Tag Archives: Legends Pool

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #620 of the NLSC Podcast!

The NBA 2K series has been packed full of retro content for over a decade now, but despite some major additions throughout the years, the overall quality still leaves us wanting. After reflecting on the issue of quantity over quality and the general lack of care for classic teams and players, we join the community in discussing how we’d enhance the retro content in future NBA 2K games. From fixes and updates that are absolutely essential to some more ambitious ideas that would make the retro content even more fun to use, there’s plenty that can and should be done. We also touch on how this lack of attention to detail is also already affecting the new collegiate content that recently debuted in NBA 2K.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 52:48 — 36.6MB)

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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 Michael Jordan in NBA Live 2004.

These days, we think of Visual Concepts as the company to bring Michael Jordan to the virtual hardwood. After all, he’s been available as a Legend since NBA 2K11, we’ve had two iterations of the Jordan Challenge, and he’s graced the cover of four editions of the game. However, long before NBA 2K was celebrating His Airness, he was closely associated with EA Sports. From licensing him for the NBA Playoffs series as he disappeared from other early 90s titles, to games such as Jordan vs. Bird, Michael Jordan in Flight and Chaos in the Windy City, it was EA who brought us MJ.

Of course, the last time that Michael Jordan made an official appearance in an EA Sports game was in NBA Live 2004. Indeed, until NBA 2K11, it marked the last time that he was officially featured in any video games. Needless to say, adding him to the Legends Pool and 90s All-Stars was an annual task for our modding community from NBA Live 2005 through NBA Live 08, so we were still able to play with him on PC. There was something special about official appearances though, especially given MJ’s absence from the virtual hardwood in the late 90s. 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 Legends teams that would’ve been viable in eighth generation NBA Live titles.

A couple of years ago, I reflected on the misuse of Legends in NBA Live. While the series made a big splash with historical content when Michael Jordan and other all-time greats were added in NBA Live 2000, it’s had countless missed opportunities since then. From losing the rights to include certain Legends to leaving them out of the seventh generation releases entirely, NBA Live hasn’t done an impressive job with historical content. Legends were thankfully present in the eighth generation NBA Live games, but were exclusive to specific modes.

This is one of the reasons why Ultimate Team has been one of my favourite modes in eighth gen NBA Live: it’s where I can actually play with Legends! Of course, I wish that they were more readily available. To that point, some people have argued that that wouldn’t be feasible, as it would draw attention to how thin NBA Live’s historical content is compared to what’s on offer in NBA 2K. However, while NBA 2K does boast a massive array of retro players and classic squads, eighth gen NBA Live games could’ve viably included some Legends teams. 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 how the addition of free agents in basketball video games has enhanced roster modding.

A pool of free agents and the ability to sign and release players is just one of those things that we take for granted in basketball video games. After all, it’s a concept that goes back to games released in the 90s, making it a well-established staple of roster customisation that we expect to see. Indeed, if you got into basketball gaming during the 2000s at the earliest, you probably haven’t played many sim games that didn’t represent free agency in their roster customisation functionality, or at least their season or franchise modes.

However, if you’re my age and you recall playing the classics of the 90s, you’ll no doubt remember how restricted we used to be when it came to modifying the rosters in-game. Even after the ability to trade players outside of season modes was added, it still took a couple of years to implement the free agents pool. It was longer still before that pool was frequently filled with players to sign! Needless to say, the addition of the free agents pool and subsequent inclusion of a selection of free agents every year significantly enhanced roster modding. 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 how Legends have been misused in NBA Live over the years.

If you remember hitting the virtual hardwood before NBA Live 2000 was released, then you’ll recall what a big deal it was when Legends were announced for the game. Sure, we had modding, and even on console Create-a-Player could be used to make some serviceable retro players, but now they were going to be right there in the game by default! They’d have proper faces, and their names would be called by the PA Announcer and commentators. And of course, Michael Jordan would at long last appear in an NBA Live game. It was huge news, and a landmark feature.

Considering that EA Sports had found themselves in hot water after trying to sneak some Legends into the 16-bit version of NBA Live 96, it seemed like something that would never happen. That made the official inclusion of Legends even more special, and it’s why I won’t take historical content for granted. However, it’s fair to say that over the years, NBA Live didn’t do as much with the Legends as they possibly could have, leaving the door open for NBA 2K to blow us away with retro content and features. Even before that though, NBA Live was dropping the ball with throwback players. 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 aspects of retro content in older basketball video games that is underrated.

Retro content has been a staple feature in basketball games for decades now. It’s one of the best additions in sim and arcade titles alike, as it’s a blast to play with the stars of yesteryear in addition to the current generation of players. The amount of retro content has steadily increased since it was introduced, progressing from historical All-Star teams to retro NBA teams and All-Time legends squads. With the addition of MyNBA Eras in NBA 2K23 (and its return in NBA 2K24), it’s fair to suggest that these days we have more retro content than ever before.

With that being said, retro content has indeed been around for a long time, and an admirable effort was made with it in many old games. In fact, while the quantity of retro content in basketball games has never been higher than it is in NBA 2K23, we can certainly point to ways that older favourites boasted better quality. If nothing else, there are some aspects of the retro content in older basketball games that are quite impressive, and not just for their era. In fact, I’d go so far as to call them underrated, or certainly underappreciated, especially as they made the most of the resources that were available to them at the time. Let’s take a look at five examples of these aspects!

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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 poses five questions regarding historical teams for both the community and developers to consider.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that the historical content in NBA 2K is one of the series’ biggest triumphs. Sure, it isn’t perfect, as missing players and inaccurate ratings and data do impact the experience of playing with and against historical teams. Still, NBA 2K has managed to break new ground as far as including retro content. Older games may have included a handful of playable Legends, with NBA Starting Five 2005 even featuring a small selection of classic squads. However, as far as overall depth and scope is concerned, the NBA 2K series has done it the best.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t critique the historical teams and content in NBA 2K, and suggest feasible improvements. In determining how this content could be better, we need to ask some important questions. There are different approaches and standards that can be applied here, and while it’s unlikely that gamers will ever be in complete agreement, I believe there might be more common ground here than we think. Additionally, some of these questions may be pertinent to modders who are working on their own historical roster projects. So, with that in mind, what are some of the most pressing questions to consider regarding historical teams in NBA 2K?

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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 a reminder of the importance of default assets in our modding endeavours.

Since the very beginning, one of the primary goals of our modding community has been to add content to games. When we were founded as the NBA Live Series Center, this usually meant adding players such as Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley to the rosters of NBA Live PC. Once Legends and historical teams became a staple of NBA video games, there were other missing players to add. We’ve also sought to expand the selection of classic teams, as well as create retro season and all-time rosters, NCAA and foreign league total conversions, and many other fantastic projects.

The biggest projects have generally required several new assets to be created, in particular year-specific jerseys and courts, and missing player faces. Needless to say, the workload is much lighter if several assets that we need are in the game by default. At the same time, it’s something that we can take for granted. Not only can the default assets facilitate a range of modding projects – both minimalist and large in scope – but we can use them to quickly assemble fun scenarios on the virtual hardwood. Modding has opened up a world of possibilities with basketball video games, but I can’t stress enough the importance of content being readily available within the default assets.

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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 my thoughts on how a large amount of the historical players in NBA 2K are going to waste.

I’ll admit that I feel slightly petty when I criticise the usage of historical players and teams in NBA 2K. Over the past decade, NBA 2K games have done what was once unthinkable, simply by including a huge range of historical players and retro teams. We may not have modes like the Jordan Challenge or NBA’s Greatest anymore, but we still have retro teams spanning from the 60s through to the 2010s, All-Time squads for every franchise, and several historical players to collect in MyTEAM. Of course, some players are exclusive to NBA 2K’s card collecting mode.

That’s a major point of contention, though. We have access to many historical players thanks to the individual retro teams and All-Time squads, but not all of them. There are several mid-tier players who don’t belong to any retro teams and aren’t big enough names for the All-Time squads, and are therefore more or less exclusive to MyTEAM. Their assets being in the game is still a tremendous help to modding projects, but the situation still isn’t as convenient as it could be. Now, MyTEAM is definitely a popular mode – despite some people’s bizarre claims to the contrary – but to me, it still feels as though a large number of historical players are being wasted by that exclusivity.

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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 old features that could possibly be repurposed and included in future games.

Old basketball games include some interesting features, many of which I’ve profiled in Wayback Wednesday over the years. As I’ve noted in those articles, there are some features that were innovative at the time and fun to look back on, but are admittedly outdated now. They’ve either been replaced with a more evolved concept, or they just don’t fit in today’s games. On the other hand, there are features in old games that I’d like to see return. Some of them would fit perfectly into modern titles, while others would need to be revamped and repurposed to be properly utilised in a new game.

That last group is what I’m focusing on today. While NBA 2K remains a deep game, and NBA Live has introduced some good ideas over the past generation despite some shaky releases, there are some old features that would make a very welcome return; particularly if they were updated and adapted for use in contemporary gameplay and modes. Unfortunately, the design principles that Visual Concepts and EA Sports are adhering to these days may make it highly unlikely, but nevertheless, I’d like to throw out these ideas for repurposed old features. After all, you never know what may happen, especially if they can be repurposed in a way that makes them relevant again.

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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 a rebuttal to the idea that the fact developing video games is a business is somehow an excuse for lousy practices.

Video game development is a business. There is a business side to the creation of video games that, to the companies developing and publishing them, is just as crucial as the artistic side. There, I admitted it. In fact, I never denied it. If a business doesn’t turn a profit, it doesn’t keep operating for very long. If a product isn’t profitable, it’s going to have a very short shelf life. This is basic economics, so even when we’re grumbling about questionable practices regarding design and recurrent revenue mechanics, we understand that video game developers need to make money. But…

But, there are good ways and bad ways to do business, even when it comes to the often downright predatory and exploitative practice of microtransactions. The goal of turning a profit does not excuse issues with the product itself. There is nothing wrong with expecting value for money and satisfaction with your purchase, and speaking out when you feel that a product has failed to deliver in that regard. When the pursuit of profits – especially through recurrent revenue mechanics – actively interferes with the quality of a product, it’s fair to criticise developers for compromising the experience. Saying “it’s business” is no excuse for design choices that are anti-consumer.

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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 examples of false memories we have of basketball games, and how they came about.

False memories are recollections of something that didn’t actually happen or exist, or of something happening in a way that differs greatly from reality. There are plenty of examples such as misquoted lines from TV, film, music, and literature, not to mention recollections of completely non-existent works. False memories can also involve commonly held, yet erroneous beliefs. The latter phenomenon has been labelled the “Mandela Effect”, after the belief that Nelson Mandela had actually passed away in the 1980s. The spelling of the Berenstain Bears is another famous example.

Needless to say, video games provide us with plenty of examples of false memories and the Mandela Effect. This is usually due to rumours and urban legends that are perpetuated despite being debunked time and time again, or simply an incorrect recollection of a game you haven’t played in a long time. Other times, the memory may be accurate in that it’s something that was experienced, but inaccurate in that it was the result of a mod, or something seen in an early preview. As is often the case, basketball gaming provides us with its own examples of false memories, and today I’m taking a look at five of them, along with some possible explanations.

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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 countdown of the Top 5 NBA Legends that I’d like to see featured in NBA Live.

As NBA Live continues to evolve into a viable alternative to NBA 2K for basketball gamers seeking a sim experience, it’s important that it becomes a well-rounded title. This means that on top of quality gameplay that realistically depicts the NBA, modes must also be deep and engaging. It’s also important to include some additional content beyond the current NBA teams. NBA Live has obviously found a great hook in the global courts found in The Streets, as well as WNBA players, but one area where it could stand to improve is in its usage of historical content, specifically NBA Legends.

It’s tough to match what NBA 2K has done in terms of utilising Legends, not only with its historical squads but also the All-Time Teams. However, NBA Live could do a little more with the Legends that EA Sports has licensed, beyond simply featuring them in Ultimate Team. From Decade All-Stars to the ability to assign Legends to the current teams, there are ways that they could (and should) have a bigger presence in NBA Live. There are some prominent names missing however, Legends that I’d love to see in EA’s game once more. Licensing some of them is easier said than done, but should it ever be feasible, these are the Top 5 Legends I’d like to see in NBA Live.

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