.

With that being said, while nostalgia goggles are rose-coloured by design, it doesn’t mean that there’s no truth or accuracy in holding the past in high regard. No, not everything in the 90s was wonderful, but there were great shows, films, and video games, and it was a tremendous era for basketball. Combining those last two things, there were some very important basketball games released during the 90s that paved the way for even better titles. They were great for their time, and some are still quite playable today. Those 90s basketball games do have some weird quirks though, which we’re highly unlikely to see ever again. Of course, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Read More »