Tag Archives: Celebration

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 details that made NBA Live 10 a special game.

As you may recall, in 2021 I went on a major retro gaming kick with NBA Live 10! It’s a game that I played with some enthusiasm when it was new, but I did end up putting it aside when the second patch introduced some annoying issues. However, after revisiting NBA Live 10 through Parsec sessions with Dee, as well as playing solo on my Xbox 360, I found that I had a much greater appreciation for it. In addition to following up on my 25th Anniversary of NBA Live retrospective with further thoughts, I also used the game to create a variety of Wayback Wednesday features.

I’ve put NBA Live 10 on the backburner to bring other classics into the rotation, but I still hold it in extremely high regard. Of course, there’s a bittersweet aspect to it. NBA Live 10 was the last game in the series to be widely regarded as a great release, and as such, it’s difficult to revisit it without wondering what might’ve been if not for the ill-fated attempt to reinvent the wheel in NBA Elite 11. Great gameplay and solid modes are responsible for NBA Live 10’s reputation among long-time basketball gamers, but what makes it a candidate for the best game in the NBA Live series is the attention it paid to the little details. These five details in particular made NBA Live 10 special.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown. This week’s Five is a list of five suggestions to make The Rec a friendlier and more positive experience.

After years of playing 2K Pro-Am and The Rec as part of the connected experience in MyCAREER, I’ve mostly moved on as of NBA 2K21. Sure, I won’t rule out playing online every now and again, but too many negative experiences combined with a desire to play other modes has led to little to no desire to jump on as often as I once did. In a way that’s a shame, as when The Rec and Pro-Am were fun, they were a lot of fun. The worst games were tough to endure though, and believe me, I did all I could to stomach some truly wretched virtual basketball in pursuit of good games.

With that being said, I want the online experience in NBA 2K to improve. Whether or not I ever regularly partake in the scene again, I’d like to see it become as good as it possibly can be, so that the people who do want to play online have an enjoyable time. This applies to all of the connected modes in MyCAREER – as well as online play in MyTEAM – but The Rec’s purpose as an arena for impromptu, makeshift squads means that it invites a specific brand of toxic play. From the comments I’ve seen on Twitter and Reddit, The Rec could stand to be a friendlier and more cooperative place. Here are five ways that it could possibly achieve that goal moving forward.

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