Tag Archives: NBA Action 95

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 Tom Gugliotta and some interesting trivia regarding his career and appearances in video games.

There are some well-known examples of players whose history with basketball video games is interesting and unusual. It seems such a weird and unfathomable situation nowadays, but back in the 90s, Roster Players were frequently a necessity due to the absence of Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, owing to them retaining the rights to their likenesses. Shaquille O’Neal was also briefly exclusive to NBA Live, and even David Robinson once required a stand-in. Of course, I also enjoy delving into virtual hardwood trivia concerning far more obscure players, such as Junior Harrington.

Now, on the scale of obscurity to all-time fame, Tom Gugliotta is probably closer to the likes of MJ, Chuck, Shaq, and The Admiral than he is to Harrington. That is to say, if you were to ask long-time basketball fans and history buffs, they’d be far more likely to recall Googs than Junior. With that being said, like so many players of yesteryear that were very good but not all-time greats, Gugliotta doesn’t get talked about enough. That’s unfortunate from a basketball standpoint, but his career also resulted in some fun NBA video game trivia. 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 player absences in various basketball video games that you may not remember.

What’s a sure sign that someone has been playing basketball video games since the 90s? They remember a time when sim titles weren’t guaranteed to feature every player in the NBA! These days, the agreement with the Players’ Association allows all active players to be represented in licensed video games. Roster updates will take care of anyone who’s missing at launch, adding new players as the season progresses. Back in the day, we had to resolve player absences ourselves, either by customising our own rosters, or downloading community-made updates whenever possible.

Even if you don’t remember those days from personal experience, you’ve probably seen and heard people like me talking about them! As such, prominent examples of player absences like Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley are well-known. There have been some other noteworthy player absences through the years however, some of which have likely been forgotten. Since I enjoy NBA and basketball game trivia, I’m sharing five examples of potentially overlooked player absences that I recall. Please note that I’m referring to players who were absent when they were still active in the league, so historical players that remain unlicensed in NBA 2K don’t count here.

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As Dee noted in last week’s NLSC Podcast, we’re consistently uploading basketball gaming videos to the NLSC YouTube channel. It’s an initiative that Dee has been spearheading, and he’s definitely been far more active in uploading than I have recently, in part due to being under the weather. For similar reasons, I’m once again behind in sharing those videos here on the site.

To that end, it’s time for another NLSC YouTube round-up! Over the past few weeks, a variety of gameplay videos have gone up, including demonstrations of the awesome NBA Jam: Legends On Fire Edition mod for NBA Jam: On Fire Edition. There are highlights from Parsec sessions, including games of NBA Live 2003 and NBA Playgrounds. NBA Live 2000 and NBA Action ’95 also make an appearance along with NBA Live 95 PC, and an alley-oop reel from my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER.

You can also find highlights from our NCAA Basketball 10 Tournament that Dee is hosting. I’ll be posting the latest videos in a separate bulletin along with an update following the conclusion of the Final Four, but for now, you can find them all in this playlist. There’s also the weekly Top 10 Plays curated by Dee, the NLSC Podcast, and plenty more, so be sure to subscribe to our channel! As always, please feel free to suggest any basketball games that you’d like to see us play. In the meantime, enjoy our latest uploads!

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #472 of the NLSC Podcast!

NBA Action ’95 for the Sega Genesis was a game ahead of its time, yet it’s often overlooked compared to other 90s hoops titles. As such, we’re making it the subject of a deep dive this week, from its gameplay to its historical content to the interesting history of the NBA Action series. A listener question also prompts us to compare the NBA Playgrounds games to NBA Jam: On Fire Edition; do Saber’s games hold a candle to EA Sports’ second (and to date, final) NBA Jam release? We also catch up on the latest from Year 5 in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, and some other fun happenings around the community, including the 100th edition of the Top 10.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:16:16 — 52.7MB)

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 lists five features that didn’t originate in NBA Live or NBA 2K.

From the mid 90s through to today, NBA Live and NBA 2K are the two biggest names as far as sim basketball games are concerned. Obviously NBA Jam and NBA Street were the top dogs in the arcade space, and there have been other series of sim titles that have produced quality releases. However, when we’re talking about the brand leader in NBA licensed sim titles, it’s been NBA Live and NBA 2K for more than a quarter of a century, with the latter taking the crown from the former during the 2000s. Of course, it hasn’t been a competition for quite some time.

Nevertheless, being the two biggest names/brand leaders in sim basketball games has meant that many of the innovations in the genre did originate with either NBA Live or NBA 2K. To that end, they’ve ended up borrowing ideas from each other, which as I’ve long maintained is actually a good thing when it comes to features that should be staples of a sim game. Of course, there are also some great features that we take for granted that didn’t originate in NBA Live or NBA 2K. Some of them are older than we think, appearing in one of their predecessors, while other times it was one of their contemporaries that beat them to the punch. Either way, another game did it first.

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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 weird quirks that you can find in basketball games from the 90s.

As someone who was born in 1984 and thus grew up and became a teenager in the 90s, I have a lot of nostalgia for the decade. It’s become a popular decade to hate on, perhaps because it’s the one that people were starting to feel nostalgic for as social media really took off. Perhaps if the Internet had been a bigger thing earlier in the 90s, 60s and 70s nostalgia would be the popular subject of scorn instead. Then again, I suppose people have been railing against nostalgia for as long as they’ve been feeling nostalgic. History suggests that both of these feelings are cyclical, and inevitable.

With that being said, while nostalgia goggles are rose-coloured by design, it doesn’t mean that there’s no truth or accuracy in holding the past in high regard. No, not everything in the 90s was wonderful, but there were great shows, films, and video games, and it was a tremendous era for basketball. Combining those last two things, there were some very important basketball games released during the 90s that paved the way for even better titles. They were great for their time, and some are still quite playable today. Those 90s basketball games do have some weird quirks though, which we’re highly unlikely to see ever again. Of course, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

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Episode #381 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Derek (aka Dee4Three) and I are your hosts for this weekly podcast that’s all about basketball gaming.

We have a lot on our minds this week! Our NBA Live 10 sessions continued with another epic clash that delighted us with its authenticity. NBA Action 94 and 95 were also briefly in the rotation, and they had their interesting points. Unfortunately, NBA Live 15 and 16 provided a reminder of staples that have been missing from the series for years. Playing NBA Live 10 as well as NBA 2K14 on PS4 also leads us to reminisce about external factors that tainted our first impressions of games we later came to enjoy. Meanwhile, a comment blaming the community for recurrent revenue mechanics has us fired up; suffice to say, we disagree! We also cover a recent fix in NBA 2K21 Next Gen, and answer a mailbag question about gameplay improvements that we’re yet to see.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:38:28 — 67.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Join in the conversation in the comments below, or here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as mailbag questions and topic suggestions for future shows. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. The show also comes out on our YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe for future episodes and other video content.

Episode #380 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Derek (aka Dee4Three) and I are your hosts for this weekly podcast that’s all about basketball gaming.

We’re not sure if it’s a first for modding as a whole, but we may have engaged in the first remote modding session in the history of our community! Our efforts ensured that we’ll be able to set up retro teams in NBA Live 10 quickly and easily, which we’ve already tried with fun results. We’ve also revisited NBA Jam: On Fire Edition and NBA Street Vol. 2 this week, and were reminded why we love them. Of course, it also makes us wistful about the current selection of basketball titles. Meanwhile, Madden 22 PC being a Current Gen port raises some concerns. We also catch up on recent mod releases including NBL 2K21 and a great Larry Bird face, and note a potential NBA 2K22 leak. In this week’s mailbag, we recall NBA Action 95 for the Sega Genesis, and compare toxicity among NBA 2K gamers to other communities.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:32:20 — 63.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Join in the conversation in the comments below, or here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as mailbag questions and topic suggestions for future shows. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. The show also comes out on our YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe for future episodes and other video content.