Tag Archives: DOSBox

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 modding projects that we could undertake to enhance retro basketball gaming.

As I’ve said before, we’re keen advocates of retro gaming and modding here at the NLSC! We’ll always cover new games and support the modding community in any way that we can, but we have a deep appreciation for the classics and don’t want there to be any stigma to revisiting them. There’s unquestionably a dedicated group of basketball gamers who feel as we do. One only has to look at the people who have been playing and updating NBA 2K14 PC for over a decade, or johnz1’s modding projects for NBA Jam: On Fire Edition.

Indeed, considering that our founders were providing tools for NBA Live 95 when NBA Live 96 was already out, modding has been helping to breathe new life into older titles since our community was formed! Quite a few of my modding projects have also centred around keeping old releases alive, from my earliest forays into modding NBA Live 96 to keeping the last four PC versions of NBA Live updated after the series went console-only. As I’ve been leaning more and more into my predisposition for retro gaming – and noticed others sharing that interest – I’ve been thinking about modding projects that would enhance the experience. Here are five!

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #602 of the NLSC Podcast!

Customer service, value for money, and quality products are topics that are on our minds this week. This comes in the wake of an eBay purchase that unfortunately became a deeply unpleasant transaction. After sharing that horror story, we do have some far more positive news about a successful upgrade to Windows 11, with old favourites still being playable on the new OS. We also discuss the big patch for NBA 2K26 failing to make the game better (and indeed, arguably making it worse). As we point out, some of the changes also have financial ramifications for MyCAREER and MyTEAM gamers. The show wraps up with some quick 2026 NBA predictions, though we’re admittedly still more excited to watch classic games.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 51:05 — 35.4MB)

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!

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 mouse controls in basketball video games.

I’ve observed some unusual gatekeeping when it comes to PC gaming, basketball or otherwise. There are some people who feel that multi-button gamepads are a console idea; that a true PC gamer uses the keyboard and mouse for their controls. I’m not a fan of gatekeeping at the best of times, but this particular stance has always puzzled me. As someone who grew up playing games on PC in the 90s, joysticks, gamepads, and steering wheels were all highly desirable among hardcore gamers. Peripherals were as much a thing for PC as they were for consoles, if not more so!

Of course, by that time, mice had basically become a standard peripheral. I don’t know anyone who had a home computer in the 90s – one that was manufactured in that decade, at any rate – that wasn’t using a mouse. Beyond their use in navigating the operating system, they were also gaming devices. Indeed, the point-and-click genre of adventure games is based entirely around the use of a mouse; it’s right there in the name! With that being said, they weren’t the ideal peripheral for more action-oriented titles such as sports games, yet mouse controls were actually supported on the virtual hardwood. 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 some thoughts on whether it’s better to play retro basketball games on original hardware, or via emulation.

My first foray into emulation actually happened around 1994, though I wasn’t too familiar with the term or concept back then. I was trying to get Commander Keen – a legendary platformer and true classic of vintage PC gaming – to run on an Archimedes Acorn desktop, using an official DOS emulator. I wasn’t nearly as computer savvy as I’d later become, so I failed in the attempt. I had more success a few years later when I was checking out one of the early Super Nintendo emulators for PC, which was also DOS-based. I recall feeling underwhelmed though, especially with the lack of audio.

These days, emulation has come a long way, to the point where the emulators for many consoles can mimic original hardware near-perfectly. Not only that, but they also have other enhancements including save states, media capture, visual filters, and so on. That’s led to some debate among retro gamers as to whether it’s preferable to play on original hardware or simply rely on emulation. Needless to say, the latter does raise some ethical and indeed legal questions, but assuming that you can play a game you own on the original hardware or an emulator, which method is superior? As far as the virtual hardwood is concerned, for me, it depends on my needs at any given time.

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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 keyboard controls in basketball video games.

Believe it or not, keyboard controls are still supported as of NBA 2K24 PC! If you take a look at the system requirements, you’ll see that a dual analog gamepad is only “highly recommended” to play the game. Of course, this is probably underselling the importance of such a peripheral in modern releases. Gameplay is unquestionably designed around the use of a dual analog gamepad, and has been since NBA Live introduced Freestyle Control. On top of that, based on a couple of Forum posts, NBA 2K24 has some issues with configuring its limited keyboard controls.

There was a time when keyboard controls were more than sufficient for PC basketball gaming; even in titles that recommended a gamepad. As a long-time PC gamer, I’m no stranger to using keyboard controls in a variety of titles, including basketball games. There have even been times when I’ve opted for the keyboard on the virtual hardwood despite having a gamepad, including retro gaming sessions nowadays. They have had their advantages, but also their share of drawbacks, even long before hoops games were designed for a controller with dual joysticks. 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 technical frustrations that one might encounter when retro gaming.

I love retro gaming! As I’ve said before, when I think back, I was probably born to be a retro gamer. The first console I ever played was one that came out before I was even born, and part of the 1983 video game crash. It’s not that I don’t enjoy playing new games and all the technological advances the medium has made, but my early forays into gaming have undoubtedly influenced my ability to overlook dated aspects if I still enjoy the gameplay. Some games hold up better than others – especially basketball and other sports titles – but bottom line, I can still have a blast with the classics.

Of course, over the years, that hasn’t always been easy to do. This is particularly true of older PC basketball games following upgrades to a new system. At the end of the day, retro gaming (basketball or otherwise) is still something of a niche interest within the hobby, with technical frustrations arising because it’s not kept in mind when new hardware and operating systems are being developed. Fortunately, there are usually workarounds, though they can be intimidating if you’re not technically savvy. I’ve been able to find ways to get all of my old games running for my retro gaming and content creation purposes, but there have definitely been some technical frustrations.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #436 of the NLSC Podcast!

Revisiting Fox Sports NBA Basketball 2000 reminded us of how hilariously bad it is, but it also found a new way to mess with us. Not surprisingly, NBA Live 2004 holds up much better, especially with a broadcast camera mod and the 1996 season roster. We received a couple of responses to last week’s show asking about acquiring copies of NBA Live PC and other older releases, so this week, we dive into how to get into retro basketball gaming/collecting. It needn’t be expensive, nor do you need to be the crazy collectors that we are! In this week’s mailbag, we circle back to the question of what counts as retro in basketball gaming, with our listeners sharing some interesting and differing opinions on the matter.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:17:27 — 53.5MB)

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!

Episode #403 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Derek (aka Dee4Three) and I are your hosts for this weekly podcast that’s all about basketball gaming.

The second game of our Semi-Finals series in the NLSC NBA Live 10 Tournament was marred by some technical issues, but we had much better luck with other games during a Parsec session. We recap one of the wildest games of NBA Jam Tournament Edition that we’ve ever played, using a fantastic 2014 season roster mod. Another highlight came when we revisited the PC version of NBA Live 96, and couldn’t help gushing about the presentation. Double Dribble also got a run (CORNER THREE!), though it did show its age. In this week’s mailbag, we discuss the arguments for and against paid mods, and how to avoid burnout when working on big modding projects.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:29:24 — 61.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Join in the conversation in the comments below, or here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as mailbag questions and topic suggestions for future shows. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. The show also comes out on our YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe for future episodes and other video content.