Tag Archives: Vancouver Grizzlies

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 hidden players in NBA Live 96 16-bit, and determining whether they’re truly in the game.

One of the most famous old school basketball video game secrets is the presence of hidden players in the 16-bit versions of NBA Live 96. Whether you were playing on Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, you could unlock the Class of 1995, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, and some all-time NBA greats, simply by entering their name in Edit Player. The game would then automatically fill out all of their ratings and attributes, allowing you to add those missing and bonus players in a flash. Suffice it to say that it’s a core memory for many basketball gamers in the 90s!

Of course, some people mistakenly remember the feature being present in NBA Live 95, but hey, it was over 30 years ago now! In any case, whenever I post about NBA Live 96 on our socials, there’ll always be comments reminiscing about unlocking the hidden players. To that point, if I mention Michael Jordan’s absence from NBA Live throughout the years, there’s usually at least one person pointing out the method of playing with him in NBA Live 96. My argument is that it doesn’t count as an official appearance, but is that an accurate statement? 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 reflecting on the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver/Memphis Grizzlies being in the NBA – and video games – for 30 years.

It’s funny how even though the Toronto Raptors and Memphis Grizzlies have been in the NBA for 30 years now, a part of me still thinks of them as “new” teams. After all, the Charlotte Bobcats came along in 2004. Of course, now that they’re the Hornets again and have reclaimed their history from 1988 to 2002, the New Orleans Pelicans have retroactively become the league’s newest team. Furthermore, 1996 was the year I became a hardcore hoop head. As such, the Raptors and Grizzlies were in the league when my interest in basketball really took off.

However, I was a casual fan before then, so I was aware that they were new. My first basketball video game – NBA Jam Tournament Edition – is set before they entered the league, and thus doesn’t include them. It wasn’t until I picked up NBA Live 96 that I played a game that featured the two expansion teams. As the youngest clubs during the early days of my fandom, they continued to feel new for years afterwards. All this is to say that it’s now been 30 years since the Raptors and Grizzlies were newcomers to the league and video games! 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 a look back at the rosters in the 16-bit version of NBA Live 96, which were affected by the 1995 lockout.

There have been four lockouts in the history of the NBA. We all remember the two big ones that happened in 1998 through early 1999 and in 2011, because they actually resulted in games being cancelled. Conversely, I’d suggest that fewer fans recall the lockouts of 1995 and 1996, as the former was resolved in time for the season to begin on schedule, while the latter lasted all of two hours before the league and the Players Association came to an agreement. As such, those stoppages ultimately weren’t as impactful or controversial.

Basketball gamers are well aware of the effects that lockouts had on the 1999 and 2012 season titles. However, the 1995 lockout impacted a few video games as well, including Konami’s NBA in the Zone, and NBA Live 96. The PC and PlayStation versions of NBA Live 96 were released late enough to include offseason moves and the new rookie crop, but the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive versions were released during the lockout, sticking them with outdated 1995 season rosters. As such, they capture an interesting moment in time. 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 a look back at the defunct and relocated teams that are fun to play with in older games.

If it isn’t obvious from producing a weekly Wayback Wednesday feature, as well as playing old favourites with Dee4Three on Parsec and discussing them on the NLSC Podcast, I love revisiting basketball games from multiple eras, and bringing them back into my gaming rotation. Sometimes I get on an extended kick with a game, as is the case with NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4, while other titles I just like to throw on for an exhibition or two. Whether I’m playing solo or with Dee, those exhibition games always raise an important question: who to play with, and against?

Obviously, our favourite teams – the Chicago Bulls and Boston Celtics – will always be an option. Of course, there are some Bulls and Celtics teams throughout time that aren’t as fun to play with, while other teams are far more intriguing. However, more and more, I find myself being drawn to the defunct, relocated, or re-branded teams in older basketball video games. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 times that various basketball video games featured incorrect jerseys.

In sim basketball titles, accuracy down to the last detail is the name of the game. An arcade title usually has more wiggle room for inaccurate, exaggerated, and stylised details, but we still expect a certain degree of faithfulness in NBA-licensed products. Some inaccuracies are admittedly only apparent to the most eagle-eyed gamers who are particularly attuned to minute details on jerseys, courts, and shoes. However, other inaccuracies are blatantly obvious to everyone, leaving one to wonder just what the developers and artists were thinking (or what sources they were working from).

Case in point: the five incorrect jerseys that I’ll be spotlighting today. Now, I’ve decided not to include any jerseys with incorrect colour palettes, such as the Chicago Bulls jerseys that were more pink than red for so many years. My reason is that they tend to be well-known examples too numerous to mention, and we can assume that they’re the result of developers working from official colour palettes that didn’t yield the proper results in-game. Instead, I’m focusing on jerseys that were incorrect due to weird mistakes in their design, or some other oddity. Some of these incorrect jerseys are noticeable right away, while others do require being something of a uniform buff.

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at former NBA teams, and their now-nostalgic appearances in video games.

Something that I’ve explored in several of my Wayback Wednesday features this year is the way that old video games act as interactive almanacs. Yes, it’s fun to revisit old hoops titles simply to remember what the gameplay was like. Certain games hold up quite well, and for some gamers, their simplicity can even make them more appealing than the newer releases. However, as I’ve said on many occasions, there’s something really enjoyable about looking back at a snapshot of the NBA by scrolling through the rosters and seeing now-retired players, as well as familiar faces in strange places.

To that point, I’ve mostly been focusing on the players, but there’s a lot of nostalgia with the teams as well. Not only is it a fun trip down memory lane to see lineups that we’ve forgotten – some of them full of “What Ifs” – but it’s great to see all of the old branding as well. From logos that teams used for years, to short-lived uniforms and the classic jerseys that still rank as our favourites, we can see it all when we dust off old games. With a handful of franchises relocating and/or changing their names over the past couple of decades, we can also see those former NBA teams live on through the virtual hardwood. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 lists some of the pettiest moments we’ve seen in basketball gaming.

Is it fair to say that some of the most talented and creative people are also among the pettiest? As someone who grew up reading Roald Dahl’s books, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Danny, Champion of the World, The Twits, and other classics, I’d have to say yes. Comparing the stories to Dahl’s autobiographical works, Boy and Going Solo, it’s obvious that he based many of his villains on people that he’d met and didn’t care for. In Danny, Champion of the World, he flat out named Danny’s abusive teacher after one of his own schoolmasters whom he loathed (I’d say quite rightfully).

With that in mind, it’s probably fair to say that spite is a driving influence in a lot of people’s creative process. The amount of recording artists who have released songs written about an ex – famous or otherwise – also stands as a good example here. As a creative medium in which there’s competition, video games likewise invite some petty potshots and snarky slams. With there once being a heated rivalry between NBA Live and NBA 2K, both EA Sports and Visual Concepts have been guilty of pettiness. On the other hand, pettiness has also resulted in some amusing Easter eggs and design choices. Without further ado, here are five of the pettiest moments in virtual hoops!

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at another mistake that I’ve somehow managed to overlook for more than two decades now.

I won’t lie. When I realised I’d overlooked a mistake with Kevin Edwards’ portrait in the PC version of NBA Jam Tournament Edition for over twenty years, it blew my mind. You can’t imagine how many times I’ve fired up that game over the years, how many times I’ve cycled through all the teams’ rosters, and yet somehow failed to notice that he has Blue Edwards’ portrait instead. It didn’t click, even though I also own the Super Nintendo version of the game, and do recall Edwards having a different (and correct) portrait in that release.

Well, it happened again! This time, it was our own Eric (aka Q) that pointed out the mistake to me. The error can be found in NBA Hangtime, Midway’s successor to NBA Jam TE. I went back and double-checked just in case it had been fixed in the PAL version that I played, but no, the mistake is definitely there. As with Edwards’ incorrect portrait, it hardly ruins the game, but now that I’ve seen it, I can’t believe I overlooked it for all those years. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m reflecting on how video games mark different NBA milestones, and how it dates them.

On several occasions, I’ve mentioned that video games serve as wonderful time capsules for the NBA. They’re a snapshot of the league at the time they’re released, preserving the rosters, team branding, and the rules and formats of the era. When you revisit an old NBA video game, you’re often reminded of players’ brief and forgotten tenures with certain teams, “What If” scenarios and lineups that never lived up to the hype, and the jerseys and logos that you both loved and hated. In a way, old games can act as interactive almanacs, and are a fun way to revisit NBA history.

With that in mind, basketball video games preserve different eras and milestones in the real NBA as much as they’re a timeline of gaming and technology. In many of my Wayback Wednesday features, as well as my 25th Anniversary of NBA Live articles, I’ve reflected on how various titles have represented an evolution in the genre, and the improvements that are noticeable from year to year. On this occasion, I’m looking at how they represent NBA milestones and significant changes in the league, as well as the way those events make them dated. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Today’s file additions for NBA 2K17 PC include a new batch of retro courts, a current season court update for the Cleveland Cavaliers, a custom sound effects mod, and the latest version of the External File Plugin. Download them all at the links below!

Dee4Three
96-97 Cleveland Cavaliers Court
96-97 Vancouver Grizzlies Court
91-92 New Jersey Nets Court
07-08 Boston Celtics Court

MAUMAU78
SFX Mod 1.0

Manni Live
Cleveland Cavaliers Quicken Loans HD Arena

Limnono/TBM
NBA 2K17 External File Plugin (Updated to v0.258)