Tag Archives: Broadcast

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 presentation design choices in basketball video games that are rather frustrating.

I’m not the harshest critic when it comes to presentation and visuals. That’s not to say that I don’t have any standards, or that I don’t recognise inaccuracies and other issues when I see them. If I’m enjoying the on-court experience and am hooked on a mode however, that’ll factor more heavily into my overall opinion than a face that looks off, or a lack of bells and whistles in the presentation. As long as the game has that NBA vibe and TV-style presentation that mimics a real broadcast to some extent, that’s all I need. I certainly appreciate more detail, but it isn’t necessary for me to enjoy a game.

What I am bothered by are design choices with presentation that ruin the vibe, or interfere with the gameplay. There have definitely been basketball video games that have erred in this way over the years! In the best case scenario, it’s an annoyance that you can ultimately overlook, though it’s still quite apparent. In other cases however, those presentation design choices have a major impact on the gameplay, rendering a game virtually impossible to enjoy despite its positive attributes. If the presentation is lacking authentic TV branding or interviews with real player voices, I don’t mind that. These five frustrating presentation design choices, on the other hand, are problematic!

Read More »

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 lists five features that didn’t originate in NBA Live or NBA 2K.

From the mid 90s through to today, NBA Live and NBA 2K are the two biggest names as far as sim basketball games are concerned. Obviously NBA Jam and NBA Street were the top dogs in the arcade space, and there have been other series of sim titles that have produced quality releases. However, when we’re talking about the brand leader in NBA licensed sim titles, it’s been NBA Live and NBA 2K for more than a quarter of a century, with the latter taking the crown from the former during the 2000s. Of course, it hasn’t been a competition for quite some time.

Nevertheless, being the two biggest names/brand leaders in sim basketball games has meant that many of the innovations in the genre did originate with either NBA Live or NBA 2K. To that end, they’ve ended up borrowing ideas from each other, which as I’ve long maintained is actually a good thing when it comes to features that should be staples of a sim game. Of course, there are also some great features that we take for granted that didn’t originate in NBA Live or NBA 2K. Some of them are older than we think, appearing in one of their predecessors, while other times it was one of their contemporaries that beat them to the punch. Either way, another game did it first.

Read More »

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 ways that basketball gamers unnecessarily shame one another, and why it’s absurd.

No community is ever going to get along 100% of the time. There will always be disagreements, and things can get heated in the thick of competitive play. With that being said, general etiquette and decorum goes a long way, and avoids embodying the most unflattering gamer stereotypes. It’s not particularly complicated. Don’t be the jerk that sends threatening messages, or jumps on the mic to be abusive and throw out bigoted slurs. Don’t ruin the online scene on PC with your hacked, super-powered player. And of course, don’t foster a toxic atmosphere through elitist gatekeeping.

It’s bewildering that gamers shame each other over a hobby that’s meant to be fun. Obviously the competitive scene carries certain bragging rights, and if you claim to be an elite player, you’ll be fairly challenged to prove your mettle. Beyond that though, there are people in the basketball gaming community that indulge in gatekeeping over the pettiest of things. In games that offer a variety of modes and options to tailor the experience to maximise your enjoyment, there’s no wrong way to play basketball video games; at least outside of cheating and poor sportsmanship in a competitive environment. As such, it’s ridiculous to shame each other over these five matters.

Read More »

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #438 of the NLSC Podcast!

This week’s show opens with a tribute to the late, great Bill Russell, truly one of the most legendary figures in basketball history. As we catch up on what we’ve been playing recently – including another NBA 2K14 MyCAREER update – we discuss our fondness for Classic Cam, and our appreciation of its appearances in later games. We also reflect on NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC, and compare NBA Live 06 and NBA 2K6 on Xbox 360. On the heels of the First Look Trailer, the first developer blog of the preview season provided us with insights into gameplay in NBA 2K23, and we have plenty of thoughts to share! We also open up the mailbag to hear what the community thought of the blog.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:31:28 — 63.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Start your week here at the NLSC with a feature that’s dedicated to opinions, commentary, and other fun stuff related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on the broadcast camera angles, and the apparent controversy and ridiculous shaming involved with using them.

Fans are fanatical; it’s in the name! It’s fun to passionately enjoy things, but it doesn’t take much for those strong feelings to turn to tribalism and toxicity. That attitude isn’t just directed at people outside the fandom, either. There are all kinds of schisms in just about every fanbase you can imagine. Just because you like the same things, it doesn’t mean you have the same opinions, and we’re all convinced that our point of view is correct. When it comes to basketball video games, we can be really snobby about our preferences, from gameplay settings to the modes that we choose to play.

That’s why we see absurd statements like “Who even plays MyTEAM?”, when in fact it’s one of the most popular modes in NBA 2K. It’s why we see exclusively online gamers sneering at people who prefer single player experiences. “What difficulty are you playing on?” is a valid question if someone is bragging about their abilities on the virtual hardwood, but can easily turn into gatekeeping when someone is just talking about having fun with the game, which is the point of it after all. And then, there’s the mocking of choice in camera angles, particularly the broadcast cameras. I’ll just say it: it’s one of the weirdest, dumbest forms of gatekeeping I’ve seen in basketball gaming.

Read More »

2K has released the second of two trailers for NBA 2K19 this week. The latest trailer previews the broadcasters and presentation in this year’s game, and includes several highlights from cinematic angles, along with snippets of gameplay. Not surprisingly, the game’s cover players – Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, and Ben Simmons – are heavily featured in the trailer.

The trailer confirms that Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett will be returning this year to provide guest commentary. Sportswriter Bill Simmons of The Ringer also joins the broadcast team this year as a guest commentator, with the trailer providing us with a preview of some of the remarks he’ll share during games. Behind the scenes footage of his recording session is also shown.

Watch the Broadcast Trailer below, or catch it here on YouTube.

What are your thoughts? Have your say in the comments section below, and join in the discussion here in our NBA 2K19 Forum!