Tag Archives: NBA 2K6

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 how fun it can be just messing around with basketball video games.

I don’t want to harp on the horrors of grinding in basketball gaming nowadays. It’s a well-known issue, and it would be rather ironic and hypocritical of me to repeatedly grumble about something being repetitive! However, it is worth noting that one of the biggest problems in modern basketball games is the focus on the grind, whether it’s levelling up a MyPLAYER or building a MyTEAM squad. We’ve gone from a fun journey that keeps us hooked for hours on end, to needing to put in hours of work just to have fun. I’m grateful to have changed my habits in that regard!

However, while it’s been refreshing to return to NBA 2K14 PS4 for five full seasons and counting in MyCAREER, and also free up time for a potential return to franchise play, frankly I’m enjoying having less structure to my basketball gaming. Don’t get me wrong; I love the depth that keeps us hooked on franchise and career modes, with the tangible goals of playing through seasons and winning championships. At the same time, when you’re not dedicating yourself to grinding or you feel like a break from a more structured mode, simply messing around in a game can be just as engaging. It’s actually one of the things that I enjoyed the most about my basketball gaming in 2023.

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Catch up on the latest basketball gaming highlights that Dee and I have uploaded to the NLSC YouTube channel! Recent videos include our co-op game of Street Hoops, and a game of NBA 2K6 that I played against the CPU featuring a Draft Class showdown.

As we discussed in Episode #510 of the NLSC Podcast, Dee and I revisited Street Hoops for PlayStation 2 in a co-op game over Parsec. We were quite impressed with how well it held up, and what a strong release it was from a developer not known for their basketball games. The session produced some outstanding streetball highlights that’ll evoke memories of the AND1 Mixtape Tour from the early 2000s. Check out the action as we use the Highflying Homies to take on the Mad Bombers!

My NBA 2K6 game was played before my old desktop crashed late last year, so I’ve been sitting on the footage for a number of weeks! I was eager to put together a highlight reel from it, as I had a blast taking on the Draft Class of 2000 with the Draft Class of 2001. Jason Richardson was the star for me, and in looking to dunk as often as possible with him, he ended up putting on a show. As I said in my retrospective, NBA 2K6 for Xbox 360 is a game that’s really grown on me, retroactively becoming one of my all-time favourites.

Check out both highlight reels below, and be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content! As always, Dee and I are open to suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play, so by all means hit us up with those titles!

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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 at how minimalist modding can improve the retro basketball gaming experience.

It’s no secret that just as mods can enhance the most recent basketball video games, they can also breathe new life into old favourites. This obviously goes beyond the virtual hardwood. I remember discovering custom WADS for Doom II way back in 1998 that changed Doomguy and the enemies into characters from The Simpsons and South Park. I wasn’t really playing Doom II anymore, but learning about those mods and seeing what they were capable of encouraged me to dust it off so that I could try them out. It’s a great example of mods making an old game fresh and new again.

Of course, even without custom maps, those were still larger projects, akin to a current or retro season roster for an older basketball game. Those are fantastic and I absolutely support them; especially given my renewed interest in retro basketball gaming after a few years of feeling underwhelmed by the latest NBA 2K! However, minimalist modding can also freshen up older games and make them even more fun to revisit. Indeed, whenever I get hooked on an old game, I can’t help thinking about ways to change things up with some minimalist modding in order to expand upon the retro basketball gaming experience. Let’s look at a fun way to go back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #509 of the NLSC Podcast!

Happy New Year basketball gamers, and welcome to the first episode of the NLSC Podcast for 2024! We’re in the mood to make some basketball gaming resolutions for the new year, as well as reflect on some of our favourite content from 2023. We also join the community in discussing the basketball games that we spent the most time with last year, as well as the modes we were playing and other activities we enjoyed, including modding. Additionally, we share our thoughts on the new NBA Playgrounds game that’s been released on Roblox, and how it feels like a fall from grace for a once-promising series of arcade basketball video games.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:33:18 — 64.4MB)

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!

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 Part 19 in an ongoing series looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.

In Part 18 last month, I covered a couple of well-known players who only appeared on certain teams in video games, including an example from last season. For Part 19, I’m going back a bit further, with the most recent phantom stint occurring during the 2015 campaign. The older examples are also more obscure names that even hardcore NBA fans likely haven’t thought about in years. I do enjoy discussing those players though, as I’m sure that I’m not the only one that gets a nostalgic kick out of seeing or hearing the name of a long-forgotten journeyman that was once a mainstay in the league!

The fifth example – the one from the 2015 season – is the only player to have enjoyed a lengthy NBA career, which included an All-Star appearance and a couple of other honours. It’s obviously a good idea to include at least one player that we’ve all heard of and remember, but I’m also pleased with that example because it’s another one that I encountered by chance! As I’ve said before, David L has been extremely helpful in pointing out many players that needed to be covered in this series, but it’s always fun when serendipity delivers another name to me. With that being said, let’s get to the next group of five players whose phantom stints have been preserved in video games!

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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 drawing some interesting comparisons between five pairs of basketball video games.

It’s difficult to make comparisons these days without stepping on anyone’s toes, or drawing pedantic complaints if the likenesses are imperfect, or esoteric. Consider the scorn that Phil Jackson received when he compared Steph Curry to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Many fans sneered because Curry has reached greater heights than Abdul-Rauf ever did, putting up bigger numbers and achieving more fame and success. However, Jackson’s comparison was apt in the way that he meant it: their styles and the way they got shots off are very similar. He wasn’t saying the two were equals as players.

Comparisons are not always one-to-one, and they are not meant to suggest that the objects in question are identical. To refer to the old “apples and oranges” idiom, while there are many ways in which they aren’t comparable, apples and oranges are both fruit that grow on trees. Also, along with bananas, they’re a commonly recognised and popular fruit compared to, say, durians. My point is that while some of the basketball game comparisons I’m making here today may seem bizarre, there are interesting commonalities in their quality, approach, and vibe. I’m not saying that these games are completely alike, but rather in some ways, they’re oddly reminiscent of each other.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #502 of the NLSC Podcast!

Koality Games has released a new version of Hoop Land for mobile devices, and having followed their progress reports in the NLSC Forum, we were keen to give it a try. After doing so, we’re hoping to see it come to PC via a Steam release! Unfortunately, we’re far less excited about both versions of NBA 2K24 right now, and based on the responses to this week’s community question – to say nothing of the lack of mods, highlights, and discussion – we’re not alone there. On the bright side, we’ve been having a blast with other games in our rotation including NBA Live 10 and NBA 2K14, and so spend some time catching up on our recent sessions.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:05:10 — 45.1MB)

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!

That’s not a headline I ever anticipated using here on the NLSC, but it sums up the recent uploads Dee and I have made to the NLSC YouTube channel! From battling Flavor Flav in NBA 2K6 to some awesome 90s action in NBA 2K10 PC, we continue to have a blast with a variety of titles.

My 1-on-1 game with Flavor Flav in NBA 2K6’s 24/7: Road to the EBC mode was definitely something different! The game has been in my rotation for a while now, and after unlocking Flav’s Rucker Park challenge while getting some screenshots, I knew it would be something fun and unique for the channel. It definitely was a different time in basketball gaming!

Dee’s Blacktop game in the Next Gen version of NBA 2K14 features an array of high flyers, with Gerald Green throwing down a nasty jam that was featured in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week. It’s some of the best streetball action that you’ll find in a sim game, in a title that holds up superbly a decade later. Meanwhile, our co-op session with NBA 2K10 PC was a showcase for my recently-released fixed official roster. It was a joy to create highlights with some of our favourite stars of the 90s, including of course Michael Jordan.

Finally, with the 2024 season tipping off, I updated the rosters in NBA 2K14 PS4 – as much as possible – to stage a showdown between the Golden State Warriors with Chris Paul, and the Milwaukee Bucks with Damian Lillard. It was an exciting battle that ended in dramatic fashion, though perhaps not the way I would’ve liked!

Catch up on all of our recent uploads below! Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content, and as always, feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #499 of the NLSC Podcast!

Last week, we imagined the ideal gameplay for NBA 2K and NBA Live by combining our favourite mechanics from previous games. This week, we’re imagining the worst possible NBA Live and NBA 2K by cobbling together our least favourite mechanics; in other words, we’re describing how NOT to make a basketball game! We also revisited NBA Live 07 and NBA 2K18 ahead of that exercise, and suffice to say, that helped us with some of our selections! On a more positive note, we reflect on some fun sessions with NBA 2K6, Blacktop in NBA 2K14, and NBA Jam: On Fire Edition using the Legends On Fire Edition mod, and a recently released fixed roster for NBA 2K10 PC.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:19:31 — 55.0MB)

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!

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.

You can tell how much the community is into the NLSC Top 10 Plays each and every week, because the countdowns just keep getting better and better! The result is some truly spectacular virtual hardwood highlights that – as Dee noted in the YouTube description this week – presents a worthy challenge when it comes time to rank them all. Every play in the countdown will get you fired up for some basketball gaming this weekend, but the top five were in very close competition for the #1 spot. Once again, a variety of games are being spotlighted, from NBA Jam right through to NBA 2K24. 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.

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 some examples of players debuting in video games long before tallying their first NBA minute.

Every offseason, there’s a new crop of players – both drafted and undrafted – that will make their debut in the real NBA and on the virtual hardwood alike. To that point of course, barring Summer League play, basically all NBA players will be debuting in games before the real NBA, and have done so as long as titles with updated rosters have been released before the season tips off. However, there are players whose real life debuts came well after their first appearance in a video game. For the purposes of this article, this is what I mean when I say “debuting in games before the NBA”.

This includes players that missed what should’ve been their rookie season, and future NBA players who made cameos through other means. These appearances can make it difficult to remember exactly when certain players debuted or were drafted, since we recall playing with them in video games much earlier. There are also fun examples of bonus content leading to pre-NBA cameos for players who would become noteworthy names, and in some cases, major stars. It’s a lengthy list, so settle in as we take a look back…way back…

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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.

In an effort to dance the line between building anticipation and outright spoilers, I’ll say that this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays begins and ends with fantastic alley-oops. What’s the difference between a lob that ranks in at #10 and one that takes the top spot? A fantastic two-way play and an even more spectacular finish! Oh, and eight other exciting plays including a Shaq Attack, an incredible hustle play in NBA in the Zone 2 (more on that in the next NLSC Podcast), and yet another crazy putback by LookyDaGamer. 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.

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 that NBA 2K now has a virtual monopoly over the virtual hardwood.

We’re fortunate that the NBA hasn’t followed the NFL’s example of offering video game developers and publishers exclusive rights to their license. In theory, we could still see an array of licensed NBA video games from a variety of companies, since there’s nothing legally preventing them from throwing their hat into the ring. Of course, in terms of feasibility and practicality, it’s not so simple. NBA 2K has set a high bar that sim basketball games are expected to clear and raise, meaning the NBA license alone won’t allow alternative titles to compete.

Since no one else is taking a chance on competing with NBA 2K, they have a virtual monopoly when it comes to basketball video games. Sure, there have been a handful of NBA Live games over the past decade – though none since 2018 – as well as two NBA Playgrounds titles. We’ve also seen some indie hoops games that don’t use the NBA license, including the outstanding Basketball Classics. However, NBA 2K is the only Big Name™ in basketball gaming, and the lack of alternatives and competition is essentially a monopoly. How did we get to this point? Here are five reasons that NBA 2K was able to establish a monopoly, with a little help from its one-time competitors.

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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 original All-Time Teams that were featured in early NBA 2K titles.

The concept of All-Time Teams is naturally a staple of sports discussion. Which franchise could field the best lineup with all the players that have ever worn their uniform? Who can boast the best all-time starting lineup? Who would prevail in a showdown of stars, if they could all be together on the team in their prime? Such What Ifs are impossible to conclusively prove in reality, but they’re a great idea for fantasy matchups in video games. Even in the early days of NBA Live modding, the community was creating Legends and All-Time Teams rosters.

Those projects have remained popular over the years, so it’s no surprise that with all of the other historical content in NBA 2K, All-Time squads were eventually added for each franchise. As I noted when I covered those teams in a previous article, while the concept was nothing new, it saved us a lot of time by ensuring that certain players and assets would be in the game by default. However, I neglected to mention that NBA 2K18 wasn’t the first game in the series to feature All-Time Teams, as a few such squads were unlockable in earlier releases. 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 a time when certain basketball video games were regional exclusives, and/or had late releases.

The basketball gaming landscape has changed drastically since our choices were whittled down to just NBA Live and NBA 2K, culminating in a virtual monopoly for the latter. When a handful of developers and publishers were throwing their hat into the ring with hoops games, we received a variety of titles of varying quality, but most brought something interesting to the table. Of course, not every game was available worldwide. While NBA Live and NBA 2K stood as examples of global brands, other games were regional exclusives, usually only released in North America.

On top of that, if other regions did receive a particular game, it might not be until several months later. It may seem like a terrible marketing decision to release an NBA game well after the season has tipped off, but there are titles that have come along quite late in a campaign, even with their domestic release. Indeed, not even NBA 2K and NBA Live have been immune to late releases, if only outside North America. It’s an interesting difference in the way that basketball video games used to be handled, so let’s take a look back…way back…

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