Tag Archives: Retro Gaming

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 technical tips for anyone who’d like to get into retro gaming, in particular through the use of emulation.

There seems to be a growing interest in retro basketball gaming, and I love to see it! Obviously, people have been going back to old favourites or sticking with a treasured game for a long time now, but I’ve been noticing more enthusiasm for it in recent years. Whether it’s a case of NBA 2K fatigue, people reaching an age where they’re feeling more nostalgic, less stigma around retro gaming, or a combination of those factors, there’s a clear desire to revisit the classics. We’re keen advocates for that here at the NLSC, and moving forward, we’ll look to expand our retro gaming resources.

In that spirit, I’d like to share some technical advice for retro gaming, with a focus on emulation. Naturally there’s a certain charm to playing on original hardware – whether it’s a console or an older PC – and in some ways it’s definitely easier! There are many benefits to emulation though, whether we’re talking about retro console emulators or compatibility fixes to get old PC games up and running on a modern system. Thanks to the efforts of some talented people throughout the years, we’re at a point where emulation has greatly improved, and retro gaming is technically viable. You may encounter a few difficulties here and there though, so hopefully these tips will help.

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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 some reflections on how there are times that I miss dice roll shooting mechanics in basketball video games.

At this point, it’s a safe bet to say that Green Releases will remain a fixture of NBA 2K’s shooting mechanics moving forward. It’s just a matter of how they’re handled, and whether there are any additional controls and mechanics such as shot aiming or rhythm shooting with the right stick. In recent years, the “Green or Miss” approach to shooting has been particularly contentious. On one hand, it rewards skilful input with a guaranteed result (blocked attempts notwithstanding). On the other hand, it’s not necessarily accessible, or preferable for offline play.

It’s funny to revisit the discourse around Green Releases back in 2017, when Mike Wang spoke of a desire to wean gamers off of the idea that they should be guaranteed baskets. “Green or Miss” certainly goes against that aim, demonstrating how attitudes have changed as NBA 2K has increasingly catered to the online scene. Personally, I’m in favour of Green Releases being guaranteed, very good or near-perfect releases still being reliable, and then progressively lower odds of success as the timing gets worse. To that point, while I wouldn’t change the approach of Green Releases always being successful, I must admit that I sometimes miss the old dice roll shooting mechanics.

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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 some thoughts on how you don’t have to miss the basketball video games that you used to play.

Between our personal accounts and the NLSC’s socials, Dee and I frequently share short clips, highlight reels, and screenshots from various basketball video games. Because we love the classics, sometimes we’ll go a long way back with those posts. It seems that many of our fellow basketball gamers appreciate that hit of nostalgia, as we’ll get replies reminiscing about epic battles, players that were a blast to use, and interesting details that are impossible to forget. It’s fun to go back, which is why we have Wayback Wednesday and our deep dives on the NLSC Podcast.

However, in the midst of all the nostalgic delight, there’s a recurring comment that always jumps out at me: “I miss this game”, or words to that effect. It makes sense. There’s obviously a wistful aspect to nostalgia, wishing that you could go back to a specific time if only briefly. Of course, like favourite books, TV shows, and movies, you can revisit and continue to enjoy video games many years later. You don’t have to miss any of the classic games that we spotlight here or on our social media channels! At the same time, I do get it. There are a variety of reasons why you may not be able to play old video games, but if doing so is feasible, you needn’t have to miss them.

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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 one might choose to revisit bad basketball video games.

Naturally, most of us are about as keen to play bad video games as we are to watch a movie or TV show that we dislike! If we’re disappointed by the latest release, we’ll cast it aside quickly, and feel little incentive to give it another look. Even if you’re a keen retro basketball gamer who can enjoy more primitive titles, you’re still going to seek out quality. Games that were great in their day and still hold up are the ones we want to revisit, while bad games get left in the past. Sure, we might bring them up in conversation, but we’re usually not inclined to actually play them all that often.

The key word there is “usually”, because there are some reasons to revisit bad games of all genres. We can certainly draw comparisons to other entertainment media here. Works that are lacking in artistic merit and overall quality can still be enjoyable, and undoubtedly inspire curiosity. Lacklustre video games may be tougher to similarly enjoy in a “so bad it’s good” way, but they can definitely still pique our interest with unique features, unusual design choices, and gameplay that has its moments. The classics are the obvious choice if you want to have a good time on the sticks, but here are five reasons why you might want to dust off bad basketball video games as well.

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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 some reflections on what keeps a few of my old favourites out of my basketball gaming rotation.

A few weeks ago, I discussed some of the basketball games that I’d like to bring back into my rotation at some point this year. Unsurprisingly, four of the games that I listed – NBA Live 96, NBA Live 2004, NBA Live 06, and NBA 2K13 – are among my all-time favourites. It only stands to reason that they’re prime candidates as I continue to get my virtual hardwood fix from retro and classic titles. And yet, despite holding those old favourites in high regard, to date I haven’t been in a rush to make them part of my rotation again. Instead, I’ve sought out new retro kicks.

It’s something that I’ve been thinking about since I posted that Friday Five article. My disappointment with recent NBA 2K titles has pushed me towards retro gaming, and to that end, you’d think I’d reach for my old favourites before anything else. After all, they’re the basketball games I’ve enjoyed the most. Familiarity and nostalgia should make them an ideal alternative whenever a new release fails to impress me. To that end, I have dusted off these old favourites here and there, but again, I’ve mostly been revisiting games that I overlooked, and discovering new favourites. Upon reflection, there are a few reasons why some of my beloved old favourites remained benched.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #626 of the NLSC Podcast!

We’ve recently been connecting to play Konami’s NBA Starting Five 2005, which was released exclusively in Japan for the PlayStation 2. Unsurprisingly, that has inspired us to take an in-depth look at the game on this week’s show! After breaking down its assortment of classic teams and other historical squads, we share our impressions of its gameplay, modes, presentation, and other features. While the game can be rough, it definitely has its strong points, including some that were ahead of its time. We also join the community in discussing whether we would’ve bought NBA Starting Five 2005 instead of or in addition to NBA Live 2005 and/or ESPN NBA 2K5, had it been made available in our region.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:06:28 — 46.0MB)

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 Bart vs. the Space Mutants.

In order to plan out future features, I’ve devised lists of potential ideas. For Wayback Wednesday, that naturally includes game retrospectives, but also topics related to modding and our community, specific features and content found in basketball video games, and NBA history. After all, there’s a finite number of old games to discuss, and certainly a finite number of them that I can get actually my hands on. At some point, I’ll have covered all of the games in my collection. With that being said, there are still many game retrospectives left on my To Do list.

That brings us to Bart vs. the Space Mutants. I’ve often mentioned it in passing, but now I’m finally covering it in detail. It’s undoubtedly flawed, which isn’t surprising for the time that it was released, though other games of its vintage have avoided similar pitfalls. Nevertheless, it’s a nostalgic favourite despite its flaws; or indeed, in some ways because of them. I’m committed to covering both good and bad games, so as always this overdue retrospective will attempt to look beyond my nostalgia, while simultaneously celebrating it. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #622 of the NLSC Podcast!

There’s a lot of fun to be had taking on the CPU solo or co-operatively in basketball video games, especially with the range of modes at our disposal. However, head-to-head play is also a blast, and we have countless memories of epic battles with friends, family, and online opponents. This week, we join the community in recalling the best players that we’ve ever faced on the virtual hardwood, and some of the lessons that we took from those showdowns. We also recap a fun game of NBA Live 2000 PC that demonstrated just how superbly it holds up more than 25 years later, and touch on some of the downsides of skill-based mechanics when it comes to realism and lucky plays.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 54:12 — 37.6MB)

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!

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 finding basketball gaming’s answer to Tecmo Super Bowl.

Tecmo Super Bowl is undoubtedly an iconic video game. Fully-licensed NFL teams and players, well-designed gameplay, stat tracking, and the dominance of virtual Bo Jackson, all helped cement it as a legendary release. That legend has only grown over time, thanks to emulation facilitating a modding scene that has kept the game dutifully updated and enthusiastically played right through to today. When it comes to a cult following in the retro gaming and modding scene, Tecmo Super Bowl is right up there with the original Doom games.

Basketball is my sport however, so I’m left wondering: is there an equivalent retro hoops title to Tecmo Super Bowl? For that matter, could there be? Obviously, there are a handful of old favourites still being updated, but these days those titles rarely approach the same vintage as Tecmo Super Bowl. It stands to reason. It could be argued that sim basketball games that hold up decades later didn’t come along until the mid 90s, or even the mid 2000s. Once they evolved to that point, we ended up with several great releases that remained moddable and playable years later. With that in mind, which titles could potentially be basketball gaming’s Tecmo Super Bowl?

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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 some thoughts on how nostalgia is something special that we’re lucky to have, rather than being sad and pitiable.

Nostalgia has been getting a bad rap for quite a while now. Oh sure, there’s plenty of nostalgic communities and content online, as many of us love to reminisce. However, there has undoubtedly been a noticeable backlash to nostalgia as online demographics have shifted over the past decade or so. Beyond tired arguments about what was better – then or now – the discourse has been polluted by smug armchair psychoanalysis. If you’re nostalgic, or prefer to stick with something older, you must be hung up on the past, miserably chasing a moment in time that you’ll never get back.

Now, I can’t say that that doesn’t hold true for some people, though I’ll say it with far more sympathy and understanding than those who want to dump on the past to prop up the present! For many of us though, continuing to enjoy the classics – or at least looking back on them fondly – is neither depressing, nor preventing us from having new experiences. And so, the idea that nostalgia is a sad, delusional cry for help is infuriatingly condescending. Frankly, if we’ve made fond memories with our interests and passions that we can enthusiastically recall, then we’re extremely fortunate. If those things can still bring us joy, we’re even luckier. There’s nothing sad about that.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #613 of the NLSC Podcast!

Happy New Year, fellow basketball gamers and hardcore hoop heads! As 2026 gets underway, we’re tipping things off by joining the community in discussing our plans for this year when it comes to basketball gaming and real basketball alike. From creating mods, polishing up old releases, and expanding our gaming rotations, to watching classic games, getting involved in local leagues, and simply shooting around more often, it’s fair to say that we’re primed to have a blast with hoops over the next twelve months! We also reflect on the most recent game in our co-op Chicago Bulls Association in NBA 2K9, which saw us pick up a very satisfying victory over a Divisional rival.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:10:07 — 48.5MB)

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 reflections on how after all these years, way too many people don’t know that EA Sports’ famous slogan is “It’s in the game”.

It’s Christmastime once again – aka the “silly season” – so it’s time for some merry, light-hearted fun in this week’s features! To that end, I’m combining my Monday Tip-Off “brand” with JaoSming’s old feature, Dumb Mondays. I did this last Christmas, in order to make a tongue-in-cheek comparison between the movies of John Hughes and the rise of the Chicago Bulls. It was a fun, silly “theory” that came to mind years ago. I ended up sitting on the rough draft of an article outlining the “connections” for a long time, before finally polishing it up and publishing it last Christmas.

Since the time has come for some more silliness, let’s talk about something that I find extremely silly: the sheer number of people who don’t know that EA Sports’ slogan is “It’s in the game”! More specifically, they believe that the slogan is something else that may sound kind of similar to that. Furthermore, they insist that they’re absolutely correct in thinking that EA Sports’ slogan is anything but “It’s in the game”. Now, this may not seem like something to get too riled up about, especially given the spirit of the season. With that in mind, I’m definitely not trying to be a Grinch here. This is all in good fun, and revelling in some silliness. At the same time though…come on, now!

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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 some thoughts on revisiting games in which I mostly played MyCAREER, and enjoying some fresh experiences.

When it comes to our impressions of basketball games with an array of modes, what we play is a significant factor. After all, while the underlying gameplay mechanics are obviously the same, their suitability and our tolerance for any issues can vary from mode to mode. There have definitely been games that were more enjoyable in certain modes, depending on the tuning and whether or not we could alter it. As such, if you mostly stick to one mode, you may not be aware of some of a game’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s why we can remember the same games very differently.

After really getting into MyCAREER in NBA 2K13, it became my mode of choice for the next seven years or so. That’s not to say that it was the only mode I played, but when it comes to NBA 2K on PlayStation 4 and PC, many of my fondest memories are of MyCAREER and its connected experiences. I don’t regret that, as it represents hours of fun on the virtual hardwood. At the same time, it does mean that there were modes and content I wasn’t able to truly enjoy, since levelling up a MyPLAYER and playing through an NBA season is a huge commitment. To that end, revisiting some of those games and playing something other than MyCAREER has been refreshing.

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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 lost basketball video game saves that I’m tempted to reboot and play once again.

Decades of basketball gaming has resulted in far too many of my saves being lost. Sometimes it’s due to unfortunate technical issues, but all too often, I’ve made the mistake of believing that I was done with a particular game and carelessly discarded those files. As I’ve come to realise – especially with my preference for retro basketball gaming in recent years – I’m actually quite likely to revisit old favourites and make them a part of my rotation once again! To that point, it’s a shame that I can’t resume those lost Season, Franchise, and Dynasty saves when I dust off classic titles.

Of course, while the original saves may be lost, the ideas live on! With that in mind, while recovering those lost saves is highly unlikely unless I discover some backups somewhere – and trust me, I’ve already looked – I can always re-create them. Now that I’ve made my return to franchise gaming and reignited my passion for playing through seasons, I’m open to making that something I do with any old favourites that I end up getting hooked on. Sure, it wouldn’t be a true continuation of those lost saves, and it’d be tough to truly re-create the magic of the original experiences. I do think it’d be a lot of fun, though! With that being said, I’m quite tempted to reboot these five lost saves.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #605 of the NLSC Podcast!

The price of video games – basketball and otherwise – remains a hot topic in 2025. Many people opine that they’re too expensive, but plenty of others actually defend the current costs, and indeed suggest that video games should be even more expensive than they already are. This week, we’re sharing our thoughts on the issue, including our reactions to an excellent 2023 article from The Gamer and some interesting comments from Fallout co-creator Tim Cain. We also join the community in suggesting what we believe would be fair prices for Triple-A games, indie games, online-only titles, and mobile releases. And yes, we do understand that video game development is a business, and no, we’re not saying that games should all be dirt cheap or free!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:06:21 — 45.9MB)

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!