Tag Archives: 24/7

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 PlayStation 2 version of NBA 2K6.

Some 20 years ago, I picked up the PlayStation 2 version of NBA 2K6. Although I was a long-time NBA Live fan who was extremely satisfied with the PC version of NBA Live 06, I’d heard many good things about the NBA 2K series. Of course, for some reason, back then the PAL versions of NBA 2K were being released months after their North American launch. As such, on top of NBA Live being my brand of choice and preferring to play on PC besides, a midseason release didn’t offer much incentive to give NBA 2K a chance to win me over.

Nevertheless, while browsing at a game store sometime after the PAL release of NBA 2K6 in March 2006, the PlayStation 2 version caught my eye. I decided to try it, just to see what all the fuss was about. To be completely honest, I didn’t enjoy the game. It felt and looked too different from what I was used to, and the controls didn’t impress me. To that end, I very quickly returned it. Since then however, the Xbox 360 version of NBA 2K6 has become one of my favourite games, so I was interested to see if the PlayStation 2 release would finally win me over. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five modes that I came to enjoy after initially being uninterested in them.

As I’ve freely admitted before, I’m a creature of habit. Whether it’s sticking with my preferred mode, choosing retro gaming over a modern title, or messing around with any available historical content while on a retro kick, I’m drawn to the familiar. To that end, for a long time I was all about franchise modes. Multi-season play was a concept that many of us playing basketball games back in the 90s were keen to see, and it was a big deal when NBA Live 2000 PC brought us Franchise, complete with free agency, salary cap, the rookie Draft, and 25 seasons of play.

My enjoyment of franchise play continued as the mode evolved into Dynasty. To this day, my various franchise games remain some of my all-time favourite experiences on the virtual hardwood. At the same time, I’m not completely averse to change! Whether it’s been inspired by content creation, suggestions from my fellow basketball gamers, or just curiosity, I’ve branched out from franchise modes and ended up really enjoying playing something different. That includes modes I never expected to find appealing! I’m still interested in franchise and traditional season play, and some of these modes did ultimately turn out to be a passing fancy, but nevertheless I came to enjoy them.

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some frank thoughts on how grinding is not only antithetical to fun, but also the concept of stick skills.

It’s interesting – and honestly, a bit alarming – to see what we’ve come to accept in video games. Far too many gamers defend microtransactions, excusing them as being “optional” or “just cosmetic”, or indeed, that it’s “just business“. Excessive grinding will also be defended as a necessary part of the experience, usually suggesting that anyone that takes issue with it wants to be OP and done with a game in a week. And, since heavy grinding and microtransactions are intertwined in NBA 2K, the apologist rhetoric for both problems is likewise combined in a shameful display of shilling.

I’ll say it again. Everyone who criticises recurrent revenue mechanics understands all too well that video game development is a business, and that profits are something that a billion dollar corporation is going to strive for. We just don’t enjoy the negative effect that has on gameplay! Likewise, gamers that are fed up with releases that are a total grindfest understand the need to have a challenge and a journey. We just want it to be fair and fun, and grinding for grinding’s sake is antithetical to that. However, it’s also antithetical to the concept of testing stick skills, and the almighty mythical skill gap. We only need to cast our eyes back to some classic games to see the proof.

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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 Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version of NBA 2K8.

The tagline of NBA 2K8 was “It’s like that”. I find it extremely appropriate, though I guarantee it isn’t for the reasons that the marketing department at Take-Two intended. Instead, “it’s like that” are the frustrated words that run through my mind whenever I give NBA 2K8 a chance, and it disappoints me once again. Not to spoil the entire retrospective before I get into it, but if NBA 2K6 or NBA 2K7 had been the games to get me into the NBA 2K series – and they may well might’ve been, had I given them a fair chance back in the day – NBA 2K8 could’ve turned me off of it again.

Indeed, I’m prepared to call it one of the most overrated games in the entire series. The only reason I hesitate is because after looking at some contemporary reviews, it seems that the criticisms and unfavourable comparisons to its predecessors were being made back then, too. GameTrailers’ review even went so far as to call it a serious step backwards, and I’m inclined to agree. It’s unfortunate because the game does have a lot of good bones and enticing features, but for me, it’s been a major retro basketball gaming disappointment. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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As you’ve hopefully seen if you’re subscribed to our YouTube channel, Dee and I have uploaded several basketball gaming highlight reels recently. Between covering NBA 2K25 news and our other original content, I’ve neglected to share those uploads on the front page, so here’s a round-up of our latest work!

With my in-depth retrospective of 24/7 in this week’s Wayback Wednesday, it only made sense to share highlights from my playthroughs of the mode in NBA 2K6 and NBA 2K7. Both the Entertainer’s Basketball Classic and Legends Charity Tournament were fun ways to cap off a couple of modes that I was glad to finally delve into.

In my previous YouTube round-up bulletin, I shared Dee’s highlights from a game of NBA Superstars between the Celtics and Clippers. It wasn’t the only matchup that he played, as he also had a fun time showing out with Ja Morant and the Grizzlies, as you’ll see in this reel.

Dee and I have been making a point to connect on Parsec as often as possible as of late, and he’s compiled highlight reels from some extremely fun basketball gaming sessions. That includes a showdown of underdogs in NBA ShootOut 2004, and in a nod to the new Steph Era in NBA 2K25’s MyNBA Eras, a game between the Cavaliers and Warriors in NBA 2K17.

I’ve also uploaded highlights from a game of NBA Live 09 featuring the default placeholder Oklahoma City branding, and two games of NBA Street Homecourt: one between squads of WNBA stars, and one featuring the Coatesville All-Stars taking on the Baltimore All-Stars at Cloverdale.

Check out all of those basketball gaming highlight reels below! Don’t forget to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel if you haven’t already, and as always, be sure to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play! We’ll do our best to get them into the rotation and share the highlights with you all.

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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 various iterations of 24/7 mode in NBA 2K.

There are many features, modes, and concepts in basketball video games that are older than we may recall. To that point, MyCAREER has been a staple of NBA 2K since its debut as My Player way back in NBA 2K10; a game released in 2009. For that matter, the story-driven approach to MyCAREER has been the standard for over ten years now, debuting in NBA 2K14 Next Gen and appearing in almost three times as many games as the original version of the mode. In short, a single player career mode is nothing new at this point.

However, the concept is even older than that! While we didn’t get a fully-fledged NBA-oriented career experience until 2009, earlier games did experiment with single player campaign modes. Indeed, NBA 2K branched out into this area very early on in the series, introducing 24/7 mode in ESPN NBA Basketball (aka NBA 2K4). It was relatively short-lived as it was phased out after NBA 2K7, but it stands as a creative concept that undoubtedly paved the way for modern career modes. 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 Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version of NBA 2K7.

As someone who grew up with NBA Live, my familiarity with the series and a sense of brand loyalty often made it difficult to give other games a fair chance. Over the years, I’ve become a fan of the NBA 2K series, and have also enjoyed collecting and revisiting other titles that were competing with the NBA Live games that I played. It’s been rewarding to give them a second look – or in some cases, a first look – with fresh eyes and more of an open mind. I’m far more willing to adapt to a different style of controls than I was when the latest NBA Live was still my game of choice.

It’s why all these years later, I found myself on an extended retro kick with NBA 2K6. Indeed, it’s retroactively become one of my favourite games, and to this day, I enjoy keeping it in the rotation whenever I feel like changing up what I’m playing. With that in mind, I’ve been giving other NBA 2K games from that generation another look, to see if any of them capture my imagination as NBA 2K6 did. To that point, has its immediate successor, NBA 2K7, also succeeded in becoming one of my favourites? Let’s take a look back…way back…

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with a look at how Terry Hanson is beginning to spawn a multiverse.

When you think about it, basketball video games create a multitude of realities; a multiverse, if you will. For example, from my gaming alone, the Chicago Bulls have won their seventh championship – and sometimes an eighth title as well – on several occasions and in different seasons. In my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, I’m working on an alternate timeline spanning from the 2014 season through to today. With millions of people playing basketball video games, all manner of scenarios are happening on the virtual hardwood, repeating as new games come out and wipe the slate clean.

Technically speaking, Terry Hanson doesn’t have any “official” appearances in video games. After all, as a generated and thus fictional player, he’s not official to begin with! With that being said, he is functionally a part of the reality that has been created by my aforementioned NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, so that’s “officially” where he’s from. However, that’s not the only place that he shows up these days. My enthusiasm for this generated player – truly a Virtual Hardwood Legend – has ensured that from here on out, I’ll be doing my part in creating a Terry Hanson Multiverse. And so, I’d like to share with you how Top Floor Terry has leapt beyond his original game!

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