Tag Archives: Bulls vs. Lakers

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 Bulls vs. Blazers and the NBA Playoffs.

As I’ve mentioned in previous Wayback Wednesday retrospectives and other articles, my introduction to basketball gaming was through NBA Jam Tournament Edition, NBA Live 95, and NBA Live 96. To that end, I don’t have the same nostalgia for the NBA Playoffs series – EA’s forerunner to NBA Live – as people who got into hoops and the virtual hardwood earlier than I did. The massive jump that took place with NBA Live 95 made it difficult to truly appreciate its predecessors at first, but as I’ve collected them and given them a proper chance, they’ve definitely grown on me.

I’ve jumped around a little as I’ve covered these classics for Wayback Wednesday. I tipped things off with the Olympic spinoff Team USA Basketball, went back to the beginning with Lakers vs. Celtics, and then most recently profiled NBA Showdown. Since chronological order is already out the window and a retrospective is overdue anyway, I figured I wouldn’t waste any more time getting to Bulls vs. Blazers! The final game to bear the “NBA Playoffs” branding may have been surpassed by its successors, but it’s still a classic release. 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 paying tribute to the iconic T-Meter.

While a solid basketball video game may be able to get away with advanced controls that are complex and even contrived, the basics must be well-designed and easy to use. If shooting is clunky, or jumping on defense is useless, or trying to pass to a teammate standing next to you is somehow a chore, then the game is not mechanically sound! To that point, while free throws aren’t something that will (or at least, should) happen on every possession, they are a part of the sport as the result of infractions, and thus a basic skill that needs to be properly represented in video games.

Of course, just as certain titles have botched other fundamental aspects of basketball, developers have devised some bewilderingly terrible ways of shooting free throws on the virtual hardwood. All too often, they were needlessly complicating what should be a straightforward mechanic in the name of creativity, challenge, or trying to represent a shooting motion. What those games should’ve done – and indeed, some did – was to copy what EA Sports were doing with the T-Meter. Dated as it may seem, it remains one of my favourite mechanics for free throws. 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 NBA Showdown, with a particular focus on the Super Nintendo version.

As someone whose basketball fandom was solidified in the mid 90s, my introduction to the virtual hardwood came slightly later than other hoops gamers my age. My first basketball video games were NBA Live 95 for Super Nintendo and the PC version of NBA Jam Tournament Edition, with NBA Live 96 PC also being an early favourite. To that point, I didn’t grow up playing any games in the NBA Playoffs series; the forerunner to NBA Live. As such, while I’ve always respected their contributions to the genre, I don’t have the same nostalgia for them as I do the early NBA Live titles.

Indeed, I’ve found the NBA Playoffs games quite difficult to get into, as they lacked many of the innovations that began with NBA Live 95. They are intriguing of course, and as I’ve added some of them to my collection, it has been fun and illuminating to spend some more time with them. Although they have their quirks, I’ve come to better appreciate them, and it’s been fun noticing early versions of features that later became staples of NBA Live. NBA Showdown was the final release before the re-brand and revamp, and the Super Nintendo version has captured my interest lately. In a way, it bridged the NBA Playoffs and NBA Live series. 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 iconic call of THREE in early NBA Live games, whenever we splashed a shot from downtown.

Video game nostalgia goes way beyond what we did on the sticks. It’s the fun bonus content, and features that we couldn’t find in any other game; even ones from the same series. It’s the distinctive art styles, leading to menus and an overall aesthetic that’s a definitive time capsule for an era. It’s the catchy main menu themes and in-game music that still pop into your head decades later. And while we’re talking about auditory nostalgia, it’s also the iconic sound effects. Collecting a coin as Super Mario, Scorpion’s spear in Mortal Kombat, obtaining an item in Zelda…the list goes on.

In the early NBA Live games, one of the most memorable sound effects was the PA Announcer’s exclamation of “THREE!” whenever you nailed a three-pointer. Whether it swished home or finally dropped in after rattling around on the rim, a trey was made all the more satisfying by that excited call. Dee brought it up when we were talking about NBA Live 95 on Episode #561 of the NLSC Podcast, and as we reflected on that nostalgic sound from our early days on the virtual hardwood, I knew that I had to cover it for Wayback Wednesday. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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It’s time to enjoy some virtual hardwood highlights in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week! This is a weekly feature curated by Derek (aka Dee4Three) spotlighting the best plays from the basketball gaming community, which includes a few of our own memorable clips from time to time. Submit your clips in the Forum, or hit up Derek on Twitter!

Some familiar names and familiar games have produced another great countdown of fun highlights in this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays! However, a game making its first appearance in the Top 10 has managed to grab the number one spot this time around. While NBA 2K22 highlights are a given – that play at number four is slick from start to finish – and there are some staple retro kicks going on, with more gamers dusting off old favourites, you never know when a classic title will show up to dazzle us once more!

What was your favourite highlight this week? Sound off in the comments below, and once again, get in on the fun by sending us your spectacular moments on the virtual hardwood or blacktop. All basketball games are welcome, new and old! Also, be sure to subscribe to us on YouTube for more basketball gaming videos.

Episode #301 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! This is Part 1 of a two-part episode, as Dee4Three and I celebrate the 25th Anniversary of NBA Live. We’re covering the series’ origins through to NBA Live 06 in Part 1, with retrospectives, trivia, and personal memories. Be sure to catch Part 2 next week, when we cover NBA Live 07 through to the present!

To mark the 25th Anniversary of NBA Live, we’re taking a look back at the history of the series with retrospectives and other fun content. We’re extending those deep dive retrospectives to the NLSC Podcast, as we start at the beginning with the precursor to the NBA Live series: Lakers vs. Celtics. From there, we move on to the game that started it all – NBA Live 95 – and go through the series year by year, discussing improvements to gameplay, debuting features, modding, and the overall evolution of the series. Along the way, we share some personal anecdotes of our time with the earlier titles, and compare them to the other releases they were competing with. We also discuss how and why the quality of the early NBA Live games is too often forgotten. Part 1 ends with NBA Live 06, a significant turning point for the series that it’s still feeling the effects of today.

Tune in below!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 2:01:15 — 83.3MB)

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What are your memories of NBA Live 95 through NBA Live 06? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as suggestions for topics that you’d like to hear us discuss in future episodes. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki.

To mark the 25th Anniversary of NBA Live, we’re taking a look back at every game in the series with retrospectives and other fun content! This also includes re-running some features from our 20th Anniversary celebrations, with a few revisions. Whether you’re a long-time basketball gamer who grew up with NBA Live and are keen on taking a trip down memory lane, or you’re new to the series and want to learn about its history, we hope that you enjoy celebrating the 25th Anniversary of NBA Live here at the NLSC! First up, it’s a retrospective of NBA Live 95.

As I’ve mentioned on many occasions, NBA Live 95 is a title that’s often remembered fondly by long-time basketball gamers. Beyond its significance as the first game in the NBA Live series, it’s also generally considered to be a classic for the way it advanced the genre. Even after 25 years, it holds up remarkably well considering how far basketball video games have come. I always feel nostalgic when I dust off NBA Live 95, but I also find that I’m impressed by the quality and how much fun it can still be, given its age. Let’s look back 25 years to where it all began.

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