Tag Archives: PlayStation 4

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #628 of the NLSC Podcast!

While it’s certainly exciting to be on the cutting edge of gaming technology, we’re not always in a rush to upgrade our hardware and play the (supposedly) most advanced versions of basketball video games. This week, we’re taking a look at why many basketball gamers often opt to stick with last gen hoops titles – ourselves included – and some of the benefits of delaying a jump to the next generation. We also touch on next gen elitism and gatekeeping – in particular, the “you’re broke” crowd – and the community shares their experiences in sticking with last gen basketball video games. Suffice it to say that it’s been a more common practice over the years than some people may think!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:02:02 — 43.0MB)

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!

When we’ve talked to Josh and Dave from Namo Gamo in the past, they’ve mentioned the goal of bringing Basketball Classics to console in addition to Steam. That dream has been realised, as the game is now available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch!

The console version of Basketball Classics remains priced at $9.99 USD, making it well worth picking up if you love retro-style games with modern design sensibilities. Additionally, the PC version is currently on sale at a 65% discount, which is a great bargain. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of the game – and not just because I’m an unlockable player in it – so I highly recommend snagging it on your platform of choice.

As previously announced, Namo Gamo’s partnership with the revived Acclaim has also led to an upcoming sequel. For those who missed the announcement, Super Basketball Classics will feature revamped gameplay, new modes, and of course, the World-Famous Harlem Globetrotters. The release date is as yet unknown, but we’re looking forward to more details, and will definitely be covering it upon release.

You can check out the console launch trailer below. Congratulations to Josh and Dave once again for all of their well-earned success with Basketball Classics, as well as the forthcoming sequel! While we may be lacking Triple-A options in the basketball gaming space these days, indie developers are leading the charge to provide alternatives. If you’ve grown weary of NBA 2K and you’d like something new on top of revisiting old favourites, I’d strongly suggest keeping an eye on the indie scene as more and more developers are stepping onto the virtual hardwood.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #617 of the NLSC Podcast!

The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One generation of NBA 2K games – and their PC ports beginning with NBA 2K15 – saw some fantastic hits, but also a couple of disappointing misses. With that in mind, how would we personally rank the eighth gen NBA 2K releases? That’s the challenge before us this week, as we take a look back and rank NBA 2K14 through NBA 2K20 from worst to best. As you’ll hear, it was tough to separate a couple of the generation’s best NBA 2K titles that have also become some of our all-time favourite basketball video games, but between gameplay, modes, content, and overall vibe, we had ample criteria to devise rankings that we stand behind.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 45:23 — 31.5MB)

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 some thoughts on how NBA 2K gamers that are still playing on Last Gen consoles deserve better.

I’ll admit that I’m surprised we’re still seeing NBA 2K come out for the Last Gen consoles. Back in 2023, I speculated that we might be reaching the end of the road for NBA 2K on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, based on the minimal previews and lack of substantial post-release support. Obviously that didn’t turn out to be the case, with NBA 2K25 and NBA 2K26 both receiving Last Gen releases. While I wouldn’t be shocked if the series leaves PS4 and X1 behind in 2026, there’s actually a decent chance that NBA 2K27 will still be released on those consoles.

And you know what? I have absolutely no problem with that! Although I can play the New Gen version on my PlayStation 5 or PC, plenty of people don’t have that option, either by choice or circumstance. To that end, I truly loathe the elitist attitude that a contingent of Next Gen/New Gen gamers display, from mocking people for financial hardship to believing that Last Gen gamers don’t deserve a good product. The fact of the matter is that everyone who is still playing NBA 2K on a Last Gen console for whatever reason has deserved better than what they’ve received and how they’ve been treated the last few years. Only a shameless corporate shill would argue otherwise.

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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 attending a midnight launch for the PlayStation 4 here in Australia, and my first impressions of the console.

My Facebook Memories reminded me that in the early hours of November 29th 2013, I returned from a midnight launch of the PlayStation 4 at a retailer here in Australia. The console had launched in North America a couple of weeks earlier, so I’d already heard others share their initial impressions of NBA Live 14 and NBA 2K14. Needless to say, I had some concerns – especially about the former – but I tried to keep an open mind. After all, I wanted to be excited about the new generation of basketball gaming that I’d be experiencing from Day One; or near enough, anyway.

That first experience with the PlayStation 4 and two new next generation basketball video games – as well as a third title that I picked up – is certainly interesting for me to reflect upon. Suffice it to say, my feelings towards the console and at least one of those releases have changed over the years. I still have some mixed thoughts about the eighth generation, though to date I like it a lot more than the ninth! With PlayStation celebrating its 30th Anniversary, and November 29th marking 12 years since the Australian launch of the PlayStation 4, it’s a good time to 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 Legends teams that would’ve been viable in eighth generation NBA Live titles.

A couple of years ago, I reflected on the misuse of Legends in NBA Live. While the series made a big splash with historical content when Michael Jordan and other all-time greats were added in NBA Live 2000, it’s had countless missed opportunities since then. From losing the rights to include certain Legends to leaving them out of the seventh generation releases entirely, NBA Live hasn’t done an impressive job with historical content. Legends were thankfully present in the eighth generation NBA Live games, but were exclusive to specific modes.

This is one of the reasons why Ultimate Team has been one of my favourite modes in eighth gen NBA Live: it’s where I can actually play with Legends! Of course, I wish that they were more readily available. To that point, some people have argued that that wouldn’t be feasible, as it would draw attention to how thin NBA Live’s historical content is compared to what’s on offer in NBA 2K. However, while NBA 2K does boast a massive array of retro players and classic squads, eighth gen NBA Live games could’ve viably included some Legends teams. 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 another look back at the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17.

It’s funny what will prompt you to revisit certain games, and then keep playing them. Content creation is undoubtedly a factor. Revisiting NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 on a whim led to a retrospective of MyCAREER, and in turn an ongoing adventure and an overdue appreciation for an amazing game. Hoping to grab a screenshot for an article, I dusted off NBA Live 18 to play through The One. It was a blast, and I once again developed a greater fondness for an older release, while also lamenting its wasted potential. I didn’t get the screenshot I wanted, but I ended up with something better.

I don’t take that for granted. In an age of disposable games, I appreciate any unique content and modes that remain available years later. That brings me to the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17, which inspired me to spend some more time with an old favourite after revisiting it for research. I did cover the DLC back in 2018, but I’m not entirely satisfied with that feature. Also, with EA (and apparently 2K) developing a new college basketball game, it’s seems only apt to revisit the last time that collegiate content was available outside of a specific mode. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 few thoughts on a nasty surprise that greeted me when I fired up NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 recently.

I’ve been critical of NBA Playgrounds and its sequel NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 over the years. Look, call me a snob if you want, but I still consider the best NBA Jam titles to be the gold standard when it comes to NBA-oriented arcade basketball video games, with NBA Street being the benchmark for the streetball-style releases. As games that attempted to be a mash-up of NBA Jam and NBA Street with a few original ideas sprinkled in, the NBA Playgrounds games fell short of the series that inspired them. From gameplay to roster management, they’re a poor man’s Jam crossed with Street.

At the same time, I have had fun with them, and came to appreciate both a little more after revisiting them in recent years. They’re not fantastic and I’m not a fan of the loot box mechanics or the grinding, but they’re solid and have their moments on the virtual blacktop. I even ended up playing through a season in NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 a while back. To that end, after searching for a game to play while getting some cardio in on my exercise bike, I decided to dust it off again. Unfortunately, I was confronted by a nasty surprise upon firing up the game for the first since 2023! Frankly, it proved that NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 was even more poorly designed than I previously thought.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #577 of the NLSC Podcast!

While we’ll never get sick of basketball gaming, we’re taking a quick timeout from the virtual hardwood this week as we join the community in listing and discussing some of the other video games that are currently in our rotations. This includes reflecting on the aspects of those games that are keeping us hooked on them, while also noting some of the similarities to our basketball gaming habits. We also discuss finding new ways to play old favourites including self-imposed challenges and choosing different classes or character builds, and fondly recall the fun we had getting a small taste of some classic games thanks to shareware and demo discs back in the day.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:22:30 — 57.0MB)

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! 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 controversy that surrounded the NBA 2K14 server shutdown.

The unfortunate reality of games with online features is that at some point, support for those titles will end. Obviously, this is a useful way for companies to push us towards buying a newer release, but in all fairness, it’s also understandable that the servers are shut down once a game’s userbase has largely moved on. Naturally, this happens even quicker with annual sports games. As much as we hate to lose online support for older classics, most gamers do move on every year, making it difficult to justify the expense and effort of maintaining the servers indefinitely.

It’s still a bummer though, especially when we’re locked out of save files and content that should be able to function in a limited capacity offline. While we’re never pleased to see the end of online support, the NBA 2K14 server shutdown ten years ago proved to be particularly controversial. Not only did it impact the way that Take-Two handled online support for future titles, but it also hinted at future controversies with a lack of communication and goodwill when it comes to the NBA 2K series. To that end, it was a significant event with lasting ramifications! 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 basketball video games that I wish we could mod.

It’s important that we don’t dismiss modding ideas too readily, such as the possibility of tinkering with specific games. We wouldn’t have all of the amazing projects that our community has created if we gave up too easily! At the same time, we do need to be realistic. If nothing else, it’s fine to acknowledge that something isn’t possible by any means that we currently know of, and that figuring out how to mod a particular game is proving to be exceptionally difficult. Some ideas are pipe dreams, and it’s far less likely that we’ll be able to mod certain games.

Of course, as unlikely as it may be, we can still dream! Whether it’s a great game that could be made even better with mods, or a mediocre release that might be a bit more fun with some custom content, there are titles that I wish we could mess around with. Indeed, there’s a part of me holding out hope that someone might develop ways to mod the games that I’ll be discussing here today; especially the ones that are all-time favourites. Considering what johnz1 has done with the PlayStation 3 version of NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, we shouldn’t completely rule out mods for a couple of these games. For now though, I wish we could mod these games more in-depth, or at all.

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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 lamenting another rash decision that led to me losing updates and content…again.

When it comes to uninstalling and reinstalling games after their servers have been shut down, you’d think that I’d have learned my lesson by now. In fact, back in 2020, I wrote an entire article reflecting on making that mistake! Of course, to err is human as the saying goes, and I’m only human at the end of the day. Still, that doesn’t stop me from kicking myself, especially when it comes to preventable mistakes; in this case, not uninstalling and reinstalling a game when I didn’t need to. I’d say live and learn, but again, clearly I didn’t.

The game in question this time is NBA Live 16. I uninstalled and reinstalled it a little while back, and although there was a reason for it, it wasn’t entirely necessary. I chose to do it though, and in the process, I lost updates and content that I’ll never get back since the servers were shut down on October 19th, 2020; just a few months after I wrote about losing content and updates when reinstalling games that no longer had online support! And so, in addition to lamenting my losses and chastising my rash decision, this is another public service announcement to be careful with your installed games. If you’re a retro gamer, content creator, or both, please learn from my blunder!

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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 ways that roster editing was lacking in the eighth generation NBA Live releases.

For all the insistence that the only reason to prefer or still enjoy old games is blind or wilfully ignorant nostalgia, experience has taught me that the opposite is often true. Sure, I love revisiting old favourites that hold up well, and to a certain point, my nostalgia and affection for them does smooth over some rough edges. At the same time, I’ve discovered that some old favourites haven’t aged as well as I thought upon revisiting them, while games I never played or indeed didn’t care for when they were new have impressed me. It’s a case-by-case matter, rather than an absolute either way.

To that end, going back and playing some eighth gen NBA Live titles with fresh eyes and no (or low) expectations has allowed me to enjoy them more, or at least notice some of their stronger points. Unfortunately, roster editing isn’t one of them! Despite being a staple feature of basketball games and sim titles in general, roster editing was severely lacking in the NBA Live games released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It’s a perfect example of how the series was lagging behind where it needed to be, as well as the vision for the series being out of step with what many long-time NBA Live fans wanted. Let’s take a look at the biggest roster editing shortcomings in those releases.

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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 reflecting on the long-running modding practice of rolling back rosters to the previous season.

Two of the most exciting modding ideas for basketball video games are bringing an old favourite up to date, and winding back the clock in new games with a detailed retro season mod. There’s something truly enchanting about a mod so comprehensive that you almost forget that several years – or indeed, decades – separate the game and the season that the roster mod is set in! In comparison, roster mods that just involve rolling the rosters back one year may seem like a more humble affair, particularly if they’re completely minimalist and don’t include any court, jersey, or logo updates.

And yet, these projects can be immensely satisfying to create and play with! There are reasons that for as long as we’ve been able to meaningfully customise rosters – with or without the aid of external tools – we’ve had the idea of rolling back a game’s rosters to the previous campaign. In short, it’s a combination of some of our favourite aspects of playing and modding basketball video games, to the point where a season needn’t be particularly old or established as nostalgic for us to want to re-create it. It’s a way of changing things up, so let’s look at a popular way to go back, that goes 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 basketball game intros that were in some way misleading.

There’s something special about the best basketball game intros. Sure, we often end up skipping them because we’re keen to play, but most of us will watch them in their entirety the first time we fire up a game, and probably a few times after that as well. The combination of a great song and either real NBA footage or a highlight reel created in the game itself is a fantastic way to get us in the mood to play some virtual basketball. They underscored how the games were made for hardcore hoop heads, celebrating a beautiful sport and putting the NBA in our hands.

Cynically, I might suggest that that’s why basketball game intros have been phased out over the years. As they’ve tried to appeal to a wider audience and lean into online modes starring user avatars, there’s a large portion of the userbase that probably won’t get hyped up by NBA highlights. Less cynically, the fact that intros do end up getting skipped is probably a factor as well. And of course, if we’re being honest, basketball game intros can be misleading, even deceptive. Like a carefully curated preview or back-of-the-box promotional materials, intros can oversell a game with promises of quality and features it just can’t deliver upon. Here are five examples of such intros.

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