The Friday Five

Welcome everyone to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! For those of you who are checking out the Friday Five for the first time, this is a weekly feature which I post every Friday, covering a variety of topics related to basketball video games, the real NBA and other subjects of interest to our community. These topics are explored either in list or Top 5 countdown format.

As the participants of this year’s Slam Dunk Contest have been announced and we’ve been giving our thoughts on the contest in recent episodes of the NLSC Podcast, I’ve decided that in this week’s Friday Five, I’ll take the opportunity to talk about the five things that I believe are needed for the dunk contest to be a truly worthy main event for All-Star Saturday Night.

Read More »

Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! This is a weekly feature appearing every Friday, in which I discuss a variety of topics related to basketball video games, the real NBA and other subjects of interest to our community, either by listing five items or counting them down in Top 5 format.

As video game technology has improved, we’ve come to expect high quality cinematic intros that immediately draw us into a game and make us want to spend hours playing it. Basketball games are no exception, with their intros ideally getting us pumped for some virtual hoops action by highlighting just how exciting the sport can be. This week, I present my picks for the five best basketball video game intros…at least so far.

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! For those of you who haven’t read any of my previous Friday Five columns, this is a relatively new feature where I discuss a range of topics related to basketball video games, the real NBA and other subjects that are relevant to our community, either in list or Top 5 countdown format.

To say that the Internet has had a major impact on video gaming is a grand understatement. One of the ways it has changed gaming is its ability to put developers in direct contact with their customers, giving gamers the opportunity to provide feedback that shapes future releases and aids in post-release support. We basketball gamers have been doing that for some time now, but we don’t always make the best use of the opportunity. These are the things we should avoid doing, the five ways we give bad feedback to basketball video game developers.

Read More »

Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! This is a new feature that comes your way every Friday, discussing five items of interest in list or countdown format, with topics covering basketball video games, the real NBA and other subjects that are relevant to our community.

With the NBA’s announcement of the starters for the 2013 NBA All-Star Game in Houston, reactions to the selections naturally raise questions about the concept of fan voting. Some fans don’t see a problem with it, while others don’t think it’s the right approach at all. For my part, I’m still in favour of fans being able to select the starting lineups and as such, here are five arguments in defense of fan voting for the All-Star Game.

Read More »

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! For the uninitiated, this is a new weekly feature appearing every Friday, discussing five items of interest in list/countdown format. Topics you can expect to see covered include issues related to basketball video games, goings on in the real NBA and other subjects of interest to our community.

This week, I’m counting down the five improvements that I believe are needed in NBA 2K’s MyCAREER mode. Although I’m traditionally more of a Dynasty and Association enthusiast, over the past couple of years I’ve been drawn in by My Player/MyCAREER and enjoyed it immensely. However, there are a couple of bothersome issues that detract from the experience, so these are the things that I’d most like to see addressed for MyCAREER in NBA 2K14 and beyond.

Read More »

Welcome to The Friday Five, a new weekly feature here at the NLSC! As the name suggests, this is a feature that will be appearing on Fridays, discussing five items in list/countdown format. Topics will naturally cover issues related to basketball video games, as well as the real NBA and other subjects that are relevant to our community.

For this first edition of The Friday Five, I’m counting down the five things I believe that basketball video games should look to avoid in future releases. Please note that I’m focusing on specific gameplay-related items that I feel are still an issue even in the best basketball games, rather than making general statements such as “sucking”, “being cancelled” or anything else that obviously goes without saying.

Read More »