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 how our community made do with NBA Live 2001 PC for two years.
A new NBA season is less than a week away. It’ll be interesting to see if that inspires more enthusiasm for NBA 2K27, though following the recently-released Patch 2.0, many gamers aren’t exactly happy with the current state of the game. With that being said, NBA 2K27 isn’t universally disliked, and I expect that the excitement of a new season will encourage gamers to jump into MyNBA and perhaps MyCAREER. For those who have been holding off starting a MyNBA game until the opening night roster update comes through, the wait is almost over.
Of course, you don’t necessarily need to play the most recent basketball video game in order to enjoy current season rosters. Over the years, basketball gamers have stuck with a number of classic titles, thanks to modders dutifully keeping them up to date far beyond their original release. It’s a great option to have, since we’re not always satisfied with the newest game. Mind you, when it came to NBA Live 2001 and the PC basketball gamers in our community 25 years ago, there weren’t many other options! Let’s take a look back…way back…
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 it being 30 years since I first played Microsoft’s NBA Full Court Press.
With this year marking 30 years since I became a true fan of basketball and also got into basketball gaming, I’ve been reminiscing about some memorable milestones that solidified my love of hoops, both real and virtual. Just as I fire up old games in order to discuss them accurately and in detail, I’ve been referring to a primary source for these reflections: my 1996 diary! Not only has it preserved thoughts that I had in the moment and thus jogged my memory of certain events, but it’s allowed me to confirm a timeline that’d become somewhat jumbled over the course of three decades.
To that end, I was surprised to discover that tomorrow – October 8th – marks 30 years since I first played NBA Full Court Press. The reason that I found this so surprising was that for a long time, I’d confidently recalled playing NBA Live 96 PC first. As I’ll discuss in early November, that wasn’t actually the case! I wouldn’t pick up my copy of NBA Full Court Press until a couple of years later, but suffice it to say that the game made an immediate impression on me. With the help of my old diary entry, let’s take a look back…way back…
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 reminiscing about the grand plan that I had for NBA Live 2003 and its Franchise mode.
Between the preview season not being what it once was and the ninth generation NBA 2K releases not resonating with me, it’s been a long time since I was truly hyped for a new basketball video game. As I mentioned in Episode #648 of the NLSC Podcast, I actually don’t have NBA 2K27 yet, as I’m waiting to pick it up on sale as a semi-protest over my dissatisfaction in recent years. Being a collector and content creator, I’ll definitely obtain it at some point, but that approach is a far cry from the days when I was eager to get my hands on the latest release as soon as possible.
As I was brimming with anticipation for the new game in years gone by, I naturally began to formulate plans of what I wanted to dive into once I had it. During the eighth generation, it was starting over again in MyCAREER, building up my MyPLAYER into a star that would also be effective to play with online. During the heyday of NBA Live, it was assuming control of a team – the Chicago Bulls usually being my first choice – and beginning a Franchise or Dynasty game. That was certainly my grand plan for NBA Live 2003, but things went awry. Let’s take a look back…way back…
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 marking it being 25 years since Michael Jordan declared “I’m Back” for the second time.
25 years ago this Friday, Michael Jordan announced that he was returning to play for the Washington Wizards. Although His Airness had previously insisted that he was “99.9% certain” that his retirement in 1999 marked the end of his career, it turned out that the odds of him declaring “I’m Back” – again – were much higher than that! That’s not to say that MJ wasn’t being truthful about his feelings and intentions at that point in time. It’s been noted that when his friend and NHL great Mario Lemieux made a comeback in 2000, it inspired Michael Jordan to consider a return of his own.
And so on, on September 25th 2001, Michael Jordan relinquished his ownership stake in the Washington Wizards, and signed a two-year deal to play for them. As was the case when he declared “I’m Back” in 1995, the basketball world was captivated by rumours of a potential return before it was made official. I reflected on Michael Jordan’s comeback with the Wizards five years ago to mark the 20th anniversary of the announcement, but there are a couple of new things to talk about, particularly in regards to the virtual hardwood. To that end, let’s take a look back…way back…
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 different squads of players that appear in The Hangar in NBA Live 10.
The Hangar is one of the most memorable practice arenas in basketball video games. Named for its resemblance to an aircraft hangar, the artists working on NBA Live 10 envisioned it as the ultimate training and pickup game facility for NBA players. Like The Temple, it immediately put us on the virtual hardwood in an environment that many of us probably wish we could hoop in for real. This approach of allowing us to shoot around before we’ve even seen a menu, as well as while we waited for games to load, is one of the better ideas during a rough generation for NBA Live.
Unlike previous practice and shootaround modes however, we weren’t able to choose the player or selection of players in The Hangar. The same group of eight will always be available upon firing up NBA Live 10, but they’re not the only players that we can shoot around with. Including the default octet, there are seven different squads that will be randomly chosen when returning to The Hangar after a Play Now game or exiting a mode such as Dynasty. Upon closer inspection, you’ll notice that each one of these squads has a distinct theme. Let’s take a look back…way back…
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 reminiscing about The Streets World Tour in NBA Live 19 with a mixtape of highlights from my playthrough of the mode.
Although I would’ve preferred NBA Live 19 to place greater emphasis on the NBA side of things, I’ve really come to appreciate The Streets World Tour. Even though I gravitated towards Ultimate Team with its roster of Legends, playing through The One’s streetball mode also helped change my view of NBA Live 19! With a story told mostly through text messages, iconic streetball and pro-am courts from around the world, and enjoyable challenges at every venue, it was a fun alternative to the usual career mode story. It was a blast creating highlights along the way, and to that end, I’ve assembled a mixtape of my favourites. Let’s take a look back…way back…
I hope you enjoyed this selection of streetball highlights! If you have NBA Live 19, The Streets World Tour is still available even in the wake of the server shutdown, as is The League portion of The One. In an era where games heavily rely on live service content and are designed to be disposable, that’s something that shouldn’t be taken for granted! The future of NBA Live certainly doesn’t look promising, but the last release to date remains fun to revisit. Feel free to share some of your favourite memories of NBA Live 19 in the comments, be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel, and stay tuned for more highlight reels, game retrospectives, and other video content!
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 some retro modding, namely tinkering with rosters in the Xbox 360 version of NBA 2K6.
When I get hooked on a game – really hooked – it takes a while to get it out of my system. In fact, even then there’s a good chance that it’ll hang around in my rotation, if nothing else becoming a fallback option when I’m not sure what to play. If there’s any way that I can spice up those sessions with some modding – particularly minimalist modding – then that becomes part of my fascination with a game. Whether it’s putting together makeshift retro squads in NBA Live 10’s Fantasy Teams mode, or creating something more substantial, it prolongs my interest in a classic title.
That brings us to the Xbox 360 version of NBA 2K6. It’s a game that I’ve come to love long after it was released, as I noted when I covered it for Wayback Wednesday with a comprehensive retrospective. It’s been in and out of my rotation over the last couple of years, which eventually led me to tinker with its rosters. At first, it was just a way of getting more out of the game by setting up some fun scenarios, but I soon found myself dabbling with projects that I wanted to release publicly. It’s been a fun exercise so far, so let’s see how I’ve been going back…way back…to mod!
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 courts used in Street mode and 24/7: Road to the EBC in NBA 2K6 for Xbox 360.
Revisiting NBA 2K6 for Xbox 360 on a whim has retroactively made it one of my favourite basketball video games. Way back in 2006, I’d been unimpressed by the PlayStation 2 version, but since coming to enjoy the Xbox 360 release, I’ve greatly warmed up to its sixth generation counterpart as well. Fittingly for a game that I overlooked for so many years, NBA 2K6 has also allowed me to develop more of an affinity for a mode I seldom bothered to play, namely Street. Yes, after all these years, JaoSming’s love of Blacktop and its predecessor mode finally rubbed off on me!
It undoubtedly helps that Street mode in NBA 2K6 boasted some fantastic locations to hoop in. They were also a part of 24/7: Road to the EBC, providing great backdrops to a fun and challenging barnstorming mode. Of course, it’s just as fun to assemble a couple of squads and hit the virtual blacktop (and in some cases, hardwood) for once-off showdowns. And so, just as I once took a look back at the memorable one-on-one courts in NBA Live 2003, today I’m giving the same treatment to the Street courts in NBA 2K6 for Xbox 360. Let’s take a look back…way back…
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 a fictional comeback for Larry Bird that took place in an NBA Live 95 PC Season game.
Yesterday marked 34 years since Larry Bird announced his retirement from the NBA, just ten days after winning a gold medal with the Dream Team. While Larry Legend may not have been completely ready to retire, his ailing back wasn’t up to the rigours of another NBA season. As it was, he’d missed a combined 57 regular season games in 1991 and 1992, sat out the All-Star Game both years, and played only four of the seven games in the Boston Celtics’ second round loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in what would be his final NBA Playoffs series.
Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that unlike Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, Larry Bird never made a comeback after hanging up his Converse sneakers. Whereas the MJs were fit enough to resume their NBA careers, Bird’s health simply didn’t allow it. Of course, even simulation basketball video games can take a break from reality. To that point, as my cousin Clinton and I played further into our Houston Rockets Season in NBA Live 95 PC, we sought to keep things interesting with silly ideas, including having Larry Bird make a comeback for us. Let’s take a look back…way back…
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 Legends in NBA Live 19 Ultimate Team.
When the NBA Live 19 servers shut down back in January, naturally Ultimate Team became unavailable. This was unfortunate for me, since along with completing The Streets World Tour, playing the mode’s challenges was a big part of developing a greater appreciation for a flawed but fun release. As with the rest of the eighth gen NBA Live titles, it was also the only way to play with Legends. I’d previously had a blast playing with squads of my favourite 90s Legends in NBA Live 15 and NBA Live 18, so I’m glad that I had the opportunity to do so in NBA Live 19 as well.
In fact, I ended up venturing beyond my own nostalgia when playing with Legends in NBA Live 19 Ultimate Team. Not only did I hit the virtual hardwood with the stars of the 90s that I grew up watching, but I mixed in greats from the 80s, as well as the 60s and 70s. Indeed, I played a handful of games with lineups that were completely before my time, and enjoyed it immensely! As I began to collect jerseys, I made a point of capturing screenshots of Legends in their teams’ 2019 uniforms. In celebration of the fun I had with the mode and those NBA greats, let’s take a look back…way back…
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 it being 30 years since I first rented the Super Nintendo version of NBA Live 95, shortly after getting my SNES.
Since 1996 was the year that I really got into basketball and basketball gaming, 2026 marks the 30th anniversary of several firsts in my hoops fandom. As such, I’ve felt inspired to reflect on those memorable milestones in becoming a hardcore fan of both real basketball and the virtual hardwood. Back in January, I reflected on it being 30 years since I bought the PC version of NBA Jam Tournament Edition. Come June, I reminisced about the 1996 Chicago Bulls, and how seeing my favourite team win an NBA Championship solidified my love of them and the sport.
That brings me to the 30th anniversary of a couple of other memorable moments for me back in 1996: my acquisition of a Super Nintendo, and subsequent rental of the SNES version of NBA Live 95 from my local video store. NBA Jam Tournament Edition had been a great introduction to the virtual hardwood with its pick-up-and-play arcade gameplay, but after playing NBA Live 95 SNES, I fell in love with the simulation style as well. Again, hitting the 30th anniversary of all these milestones definitely has me feeling nostalgic, so let’s take a look back…way back…
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 freeze-frame player introductions in seventh gen NBA Live 07 and NBA Live 08.
For all the talk about how as we grow older we also grow more close-minded, I have to say that when it comes to basketball video games, I’ve had the opposite experience. When I was a younger basketball gamer, I was very particular about certain aspects of the virtual hardwood. Not only did I struggle to enjoy sim titles that felt different to NBA Live, but I had some rather strict criteria and a few petty gripes when it came to critiquing my favourite hoops series. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with having strong preferences, but I definitely took some things way too seriously!
To that end, while I do stand by some of my criticisms all these years later, I have lightened up about other things that used to bother me. An obvious example is the comedic cutscenes in NBA Live 2003. While I still think they went a little overboard with them and they’re not the tone I’d prefer in a sim game, I can find the humour in them nowadays, and appreciate how they gave the game character. The freeze-frame player introductions in NBA Live 07 and NBA Live 08 are another example of a stylistic choice that I’ve warmed up to. Let’s take a look back…way back…
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 pondering another historical NBA What If, specifically what if Shaq had stayed in Orlando in 1996?
Earlier this month, I reminisced about the 1996 offseason. It was always going to be nostalgic to me being the first offseason that I experienced after becoming a hardcore basketball fan, but on top of that, it turned out to be an extremely important one in NBA history. A number of notable names switched teams, either via free agency or blockbuster trade. Although they obviously hadn’t achieved legendary status as yet, the Draft Class of 1996 was nevertheless exciting and full of promise. And of course, Shaquille O’Neal joining the Los Angeles Lakers was the move of the offseason!
Needless to say, Shaq signing with LA not only drastically altered the future of the Lakers, but also the fortunes of the Orlando Magic. The move worked out for Shaq, though he has admitted to having some regrets about leaving Orlando in 1996. Now, hindsight is 20/20, and retired players have demonstrated that they don’t have any qualms about twisting stories to improve their image in the eyes of fans. Still, had Orlando handled the situation better, perhaps Shaq would’ve stuck around longer. It’s another interesting What If, so let’s take a look back…way back…
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…
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 going back to NBA Live 10 and NBA 2K10 to try to replicate The Decision that saw LeBron James go to the Miami Heat.
16 years ago today, LeBron James announced that he had chosen to join the Miami Heat in an ESPN special titled The Decision. Needless to say, it’s one of the most significant events in NBA history. Sure, stars had switched teams before, changing the fortunes of clubs and the landscape of the league. Of course, as a generational talent joining forces with two other stars, LeBron’s move was particularly impactful. The Decision – both the choice in free agency and the special itself – are unavoidable talking points when discussing LeBron James and his legacy.
I’m not going into all of that today, though. Instead, I want to talk about how difficult it can be to replicate moves like The Decision in video games. We see a lot of crazy trades and signings in franchise and career modes, but ironically some of the wildest moves from real life would be considered unrealistic if they occurred in a game, and are incredibly tough or indeed impossible to pull off. With that in mind, is it possible to choose the Heat in NBA Live 10 and NBA 2K10, and have LeBron James make The Decision to take his talents to South Beach? Let’s take a look back…way back…
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