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Wayback Wednesday: NBA 07 by Sony Retrospective

Wayback Wednesday: NBA 07 by Sony Retrospective

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 PlayStation 3 version of NBA 07, the 2007 season entry in Sony’s first party NBA series.

With the lack of options in the basketball gaming space nowadays, I’m often wistful for a time when several NBA titles were on the market year after year. Of course, not every game was available to me. Some were North American exclusives, unavailable to those of us in PAL regions unless we had the hardware to play imported games. This included a majority of Sony’s NBA series, making it both a region and console exclusive. In hindsight, that was never going to realistically allow it to challenge the dominance of NBA Live and NBA 2K!

Developed by San Diego Studio – probably best known for MLB: The Show – the NBA series only saw one official worldwide release, namely NBA 08. Mind you, given that the PlayStation 3 was region-free, that didn’t have to be a barrier for anyone who was willing and able to import games! Since adding a PS3 to my collection, I’ve been able to pick up some games that I never had an opportunity to play when they were new, such as college basketball titles. This also includes a few games from the NBA series, and today, I’m profiling NBA 07 with an in-depth retrospective. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: Regional Exclusives & Late Releases

Wayback Wednesday: Regional Exclusives & Late Releases

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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NLSC Podcast #413: More NBA Video Games, Please

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #413 of the NLSC Podcast!

Catching up on the latest results from our NBA Jam: On Fire Edition Tournament, we reflect on a truly epic comeback! We also recap the fun we had connecting on Parsec to play NBA Live 2004 PC with the 1996 season mod, another exciting countdown with the Top 10 Plays, and recent fun going back to an NBA 2K14 MyCAREER save. This week’s main topic is the variety of NBA video games that we used to enjoy. We open up the mailbag to see which NBA video games the community most wants to see return instead of (or in the best case scenario, in addition to) NBA Live, and discuss our memories of those titles.

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!

NLSC Podcast #333: Just Two Creatures of Habit

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Episode #333 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Derek (aka Dee4Three) and I are your hosts for this week’s show.

Would you pay $16,000 for a promotional copy of NBA 2K15? Someone on eBay is hoping that you will! We’ve spent considerably less on recent additions to our collections, which we were excited to pick up. Speaking of collectables, a few copies of Slam City with Scottie Pippen have also popped up on eBay, leading us to reflect on that somewhat forgotten game. Meanwhile, an influx of new gamers in NBA 2K20’s online scene has further emphasised the need to implement proper ranking and matchmaking measures (and inspired another rant). We also discuss what it takes to change our gaming habits on the virtual hardwood, and how some of those habits were formed in the first place.

What’s your take on this week’s conversation? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as suggestions for topics that you’d like to hear us discuss in future episodes. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki.

The Friday Five: 5 Terribly Named Basketball Games

The Friday Five

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 terribly named basketball games.

Since nothing is classier or more cultured than Shakespeare, I’ll pull a quote from one of The Bard’s most famous works, Romeo and Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This famous quotation, often paraphrased as “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, is a metaphor which illustrates that a name doesn’t affect the nature or quality of the thing that it belongs to. Just like the idiom “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, it reminds us that superficial details aren’t everything, and that we shouldn’t make snap judgements based on them.

Of course, as The Simpsons once argued, roses wouldn’t be nearly as alluring if they were called stench blossoms or crap weed, and candy would likely be off-putting if it were called scum drops. The point is that while names aren’t always indicative or as important as we make them out to be, they do play a role in our initial impression of whatever it is they’re attached to. Even when we get past those impressions, a bad name can still stand out as an unfortunate attribute of an otherwise appealing thing. That goes for basketball video games, and there have been some terribly named ones over the years. Here are five examples that stand out to me.

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NLSC Podcast #300: Hunters & Collectors

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Episode #300 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Join Dee4Three and myself as we mark the 300th episode of the NLSC Podcast with a conversation about some recent controversies in the community, the thought-terminating cliches that bother us, Basketball Classics, and the joy of collecting basketball video games, new and old.

As we celebrate 300 episodes, we reflect on one of our favourite shows: our interview with Tim Kitzrow back in Episode #280. Recalling his passion for NBA Jam, we’re reminded of how it’s too easy to be dismissive of what came before as pure nostalgia – on the real and virtual hardwood alike – and resort to cliched buzzwords to shut down criticism of newer things. That leads us to note the fantastic fusion of the old and new with Basketball Classics, as we share some more impressions of the game. After touching on the recent hack of NBA 2K accounts and issues with ad links in our modding community, we finally get to our featured discussion topic: collecting basketball video games. We talk about our collections, the process of tracking down older titles, the problems that digital content and releases present for collectors, and the fun of playing our old favourites and checking out games we missed out on the first time around.

Tune in below!

What are your thoughts on the recent controversies? Do you consider yourself a collector of basketball video games? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as suggestions for topics that you’d like to hear us discuss in future episodes. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki.