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Monday Tip-Off: Giving NCAA Games The Old College Try

Monday Tip-Off: Giving NCAA Games The Old College Try

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 reflections on my recent interest in college basketball video games, particularly EA’s NCAA series.

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles and on our podcast, I didn’t grow up playing college basketball games, as issues with international licensing rights prevented them from being released outside of North America. With no PAL versions of the games, it was usually unfeasible to import them, since they wouldn’t work on the hardware that I own. Of course, college basketball itself isn’t as popular in Australia as the NBA or our own NBL are, so I’ve always had a more casual interest in the NCAA anyway. At the same time, I was intrigued by college basketball video games.

After all, I loved playing with the fictional players in World League Basketball, which of course was originally a college hoops title that was rebranded for PAL regions. I also read previews of NCAA games with a degree of envy, my interest piqued by mechanics such as momentum meters, the ability to shatter the backboard, and the inclusion of classic teams. When a friend gifted me his old PlayStation 3 back in 2019, I was finally able to add a few college basketball games to my collection. It was satisfying to track them down and finally check them out after all this time, as well as write about them. Recently however, they’ve been getting more time in my rotation.

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Wayback Wednesday: The NBA Live Toolkit

Wayback Wednesday: The NBA Live Toolkit

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 an essential modding utility in the early days of our community: the NBA Live Toolkit.

In some respects, roster editing in basketball video games has come a long way. We have access to animation packages, salary data, and other attributes that used to be hidden. At the same time, the in-game roster customisation tools still have many of the same drawbacks as they did in much earlier games. There are still attributes and bio data that we can’t edit or add for created players, or even modify for original players. Placeholder players are still difficult to deal with, as they’re not completely customisable. To make truly detailed roster mods, we need external editing tools.

Fortunately, talented people in the community have been able to step up and develop roster editing tools throughout the years. It began with our founders’ editors for the early NBA Live games, Vl@d took on the challenge for the burgeoning NBA 2K modding scene, and Looyh continues to carry the torch today. It hasn’t been easy, with executable and save files needing to be mapped and decoded. However, editing roster files did become easier with the adoption of the DBF format, and the process was further simplified by the NBA Live Toolkit. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Monday Tip-Off: The Novelty of Older & Newer Rosters

Monday Tip-Off: The Novelty of Older & Newer Rosters

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 the novelty of updating older games for new seasons, and modding retro seasons into newer games.

Although I wish we had more than just NBA 2K coming out every year, the fact that we do still have an annual release means that we can always play with current rosters. If we do feel like revisiting a past season, it’s as easy as dusting off an old favourite, stepping into an interactive almanac as it were. We can have a blast exploring NBA history and keeping up with the current league alike via the virtual hardwood, simply by having an array of games on hand. What I’m getting at here is that we’re not reliant on customising any single game in order to experience different seasons.

Of course, while full season mods aren’t necessary, they’re still fantastic! There’s a real novelty in seeing contemporary players in a game that came out long before they were in the league, or indeed, before they were even born! Likewise, an authentic re-creation of the league from decades ago in a modern video game is a joy to behold. That novelty is why I’ll always advocate for going back and tinkering with an older game, or getting creative with a newer one. In both cases – older rosters in a newer game, or newer rosters in an older one – it’s an interesting combination of nostalgia and appreciation for the contemporary, leading to an enjoyable gaming experience.

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March Modness 2024 Tips Off Today

NLSC March Modness

March is here once again, and that means we’re tipping off the seventh annual March Modness! If you’re unfamiliar with the event, throughout the month of March, we make it a point to celebrate our modding community. Modding is always going to be an evergreen activity here at the NLSC, but March Modness is a time to reflect on the hobby, and ideally get even more productive and creative.

As always, this celebration includes a giveaway. If you upload a mod for any basketball video game to our Downloads section during March 2024, and include “March Modness” in the description, you’re automatically in the draw to win a copy of NBA 2K25 PC later this year (full terms and conditions can be found below). Congratulations once again to last year’s winner, Pep!

I’ll also be covering some topics related to modding in my weekly articles, and I’m certain that Dee and I will be discussing mods on the NLSC Podcast as well. Once again, I’ll be looking to spend some time in the “workshop” myself, with an eye to at least releasing a couple of small mods here and there; especially since I’m on such a retro gaming kick these days!

Hopefully, we can all look forward to a fun celebration of modding this March, and some great releases from our talented community. Thanks as always to everyone who contributes to our Downloads section, and supports the modding community here at the NLSC! We really do appreciate people freely sharing their work with their fellow gamers.

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Monday Tip-Off: Grumpy Elder Millennial & The Toxic Positivity

Monday Tip-Off: Grumpy Elder Millennial & The Toxic Positivity

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 toxic positivity regarding basketball and basketball gaming, from the perspective of a Grumpy Elder Millennial.

I’m turning forty this year, which to be honest, is something that I’m still trying to get my head around. It doesn’t seem ten years ago that turning thirty was the milestone heralding an existential crisis! While I’m being honest though, I’ve been leaning into being a Grumpy Old Man for a few years now. Not that seriously of course, but I’ve become extremely comfortable rolling my eyes and grumbling about kids and their opinions on basketball, modern games and their microtransactions, and the state of online discourse. And let me tell you about these TikTok trends and weird haircuts…

Oops, too grumpy! Let’s dial it back a bit. The point is that I’ve recognised that despite constant misuse of the term “Millennial” to describe younger generations than mine, I’m not part of the youth of today. I’m not too old to play video games in my spare time – I’ll leave that opinion to the Baby Boomers, thank you very much – but I’ve definitely aged out of the key demographic that they’re aimed at. Whereas I once greatly anticipated the new, I’m now more inclined to indulge my nostalgia. At the same time, I’d rather not be so out of touch and close-minded that I stay stuck in the past. However, there’s one thing that I’ll stubbornly push back on: toxic positivity.

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Monday Tip-Off: Our Players Before MyPLAYERs

Monday Tip-Off: Our Players Before MyPLAYERs

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 reflections on the bygone practice of creating ourselves in basketball video games, long before we had MyPLAYERs.

When we think about creating players in basketball video games these days, it’s usually to either add a missing player to the current or historical rosters, or to create our avatar for career mode play. It makes sense, of course. Even though we have official roster updates, community rosters are not outmoded. Indeed, they’re essential as far as adding retro players that can’t be licensed. Career modes have been popular since their introduction, and have only become a bigger part of basketball gaming with the advent of the connected online team play experiences.

Obviously, we’ve been creating rosters and career mode avatars for years now. Although not everyone chooses to give their MyPLAYERs their real name and face – either via a scan or a close-enough approximation with the in-game creation tools – many of us do or previously have created ourselves for use in MyCAREER. Most of my MyPLAYERs have been “me”, aside from the fictional scenario where I’m good enough to play in the NBA! However, long before MyCAREER and its connected modes, many of us created ourselves on the virtual hardwood. It may seem like a quaint notion nowadays, but it was fun thing to do before we had these deep modes.

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The Friday Five: 5 Additions That Would’ve Greatly Improved Games

The Friday Five: 5 Additions That Would've Greatly Improved Games

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 additions that would’ve greatly improved specific basketball video games.

We’ve yet to see a truly perfect basketball video game. That’s not surprising since true perfection is an unrealistic goal, and we all have our own ideas as to what that would entail besides. We have had some fantastic sim and arcade basketball games though, with the NBA Live, NBA 2K, NBA Jam, and NBA Street series all offering up some candidates for the best hoops titles of all-time. However, much as many of the all-time great players have had a weakness or two, the best basketball video games are often missing a feature or mode that would’ve made them even better.

Interestingly, it’s not just the all-time best basketball video games that feasibly could have been improved by just one addition. There are some very good and even a few mediocre games whose overall quality and reputations would be greatly impacted by the addition of a key feature or mode. It might not quite push them into the upper echelon of virtual hardwood classics, but hypothetically, they suddenly become far more appealing and playable with one big addition. I’ve selected five hoops games of varying quality, and nominated a major addition – one per game – that I believe either pushes them closer to “perfection”, or results in the most significant improvement.

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NLSC Podcast #515: NBA Live 2002, Jam vs. Street, & Broadcast Views

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #515 of the NLSC Podcast!

Following up on last week’s discussion, we react to Take-Two’s shady defense of Virtual Currency as “fictions” that it can legally remove at any time. On a slightly contentious note (for the most part), in response to a post on our Discord, we weigh in on the NBA Jam vs. NBA Street debate. Which arcade hoops game do we believe is king? We also recap a co-op session of NBA Live 2002, and make some potentially controversial comparisons to NBA Live 2001. Joining the community for a discussion of our favourite camera angles leads us to declare our appreciation for broadcast views once again. In this week’s mailbag, we share how we’d handle microtransactions in a Triple-A release if it was our call.

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!

Wayback Wednesday: Trade Confirmation in NBA Live 2000 Franchise

Wayback Wednesday: Trade Confirmation in NBA Live 2000 Franchise

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 trade confirmation pop-up in NBA Live 2000’s Franchise mode.

The evolution of basketball video games has resulted in the revamping or complete disappearance of features, both big and small. To that end, if you’re a veteran of the virtual hardwood, there’s bound to be at least one feature from an old favourite that you miss in newer titles. Of course, sometimes it doesn’t take long for a useful feature or gameplay mechanic to disappear. We’ve seen numerous short-lived features, some of which are unique to the games they appear in. They may not be popular or even absolutely necessary, but our desire to see them return makes them Wishlist staples.

I have a shortlist of such features, but one of the first that always comes to mind is the trade confirmation pop-up in the very first Franchise mode in NBA Live 2000. It was such a fantastic detail, yet it was gone the very next year, and has never returned in any games since. Not only that, but the concept doesn’t seem to have ever been picked up by NBA 2K, or the Season and Franchise modes in any other series for that matter. This may seem like a very esoteric feature to cover, but if you’ve played Franchise in NBA Live 2000, you’ll know why it matters. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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NLSC Podcast #514: NBA 2K24’s New ToS is Complete BS

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #514 of the NLSC Podcast!

NBA 2K24 is prompting gamers to accept a new Terms of Service that includes updated clauses regarding class action lawsuits and digital purchases. We discuss how the move has further eroded goodwill, especially as the language comes across as threatening in the wake of recent legal action against Take-Two, and opting out is a deliberately challenging process. While noting NBA 2K’s fall from grace as the darling of basketball gaming, we also criticise the silence from influencers and much of the gaming media, as well as the apologist rhetoric that some gamers are spouting. In short, it’s not an issue that basketball gamers should allow to be swept under the rug!

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!

Monday Tip-Off: Would Two 2K Games Be Better Than One?

Monday Tip-Off: Would Two 2K Games Be Better Than One?

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 the idea that having two separate NBA 2K games would be better than one.

In case you’re unfamiliar with this idea, there have been times when gamers have suggested that there should be two editions of NBA 2K on the market; essentially, an online-oriented release, and a more traditional offline version. The logic behind this unusual suggestion is that online and offline play can adversely affect one another during the design process, leaving fans of one or the other (and sometimes, both) to be left disappointed. It’s also been suggested that one version could be fully-priced, while the other is free-to-play and based around microtransactions.

When you put it like that, the idea of having two NBA 2K games isn’t as strange as it first seems. It’s highly unlikely though, and it would undoubtedly have drawbacks. Of course, even the best ideas have their downsides, and no concept will be universally popular. With that being said, could it work, and would it be a better approach than what we have now? I’ve previously broached the idea of having a spinoff “Legends” version of NBA 2K that focuses on historical content, and EA Sports has arguably set a precedent with World Cup editions of FIFA. Let’s take a look at what having two NBA 2K games would mean for the series, both for 2K and us as basketball gamers.

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The Friday Five: 5 Reasons I Won’t Stop Retro Gaming

The Friday Five: 5 Reasons I Won't Stop Retro Gaming

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 reasons why I have no intention of putting a stop to my retro basketball gaming habits.

One of the best things that I’ve done to enhance my enjoyment of basketball gaming in recent years is to avoid the annual grind in MyCAREER, freeing up time to play some old favourites. Dee has obviously been a great influence in that regard, as we’ve connected to play a variety of classics over Parsec. It’s reminded me of how I used to enjoy going back to older games or sticking with one for more than a year, especially when I was disappointed with the latest release. Of course, my enthusiasm for retro basketball gaming has now made it tougher to spend time with newer games.

I have no regrets, though. I still gave NBA 2K23 and NBA 2K24 ample opportunity to impress, knowing that they might not, and that I had other options if they didn’t. To dust off a very old but nevertheless wise saying, I’ve learned to not put all of my eggs in one basket. I don’t feel defeated or robbed of a good time if the latest NBA 2K isn’t entirely to my liking. Beyond my interest in other genres, I have a huge collection of basketball games to fall back on if I’m itching to hit the virtual hardwood. While I do obviously have an interest in the future of basketball gaming, I’m finding plenty of reasons to return to old favourites, as well as seek out some new ones. Here are five!

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Monday Tip-Off: Fear & Losing in NBA 2K

Monday Tip-Off: Fear & Losing in NBA 2K

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 how a fear of losing and having a bad time in NBA 2K’s connected modes has poisoned the online scene.

It’s been a familiar sight since the introduction of The Neighborhood in NBA 2K18. Plenty of MyPLAYERs running around or just standing there idly, while others wait at the Got Next spots, hoping in vain to get the numbers to play a game. Meanwhile, in The Rec, MyPLAYERs enter the locker room, only to quickly exit before a game can begin. Naturally, you stand a much better chance of getting a game if you’re with friends, but the hub world concept is intended to encourage gamers to socialise and form impromptu squads for pick-up games. It hasn’t quite worked out that way!

To put it bluntly, there’s a fear of losing in MyCAREER’s connected modes. No one enjoys losing of course, but when the fear of taking an L is so great that you’d rather not even play, that’s a big problem! At the same time, there are legitimate concerns about the quality of the online experience. It isn’t just about not wanting to lose, but also having no desire to team up with selfish players and trolls who are going to make it incredibly difficult to win. Between some people taking things so seriously that they don’t want to risk a loss, and others not wanting to jump into a game knowing that it’s going to be a bad time, the online scene in NBA 2K remains shockingly substandard.

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The Friday Five: 5 Evergreen Issues with NBA 2K

The Friday Five: 5 Evergreen Issues with NBA 2K

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 issues with NBA 2K that are seemingly evergreen.

Since I’ve taken a look at some evergreen issues with the NBA Live series, it’s time to examine similar problems with NBA 2K. Obviously, NBA 2K is a powerhouse in the basketball gaming space, with a virtual monopoly on sim titles. Even in the years that NBA Live was released during the past generation, the NBA 2K series outsold it by a significant margin to say the least. The competition hasn’t been close in terms of sales and critical reception since 2008, in large part because NBA 2K has maintained a high level of quality, while NBA Live has suffered from its own evergreen issues.

However, there are definitely problems that continue to plague NBA 2K to this day. They’re in too comfortable of a position to fail, which once again is the result of them maintaining a generally pleasing level of quality through the years. At the same time, these evergreen issues do affect the quality of NBA 2K games, as well as the overall image of the series. As NBA Live stumbled, NBA 2K became the darling for hoops gamers and the yardstick for its genre. Without competition though, its flaws have been exposed, and its reputation has been tarnished. The evergreen issues that NBA 2K has failed to address are responsible for that, so let’s take a look at five of them.

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Wayback Wednesday: Team Rankings & Overall Ratings

Wayback Wednesday: Team Rankings & Overall Ratings

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 Team Rankings and Overall Ratings in basketball video games.

It’s interesting how we get attached to the little details in our favourite basketball video games, particularly the ones that served as our introduction to the genre! I can trace many of my preferences related to presentation and UI to NBA Live 96 PC as it was one of the first 5-on-5 sim games that I played, and it was also the very first one that I owned rather than just frequently renting. To that point, growing up with NBA Live conditioned me to expect teams to be sorted alphabetically by location. 2K’s method of sorting by team name thus felt strange at first, though I’m used to it now.

Another detail that I really enjoyed in the early NBA Live games was the rankings that appeared on team selection screens. Mind you, while I associate them with NBA Live given that it was the series that I primarily played as a young basketball gamer, many sim titles ranked and rated the teams in both individual categories and overall. These rankings gave way to Overall Ratings similar to the ones that players have, which didn’t feel as special, but are also nostalgic in their own way. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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