Tag Archives: Microsoft

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 roster updates for NBA Full Court Press.

While Microsoft’s NBA Inside Drive series was respectably popular in the early 2000s, many long-time gamers may forget about its predecessor, NBA Full Court Press. It’s understandable, of course. Its name didn’t spawn a series of titles like Inside Drive, Live, 2K, ShootOut, and so on, and it was also exclusive to PC. Additionally, although it has its strong points and it’s interesting to revisit it today, it didn’t have the best gameplay or most well-designed modes. I’d suggest that Microsoft made similar mistakes with NBA Inside Drive 2000, before the series took a big leap with 2002.

One of the interesting aspects of NBA Full Court Press is that it was a 1997 season title that featured 1996 season rosters. A few years earlier, it wouldn’t have been unusual for a game to launch without updated lineups and a new rookie crop, but that approach had fallen out of vogue by 1996. I’ve previously covered NBA Full Court Press with a retrospective back in 2018, but the issue of its outdated rosters deserves another look; especially because there were actually some official roster updates that I neglected to mention! 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 lost mods of NBA Inside Drive 2000.

While I was brainstorming ideas for The Friday Five, I came up with the topic of five games that could’ve benefited from mods. As I always do when I’m planning a Friday Five topic, I didn’t commit to it until I could devise five viable examples. One of the games that I had marked down on a preliminary list was NBA Inside Drive 2000, the only game in the Inside Drive series to be released on PC. Before I committed to that list however, I needed to do some research. Had there actually been a modding scene for NBA Inside Drive 2000 that our community here at the NLSC hadn’t partaken in?

As it turns out, there was! A quick Google search brought up a thread in the Operation Sports forums, reflecting on editing the game and downloading mods for it. I removed NBA Inside Drive 2000 from that Friday Five list, and instead decided to dedicate a Wayback Wednesday to looking into its apparently long-lost mods. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #413 of the NLSC Podcast!

Catching up on the latest results from our NBA Jam: On Fire Edition Tournament, we reflect on a truly epic comeback! We also recap the fun we had connecting on Parsec to play NBA Live 2004 PC with the 1996 season mod, another exciting countdown with the Top 10 Plays, and recent fun going back to an NBA 2K14 MyCAREER save. This week’s main topic is the variety of NBA video games that we used to enjoy. We open up the mailbag to see which NBA video games the community most wants to see return instead of (or in the best case scenario, in addition to) NBA Live, and discuss our memories of those titles.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:26:50 — 60.0MB)

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! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at Microsoft’s NBA Full Court Press for PC.

NBA Full Court Press is a game that I’ve wanted to talk about in detail for some time. I’ve mentioned it in passing in previous articles, but an in-depth retrospective is long overdue. Developed by Microsoft, the game is a forerunner to the NBA Inside Drive series, and was released in 1996 as a competitor to other sim-oriented titles such as EA Sports’ NBA Live 97, and Sony Interactive’s NBA ShootOut 97 (also known as Total NBA 97). During that era, a handful of developers were throwing their hat into the ring with NBA games, and most games had their own hook or feature that made them worth checking out.

Notably a PC exclusive release, NBA Full Court Press is a game with a certain amount of flair and a few concepts of merit, but one that comes up a little short as a sim title, even for its era. At the same time, it could still be enjoyable, and some of its better ideas and features wouldn’t make their way into other NBA games for several years. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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