NLSC Your source for basketball video games.
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 sensible roster choices that were made in classic basketball video games.
Generally speaking, roster accuracy is something that we want to see basketball video games strive for. Of course, in the days before official roster updates were common, it didn’t take long for games to become outdated. A big trade or an abrupt retirement shortly after the roster cut-off date could leave games with glaring inaccuracies. Still, we wanted the games to do their best: all of the necessary players as of the roster cut-off date, the correct players starting, and so on. Even in arcade titles, we wanted to see up-to-date squads that featured the most sensible roster choices.
To that point however, sometimes the most sensible roster choices in classic games – both simulation and arcade – have meant foregoing accuracy. In these situations, a completely accurate roster or starting lineup wouldn’t be as fun, because it would mean leaving out a player we want to take control of on the virtual hardwood. If a game lacked an inactive roster, was a sim or sim-arcade hybrid that didn’t include full lineups, or otherwise called for a break from reality, it was the right choice to make. With that in mind, here are five classic games where the developers wisely made sensible roster choices, even when it technically meant getting something wrong.
