NLSC Your source for basketball video games.

Pdub joins Arcane and myself for Episode #47 of the NLSC Podcast, in which we discuss the latest news and previews for NBA Live 14 and NBA 2K14, cover a few NBA related topics and even provide everyone with a public service announcement.

• Last week’s First Look trailer for NBA Live 14 provided us with our first proper glimpse of the game in action. We give our thoughts on what we saw and what we want to see.
• We also have a second NBA Live 14 screenshot to scrutinise. We’re satisfied with the shoes, but what about some other important details?
• Two NBA 2K14 Developer Diary videos were released last week, detailing gameplay and MyTEAM. We have a few thoughts on what we saw.
• Reviews for NBA 2K14 current gen are beginning to come out. We give our reactions and talk about some of the things that still concern us.
• The lack of certain features in NBA 2K14 and the absence of a demo have been unpleasant surprises for the community. Is communication an issue for 2K?
• We discuss some NBA topics including another sleeved jersey, future All-Star Weekends, Nickname Nights, “Shaqramento”, Paul George and some social media barbs.
• A couple more listener questions are answered in this week’s mailbag.

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:50:19 — 60.6MB)

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Please give us your thoughts on this week’s episode, as well as anything we discussed, either in the comments below or here in the Forum. As always, please keep those mailbag submissions coming, as we’ll be looking to answer more questions in Episode #48 next week.

IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey has posted a review of NBA 2K14 current gen. He awarded the game a score of 9.3 out of 10, citing the Pro Stick, fancy passes and defensive upgrades as some of the most significant improvements. While he laments the lack of the Dream Team and opines that Path to Greatness isn’t as fun as the Jordan Challenge or NBA’s Greatest, he does describe NBA 2K14 as being “the best hoops sim (he’s) ever played”.

Meanwhile, Episode #45 of the Press Row Podcast over at Operation Sports features an in-depth chat with Mike Wang, the Lead Gameplay Designer for NBA 2K14. It offers a great insight into the development of the game and the series in general, so be sure to give it a listen.

As always, feel free to post your thoughts in the comments below, as well as discuss the latest NBA 2K14 news and previews here in the NLSC Forum.

You may have already noticed them in the site’s navigation menu, but I’ve yet to “officially” launch them. So…drumroll please…allow me to present to you, our subsites for NBA Live 14 and NBA 2K14!

NBA Live 14 Subsite
NBA 2K14 Subsite

These sections are intended to serve as central hubs for this year’s games, with links to all of our content areas for NBA Live 14 and NBA 2K14 along with the most recent news items. You’ll also find our screenshot and video galleries there.

It appears as though a new video for NBA Live 14 won’t be coming today after all. According to this Tweet by Ty Stover, a marketer at EA Sports, the information that was posted on NBA.com was inaccurate. The listings on NBA.com’s NBA Live portal have since been updated, with no specific dates being mentioned and videos #2-9 simply advertised as “Coming Soon”.

It’s worth mentioning that EA Sports themselves did not confirm or announce that a video would be coming today, though we and several other sites reported the dates as NBA.com certainly seemed like a credible source. In any event, more previews will be on the way sooner rather than later.

Since the second trailer for NBA Live 14 is scheduled to come out today, we’ve decided to postpone recording this week’s episode of the NLSC Podcast until tomorrow so that we can discuss it along with the First Look Trailer which was released not long after we wrapped up last week’s show. As such, there’s some extra time to send in your submissions for the listener mailbag segment in Episode #47.

As always, we’ll be discussing the latest news and previews for NBA Live 14 and NBA 2K14 but if there are any other topics you’d like us to comment on, questions you’d like us to answer, predictions you’d like us to make or anything else you’re interested in hearing us talking about, let us know in the comments below or this thread in the NLSC Hub section of the Forum. You can also hit us up on our Facebook page or via Twitter.

2K Sports confirmed today via Twitter that there will be no demo for the current gen version of NBA 2K14. The reason given is that the developers “are making two unique games that harness the technology of current gen and next gen”, so it remains to be seen whether there will be a demo for the next gen version either.

This will no doubt come as a disappointment for anyone who wanted to get an early hands-on look at NBA 2K14 as well as anyone who is on the fence about getting the game, although previous NBA 2K demos have been fairly bare bones and non-indicative of the quality of the full version. In any case, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, as well as in the NBA 2K14 section of the Forum.

It appears that the review embargo has been lifted for NBA 2K14 current gen and thus far, the scores have been promising. Kotaku, GamesRadar, and Bleacher Report have their reviews up with “Should you play this game? Yes”, 9.2/10, and 4/5 being their respective scores. More reviews will inevitably show up today, so keep checking this Forum thread for them all.

FranchisePlaySports has posted some gameplay on their channel as well. This includes some normal matchups, a full-game in the LeBron mode and some MyTEAM (which is console exclusive). You can check those videos out in this Forum thread.

Finally, Aaron Holbert over at Operation Sports has posted his impressions of the game after spending the weekend with it. There are a lot of fantastic AI observations and criticisms about the game in his post, enough that I couldn’t summarize the post effectively in our Forum thread.

This will likely be a busy final week for the NBA 2K community, so keep it locked here on the main page and in our NBA 2K14 Forum for all the latest news on the game.

2K Sports’ Community Manager Chris “LD2k” Manning took on Evil Source Gaming’s Miguel Lozada in a game of NBA 2K14, which was streamed live yesterday. The game featured the Oklahoma City Thunder taking on the Houston Rockets and was followed by a Q&A session where LD2k answered questions from the community.

Interestingly, LD2k answered a question about the modding community for NBA 2K, acknowledging the outstanding work that is done and giving a shout out to Leftos at the same time. If you missed the live stream, you can watch it below or check it out here on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded video. Feel free to share your comments and impressions in the comments or in this thread in the NBA 2K14 section of the Forum.

EA Sports have released another in-game screenshot of NBA Live 14, this time featuring a close-up of cover player Kyrie Irving. In addition to showing off the level of detail on players in this year’s game, you can also make out a few details in the background, including the Cleveland Cavaliers’ mascot on the baseline. Click the thumbnail below to check out the screenshot in high resolution.

Add your thoughts in the comments below, as well as in this thread in the NBA Live 14 section of the Forum. You can find more NBA Live 14 screenshots in our gallery.

Have you been keeping up with the latest overall ratings being posted on Twitter? If not, here are the player ratings that have been posted over the past few days:

Kobe Bryant: 93
Glen Davis: 75
Caldwell Pope: 71
Steve Nash: 81
Marc Gasol: 83
Giannis Adetokunbo: 60
Rajon Rondo: 90
Klay Thompson: 76
Steven Adams: 58
Chris Paul: 94
Anthony Davis: 80
Dion Waiters: 77
Blake Griffin: 85
Ray Allen: 80
Eric Bledsoe: 82
Dwyane Wade: 92
Brandon Jennings: 83
Iman Shumpert: 82
Metta World Peace: 74
Tony Parker: 87
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist: 78
Rudy Gay: 86
Jeremy Lin: 76
Dirk Nowitzki: 84

You can check out a full list of all the ratings that have been revealed so far in this thread in the NBA 2K14 section of the Forum.

NBA.com appears to have let the cat out of the bag in regards to the release dates of the upcoming preview videos for NBA Live 14. According to the NBA Live portal on the league’s official website, the second video will be coming on September 25th, while the third video will be released on October 9th. No other specific dates are listed at this time, but a rough timetable has been provided:

• Feature Trailer #1: September (First Look Trailer, posted September 18th)
• Feature Trailer #2: September (TBA, coming September 25th)
• Feature Trailer #3: October (TBA, coming October 9th)
• Feature Trailer #4: October (TBA)
• Feature Trailer #5: October (TBA)
• Feature Trailer #6: October (TBA)
• Feature Trailer #7: November (TBA)
• Feature Trailer #8: November (TBA)
• Feature Trailer #9: November (TBA)

NBA Live 14 will be released on November 19th in North America, between the launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, so it’s possible that the ninth video will be a launch trailer. As for the First Look Trailer, a brief blog entry with some additional commentary on it can be found here over on the official website. Thanks to jmoney777 and DIRK41NOWITZKI for the heads up.

We’re wrapping up the weekend file additions with an old school release, as Hentzman has returned with a New Orleans Pelicans court update for NBA Live 2000. Download it at the link below!

Hentzman
New Orleans Pelicans 2013/2014 Court Patch

Our community has some new updates for NBA Live 08 coming your way today. looyh has released some black jerseys for the Los Angeles Lakers, while TanyaMarkovA has also released some jersey packs for the Charlotte Bobcats, Chicago Bulls and Houston Rockets, along with the Lakers’ new Hollywood Nights jersey. Download them all at the links below!

looyh
Los Angeles Lakers Black Jerseys Patch

TanyaMarkovA
Charlotte Bobcats Jersey Pack
Chicago Bulls Jersey Pack
Houston Rockets Jersey Pack
Los Angeles Lakers Hollywood Black Jersey

Still playing NBA 2K13 in the final days before NBA 2K14 comes out? Then check out the latest file additions featuring a new version of Albys’ Realistic Roster update, a face for Chris Smoove and a Hollywood Nights court for the Los Angeles Lakers. Bieberkinz has also updated the NBAE League Mod for the Xbox 360 version of NBA 2K13. Download all of the latest releases at the links below.

Albys
Albys Realistic Roster (Updated to v9.2)

kahoona
Chris Smoove Face

Bieberkinz
NBAE League Mod (Updated to v4.0)

A_Armella
Los Angeles Lakers Hollywood Nights Court

2K Sports have released the next Developer Diary, which provides an insight into MyTEAM in NBA 2K14. It talks about a couple of the new features including Tournaments and Schedule. Tournaments can be played online and offline, while Schedule sees the user replace an NBA team with their MyTEAM and play through their schedule.

The video also touts features such as changing the team name, logos, colours and jerseys, as well as the ability to play with friends and the addition of leaderboards. Check out the Developer Diary below for the full scoop and some gameplay footage, or watch it here on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded video. Got any thoughts about MyTEAM in NBA 2K14? Have your say in the comments below or in this thread in the Forum.