Tag Archives: PlayStation 4

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 NBA 2K’s Eco-Motion Engine.

Over the years, we’ve become more aware of – and concerned with – the technology under the hood of video games. The announcement that a game will be running on a specific engine may excite gamers, or disappoint them. Sometimes, we assume too much here. After all, the same engines have powered good games and bad games alike. Time, resources, and design choices that harness the power of the engine, are paramount. In-house solutions can also offer an advantage over widely-used engines such as Unreal, since they’re custom-built for a title or series.

Perhaps the most famous basketball game engine is Eco-Motion. It debuted in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version of NBA 2K14, facilitating a landmark release in basketball gaming. Many basketball gamers remember it fondly, and are wistful that it was replaced by tech that many say hasn’t felt nearly as good. What was it all about? 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 recap of Year 4 in my MyCAREER in the PlayStation 4 version of NBA 2K14.

Can you believe that I’ve played through four full seasons of MyCAREER within the past twelve months or so? It’s true! This is what happens when you’re not forcing yourself to grind to level up a player as quickly as possible in the latest game, all the while knowing that your progress will be reset to zero in a year’s time. Given my lack of enthusiasm for either version of NBA 2K21 and NBA 2K22, I’ve greatly enjoyed NBA 2K14 PS4 providing me with a basketball gaming experience that’s been so engaging. It’s unquestionably picked up the slack.

With NBA 2K23 looming and its previews inspiring some cautious optimism, I did want to wrap up Year 4 in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER before the release of this year’s game. I have no doubt that I’ll pick it up again to play through Year 5 – I still have one more Hall of Fame Milestone to achieve for 100% completion in that regard – but I do want to spend time with NBA 2K23 and give it a fair chance to impress. Even with the deadline of NBA 2K23’s release however, I still took the time to enjoy the journey in Year 4 of my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER. As I prepare to take a break from NBA 2K14 in the near future, here’s a look back at how the 2017 campaign went down.

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Following on from the MyCAREER trailer, the latest developer blog provides our first look at The Neighborhood in the Current Gen version of NBA 2K23. Once again, this year’s open world in the PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch version of the game will have a nautical setting, as the GOAT Boat replaces the Cancha Del Mar.

The layout of this year’s virtual luxury liner has been revamped, and more courts have been added. There are also no-wait gameplay options, new Seasonal excursions, and an updated quest system with NPCs in The Neighborhood.

As always, I’ve summarised the key information below, but check out the GOAT Boat blog for the full scoop on The Neighborhood in NBA 2K23 Current Gen. What are your thoughts? Share them in the comments below, and join in the discussion here in the NBA 2K23 section of the NLSC Forum!

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It won’t be long now before NBA 2K23 is in our hands. In case you weren’t aware, the game is set to launch on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch on September 9th. That means there’s still time to pre-order NBA 2K23 if you haven’t done so already.

Obviously, pre-ordering the game will grant you a variety of bonuses, depending on the version that you opt for. As previously announced, there are five editions of NBA 2K23: Standard, Digital Deluxe, Michael Jordan, Championship, and WNBA, the last of which is exclusive to GameStop in the United States and Canada. Each has its own cover art, price point, and again, pre-order bonuses. Today, I’m providing a guide as to which version of NBA 2K23 to pre-order, if indeed you have the need and desire to pre-purchase a copy of this year’s game.

To that point, this isn’t intended to instruct anyone to pre-order NBA 2K23, or shill for the expensive special editions. In fact, I’ll also be laying out why you don’t need to pre-order NBA 2K23 at all, and why the Standard Edition may be sufficient if you are intent on pre-ordering. Depending on the mode you play, whether you’re a collector and/or content creator, and your general enthusiasm for the series and forthcoming game, the value of reserving a copy and receiving the individual pre-order bonuses will vary. You should always aim to be a savvy consumer, and it’s my aim to help my fellow basketball gamers to make an informed decision in that regard.

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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 how I’m getting hyped for NBA 2K23, but my optimism isn’t completely unbridled or unconditional.

Yes, I’ll admit it. Over the past few weeks, I’ve started getting hyped for NBA 2K23. That’s not to say that I don’t have my concerns, or that I’m uncritically accepting that everything I’ve read in the developer blogs will come to pass. I’ve been playing and covering basketball video games for too long to believe that everything will be just as good as advertised. Nevertheless, there are aspects of NBA 2K23 that look very good on paper, and so I’m getting hyped. Well, certainly more excited than I have been in a number of years, at any rate.

Honestly, that feels great! I love basketball and basketball video games, so I never want to feel negative about my hobby. Obviously, over the past twelve months or so, I’ve found great enjoyment in making old favourites (and a few new favourites) part of my gaming rotation once again. I don’t expect that to change, regardless of whether or not NBA 2K23 lives up to the hype. However, I absolutely want to be impressed and enraptured by new releases as well. After primarily using my PlayStation 5 to play a PlayStation 4 game for the better part of the last couple of years, I’m hyped by the distinct possibility that NBA 2K23 could end up monopolising my gaming time.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #441 of the NLSC Podcast!

The latest developer blogs delivered some more great news about NBA 2K23, this time concerning MyTEAM and The W. As release day looms, we’re allowing ourselves to feel optimistic. We also revisited NBA Live 2001 this week, while dusting off an old retro season mod. It produced a dramatic win, but we were reminded that the game can be very hit and miss! A session with NBA Inside Drive 2003 yielded a fun Easter egg, though a reply to a Tweet about it prompts us to defend retro basketball gaming once again. There are also a couple of recent retro pickups to reflect upon, updates on our NBA 2K19 MyLEAGUE and NBA 2K14 MyCAREER games to share, and a mailbag question about using players out of position.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:20:25 — 55.6MB)

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!

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 basketball gaming on PC has declined over the years.

It pains me to speak ill of basketball gaming on PC. In NBA Live’s Golden Age, there was no question that the PC version was the definitive release. Even when the PC was receiving a port of the PlayStation 2/Xbox release in the mid 2000s, it held a distinct advantage in the form of the modding community. Many of my fondest basketball gaming memories involve playing on PC, and I’ve always enjoyed games on both PC and console. What I’m getting at is that I’m in no way against PC gaming – basketball or otherwise – so I’m not trashing it as a platform for video games.

That’s why the realisation that PC basketball gaming has declined is a dismal thought. It isn’t dead by any means, but it could be in much better shape. Aside from modding capabilities, it’s been a long time since the PC version of any basketball game was unquestionably superior to its console brethren. Modding has also been affected by changes to PC releases. From a collecting standpoint, there are some tremendous disadvantages compared to picking up copies on PlayStation or Xbox. We also have more reason to be concerned about future releases on PC, from quality to their very existence. Here are five ways that PC basketball gaming has unfortunately declined.

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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 reasons that playing NBA 2K14 MyCAREER remains a blast, and a retro gaming experience to consider.

Between my articles and commentary on the NLSC Podcast, it should be extremely obvious that I’ve developed quite a passion for MyCAREER in NBA 2K14! Not only has it been a blast to play, but it’s also been great to get positive feedback from the community when I’ve discussed it. Whether it’s been a comment on the articles or the podcast, or replies on Twitter, I love hearing that my fellow gamers have enjoyed my recaps and tidbits. It only encourages me to continue sharing stories about such a fun experience on the virtual hardwood.

This is the internet of course, which means that negativity is bound to seep in at some point; especially if someone is committing an atrocity such as enjoying something that you aren’t! To that point, there will be a few stray comments sneeringly asking why I or anyone else would still be playing NBA 2K14, MyCAREER or otherwise. Such a question is never asked in good faith, and I know I shouldn’t focus on such remarks. Nevertheless, whether you’re trying to downplay retro gaming, genuinely intrigued by someone playing an older game, or a retro gamer looking for a suggestion, this week’s Five is for you! NBA 2K14 MyCAREER is still a blast; here are five reasons why.

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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 some of the updates that have become long-lost, and the quest to track them down.

With the internet’s ability to connect the world and make information and content readily accessible, there’s a particular interest in using it for preservation. It’s why there’s debate over dumping ROMs of games, particularly those that were never released and could otherwise easily become lost media. We’ve felt the sting of lost content in our modding community. So many great mods from the early days are long-lost now, and even more recent releases have disappeared because they were uploaded to file hosts that won’t guarantee availability in perpetuity.

And then, there are the long-lost official updates for various games. We actually have some old official patches in our Downloads section, as well as official roster updates, but it’s not a complete archive. Files that can be downloaded disappear from personal archives as well as the web, and in-game content updates likewise vanish and become long-lost when servers are shut down. This leaves us on a quest to find those long-lost updates, but all too often, it’s unfortunately been a fruitless search. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Parsec is changing the way our community connects with each other to play basketball video games. Our own Dee4Three has been leading the charge, connecting with several people to play games that no longer have online support, or never had it in the first place. He’s been sharing highlights from those games, including one in NBA 2K14 against Perdxdo.

The matchup features Dee using the Pistons, while Perdxdo took control of the Nets. It was a competitive game filled with big shots (including some from Mr. Big Shot himself, Chauncey Billups), spectacular dunks, crafty moves, and great defensive stops. Josh Smith, Brandon Jennings, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Joe Johnson are also featured in the reel Dee put together. As I’m sure you’ll agree after seeing the highlights, it’s two people who know NBA 2K14 very well, making for a stimulating matchup that’s fun for the rest of us to watch.

If you’d like to connect with your fellow gamers on Parsec, check out this section of the Forum for more information! You may also want to jump into our Discord server if you haven’t already. For more basketball gaming video content, be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel.

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 things – namely saves or other data and content – that I carelessly lost in various games.

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. It’s an old adage that’s been lamented in the music of Joni Mitchell and the band Cinderella alike. The sentiment usually refers to more important things in life than video games, but since that’s what we cover around these parts, I’ll appropriate it for this occasion. After all, while I think we can and should acknowledge that other losses are far more significant in the grand scheme of things, it’s still a bummer when we lose save files, data, and other content in video games. Life goes on, but it sucks to have all that progress go up in smoke.

It’s bad enough when it occurs due to a glitch in a game, but at least you can turn your anger and frustration outwards towards the developers and publisher. When you’ve carelessly done something that’s resulted in your progress being lost, it’s tougher to shift the blame onto somebody else! Even if there’s something clunky in the game that’s partly to blame, you’re stuck with the knowledge that it could’ve been avoided if you were just the teeniest bit more careful. The times when I’ve been careless with my save files are undoubtedly among my biggest regrets as far as basketball gaming is concerned. Here are five things that I’ve lost due to a lack of care and foresight.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #434 of the NLSC Podcast!

How much would you pay for a sealed copy of Lakers vs. Celtics? Here’s a hint: it’ll set you back more than the Championship Edition of NBA 2K23! Speaking of which, in the wake of the NBA 2K23 preview season tipping off, we discuss the cover reveals, pre-order bonuses, and the return of the Jordan Challenge. With the news that the PC version will be Current Gen once again, we consider the possible reasons for the decision, and the future of the series on the platform. We also talk about some interesting NBA Live rumours, and the underrated NBA Inside Drive series. In this week’s mailbag, the community reacts to the news about NBA 2K23 PC, and suggests new games for the Jordan Challenge.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:43:36 — 71.5MB)

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!

Bad news for anyone hoping that NBA 2K23 PC would be making the jump to next Next Gen: IGN has confirmed that the PC version will once again be a PlayStation 4/Xbox One port.

This isn’t surprising, but it is disappointing given that this will be the third consecutive year that the PC has missed out on a Next Gen port. While NBA 2K21 PC remaining a Current Gen port wasn’t unexpected given that it was released two months before the Next Gen consoles launched, there were hopes that the PC would be getting the PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X version of NBA 2K22. The precedent here was NBA 2K15 PC, which made the Next Gen jump the year after the PS4 and X1 launched.

Unfortunately, that precedent hasn’t been repeated with the ninth generation. NBA 2K isn’t alone here, as the PC version of WWE 2K22 was likewise a PS4/X1 port. Madden 22 PC was also ported from the Current/Prior Gen version. Although these are different series and Madden is obviously from another developer/publisher entirely, many gamers suggested that this was a red flag for NBA 2K on PC as well. Sadly, that prediction turned out to be correct.

If there is a silver lining to the announcement, it’s that there’ll likely once again be high compatibility with existing mods and modding tools. However, it naturally also means that NBA 2K23 PC will miss out on any enhancements to gameplay and modes that are exclusive to Next Gen. Your mileage will vary as to whether that’s a worthwhile trade-off.

In any case, we will be covering both the Current Gen/PC and Next Gen versions of NBA 2K23 when they’re released on September 9th. For now though, feel free to vent in the comments below, or here in the NLSC Forum!

As I’m sure you can tell from my recaps in articles and on the NLSC Podcast, I’ve been enjoying NBA 2K14 MyCAREER for several months now. What began as an in-depth look back for Wayback Wednesday turned into an extended retro basketball gaming kick. Playing through multiple seasons has produced several fun stories throughout the league, including generated rookie tattoo regrets.

When it comes to generated rookies, a funny name or distinct appearance can make them stand out. In NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, a majority of these fictional draftees have a tattoo, randomly chosen from the selection that’s available to MyPLAYERs. While there’s usually no problem with that, it can end up looking like a regrettable decision on their part. Sergei Kursov is a prime example, and he’s the subject of my first NBA 2K14 MyCAREER Stories video!

I’m not sure if this will be a regular feature, but whenever I have a story that makes for a quick, fun video, I’ll put one together. I’ve also started a topic dedicated to my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER in our Stories section, which I’ll be keeping updated. While you’re there, I encourage you to check out the other story topics past and present, as there are some enthusiastic basketball gamers sharing fun stories about their virtual hardwood adventures. I hope you enjoyed this video on generated rookie tattoo regrets; please subscribe to the NLSC’s YouTube channel for more video content!

Patch 1.13 is out now for NBA 2K22. As always, it should come through automatically as long as you’re online. If it doesn’t, try restarting your console/Steam client, or checking for updates manually. Please note that the patch is currently available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X, and should be coming through on PC shortly.

As of this post, no detailed patch notes have been released. It would appear that the update is simply preparing NBA 2K22 for Season 8 in MyCAREER and MyTEAM, which is centred around Shaquille O’Neal (no pun intended). If any further details are posted, I’ll be sure to add them to this bulletin, as well as our Current Gen and Next Gen update histories for NBA 2K22.

With the NBA 2K23 preview season looming – including a possible leak of the cover player – we shouldn’t expect any major fixes or gameplay changes at this point. As per the pre-release developer blogs, there will be a ninth season in MyTEAM and MyCAREER in August, leading into a September release for NBA 2K23.

In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts on Patch 1.13 for NBA 2K22 in the comments below, as well as join in the discussion in the Forum!