Tag Archives: NBA 2K17

As I recently mentioned, NBA 2K17 is one of my all-time favourite basketball video games, so it’s always cool to see new mod releases for it all these years later. Thunder Shaq has released work-in-progress 2009 and 2011 season roster mods, which you can check out at the links below. For further previews and potential updates, keep an eye on the release topic here!

Thunder Shaq
2008-09 Season (WIP)
2010-11 Season (WIP)

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #494 of the NLSC Podcast!

NBA 2K24 is out now on all platforms! We’ve spent some time with both the PC and PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X versions of the game – including a head-to-head game on PC that ended in dramatic fashion – and have some initial impressions to share. While we’re mostly focusing on gameplay this week, we also discuss our thoughts on the modes, features, and content that we’ve had a chance to check out, as well as react to some of the issues with MyTEAM and MyCAREER that several gamers are reporting. We also open up the mailbag to see what the community thinks of NBA 2K24 so far, and offer our early recommendations as to whether the game is worth picking up at this stage, or if it would be best to hold off for now or even skip it altogether.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:17:05 — 53.3MB)

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!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #493 of the NLSC Podcast!

Could you name your Top 25 all-time favourite basketball video games? We reflect on some of the titles that were ranked in last week’s Monday Tip-Off, and reiterate the distinction between personal favourites and “best” lists. With the release of NBA 2K24 looming, we also have some news on MyTEAM, MyCAREER, and The City to discuss. Have the promised changes to MyTEAM Points, pack odds, and Season progression, and the streamlined approach to the NBA career experience, affected our excitement and anticipation for this year’s game? Also, in this week’s mailbag, the community shares their reactions to NBA 2K24 gameplay footage, as well as some of the other details coming out of the recent community event.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:10:27 — 48.7MB)

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!

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 plays that had a profound impact on gameplay design in basketball video games.

Since the aim of sim basketball games is to depict the NBA in a realistic manner, it goes without saying that events in the real league have had an impact on those titles. Likewise, our enthusiasm for real basketball makes us want to imitate NBA highlights on the virtual hardwood. It’s something that the games have allowed us to do with increasing accuracy over the years, as new animations, controls, and mechanics are added. Our desire to see certain plays accounted for in video games can be traced back to wide trends and specific moments alike.

Quite often, they’re the memorable plays that are assured to make all the highlight reels for decades to come; the iconic moments in NBA history. When we see them happen in real life and can’t replicate them in games, we immediately develop a keen interest in seeing them made possible in future releases. While it may not be entirely accurate to ascribe a particular gameplay addition solely to a single highlight, there’s no doubt that memorable plays have had an impact on gameplay development. After all, the developers are basketball fans too, and are just as eager to perform those dazzling plays on the sticks. Here are five plays that impacted gameplay design!

Read More »

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 a countdown of my Top 25 favourite basketball video games, in celebration of another milestone here at the NLSC.

On Saturday, I celebrated my 22nd year of running the NLSC. It’s been a long ride with plenty of ups and downs, but I’m still very glad that I accepted the gig when Tim moved on to work at EA Sports, and that I stuck it out through some rough patches to enjoy the good times. To mark the occasion, I’ve decided to rank my Top 25 favourite basketball video games. This being my 22nd Anniversary as webmaster/admin of the NLSC, I was originally going to pick my Top 22 games. Top 25 has a better ring to it though, and it also serves as a belated 25th Anniversary celebration for the site itself!

Before we get to the countdown, let me emphasise once again that it is a Top 25 of my favourite basketball video games; not the Top 25 best hoops titles. That’s a different list, and if I were being more objective, there are games I’m listing here that wouldn’t make the cut. Because I haven’t spent as much time with certain NBA 2K, College Hoops, or NCAA Basketball/March Madness titles, I don’t have as much of an affinity for them, though that may well change in the future. I haven’t “forgotten” about those great basketball video games, but they haven’t become one of my personal favourites (as yet, anyway). With that being said, here are my Top 25 virtual hardwood classics!

Read More »

Today’s NBA 2K17 mod releases feature some custom player gear by botytec, specifically some Halloween glasses. Check it out at the link below!

botytec
Halloween Glasses

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

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 Dream Team in NBA 2K17.

They’ve often been cited as the greatest basketball team ever assembled. They swept their way to the gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, famously winning by an average of 44 points per game while never calling timeout. Eleven of its players are enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame for their individual accomplishments, and the team itself was collectively inducted in 2009. Eight years later, the team would also be inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame. Simply put, the Dream Team was a squad for the ages.

As far as the virtual hardwood is concerned, the Dream Team has made a handful of official appearances in video games. They were the cover stars of EA Sports’ Team USA Basketball, and were included in NBA 2K13; appearances that I’ve previously covered here in Wayback Wednesday. The most recent game to officially feature the Dream Team was NBA 2K17, an appearance that stands out as somewhat different – and indeed slightly controversial – compared to previous releases. Let’s take a look back…way back…

Read More »

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 by making a case for releasing basketball video game demos.

It’s strange how when I think of basketball video game demos, they feel like such an antiquated concept. That may be because video game demos in general have fallen out of vogue – much as shareware did – but it hasn’t actually been that long since we had a demo for an upcoming hoops title. The last NBA Live demo came in 2018, while we had a small preview of NBA 2K21 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Now, that is indeed going back a few years at this point, but for some reason those demos don’t immediately come to mind. Instead, demos seem like a relic of the 90s and 2000s.

Of course, one could very well argue that that’s when basketball game demos were far more relevant. There was legitimate competition between NBA Live and NBA 2K right through to the end of the decade. The preview season for both games began around June, and there was a steady stream of information as they competed for attention and pre-orders. There was value in both companies dropping a demo a few weeks before the full version was released, to show off a few key improvements and possibly change some minds. Even with NBA 2K’s virtual monopoly over basketball gaming, however, I maintain that there’s still value in providing a pre-release demo.

Read More »

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 frustrations that sadly didn’t have a good workaround.

We’ve been able to do some rather ingenious things in our community thanks to mods. Missing players have been added, mistakes in the default rosters have been corrected, and when we’ve discovered compatible files, we’ve been able to swap assets between different games to create our own fixes. This includes adding better net animations to NBA Live 06 PC, restoring access to the traditional reorder roster menu in NBA Live 07’s Dynasty mode, and even being able to access the hidden Player Lock option in NBA Live 08. Where official updates have fallen short, we’ve had good workarounds.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t always been possible. There are some frustrations that we simply haven’t ever been able to resolve. Even when a workaround has been devised, it hasn’t satisfactorily fixed the issue despite our best efforts. This is why I’ll always push back on the “stop whining” rhetoric that shuts down constructive feedback. Just because there is a workaround, it doesn’t mean it’s a desirable solution, and that the issue shouldn’t be addressed either in a patch or the next game. Additionally, one of these frustrations did once have a good workaround, but its disappearance suggests that it wasn’t ideal long-term. Whatever the case, these issues lack good solutions.

Read More »

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 a forgotten NBA 2K14 MyCAREER game.

I’ve been having a blast with MyCAREER in the PlayStation 4 version of NBA 2K14 since I revisited it a couple of years ago to write a retrospective. I got hooked on it after giving NBA 2K14 PS4 a second chance following an uncommonly negative first impression, and it’s become one of my favourite basketball video games. It’s why I’m currently in my sixth season in that MyCAREER, with an eye towards somehow, some way, playing through to the current day. Truly experiencing an NBA career is far more fun than grinding and worrying about the online meta!

However, while that specific game is a fairly recent kick, it wasn’t actually my first foray into MyCAREER in NBA 2K14. When it was released, I did begin a new MyCAREER in the PC version of NBA 2K14, intending to continue the fun that I’d had in NBA 2K13. That didn’t come to pass, as I struggled to enjoy the game, and didn’t warm up to NBA 2K14 until almost a decade later. I did keep the save file though, and it was interesting to revisit it now that I have a more positive view of NBA 2K14. Let’s take a look back…way back…

Read More »

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #484 of the NLSC Podcast!

The community has spoken: whether it comes from EA Sports, 2K Sports, or indeed both, many of us are very keen to see a new college basketball game! From licensed players and gameplay to presentation and features, we join the community in discussing our expectations for a hypothetical NCAA title. Elsewhere, we’ve noticed a couple of Tweets attempting to rehabilitate NBA 2K18’s image. Naturally, we have a few thoughts on that! We also discuss Damian Lillard’s trade request and big contracts for NBA role players, react to the recent separation of EA Sports and EA Games, and open up this week’s mailbag for some NBA 2K17 Overall Ratings trivia.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:12:06 — 49.9MB)

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!

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 a PSA to hold on to your old saves whenever possible.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that more recently, I’ve preferred to stick with an old favourite – or new favourite old release, as is the case with NBA 2K14 for PS4 – rather than play the latest NBA 2K. It’s not just a matter of liking the gameplay better in older games, though admittedly that is a key factor. To be blunt, I’m tired of grinding and starting over from scratch every year, knowing that I won’t be able to enjoy the fruits of my labour when the servers are shut down. And yes, the use of the word “labour” is deliberate here, because it does end up feeling more like work than play.

And so, I’ve gravitated towards games that hold up well, and I can continue to dust off and play for years to come. Reaching my sixth year in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER is far more rewarding than anything I could achieve in NBA 2K23’s mode, which will one day be inaccessible. Retaining access to my Chicago Bulls Dynasty in NBA Live 06 PC holds far more appeal than any cards that I could collect in NBA 2K23 MyTEAM. With care, I can preserve those experiences and revisit them whenever the mood strikes, which isn’t the case when live service content is involved. However, thanks to a lack of foresight, there are long-lost saves that I’ll never be able to revisit.

Read More »

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #478 of the NLSC Podcast!

Games that we wish we played more, seasons that we wish we finished, and saves that we wish we still had, are common tales among basketball gamers. This week, we join the community in reminiscing about some of our biggest basketball gaming regrets! A misconception about a job listing also prompts us to address the subject of NBA Live rumours, as well as clickbait content. Additionally, we touch on whether a theoretical future NBA Live should be sim, arcade, or a sim-arcade hybrid. We also reflect on some spectacular highlights in last week’s NLSC Top 10 that had us all buzzing, and provide an update on reaching Year 6 in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:17:08 — 53.3MB)

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!

Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee4Three! New and old games alike are featured in this celebration of spectacular moments on the virtual hardwood. To submit your clips, post them in this topic, or hit up Dee on Twitter.

Can you believe we’re tipping off the third year of the NLSC Top 10 Plays? Dee has done an incredible job curating the countdown since bringing it back, and of course, the community has been consistently delivering the goods with highlights from a variety of basketball video games. To mark the occasion, we’ve got Kobe Bryant showing off the Mamba Mentality, AND1 Mixtape Tour legends strutting their stuff, stars getting it done at both ends of the floor, and yes, huge dunks. It’s still the perfect way to begin a weekend of basketball gaming, so let’s get to the action!

What was your favourite highlight this week? Sound off in the comments below, and once again, get in on the fun by sending us your best plays! Remember, as long as it’s a basketball game, it’s eligible for the countdown. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to us on YouTube for more basketball gaming videos.

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #476 of the NLSC Podcast!

If you go could back and play any basketball video game for the first time, which one would it be? This week, we join the community in reminiscing about the hoops titles that we wish we could experience anew, because of how much we were floored by our first impressions of them. A couple of other games that we’ve since changed our minds about, and would’ve liked to have had a better first impression of, likewise get a mention! After playing it over Parsec, we also take a look back at NBA Inside Drive 2004, an Xbox exclusive from Microsoft that more than held its own against stiff competition from the other 2004 season releases.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:11:40 — 49.6MB)

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!