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 aspects of retro content in older basketball video games that is underrated.

Retro content has been a staple feature in basketball games for decades now. It’s one of the best additions in sim and arcade titles alike, as it’s a blast to play with the stars of yesteryear in addition to the current generation of players. The amount of retro content has steadily increased since it was introduced, progressing from historical All-Star teams to retro NBA teams and All-Time legends squads. With the addition of MyNBA Eras in NBA 2K23 (and its return in NBA 2K24), it’s fair to suggest that these days we have more retro content than ever before.

With that being said, retro content has indeed been around for a long time, and an admirable effort was made with it in many old games. In fact, while the quantity of retro content in basketball games has never been higher than it is in NBA 2K23, we can certainly point to ways that older favourites boasted better quality. If nothing else, there are some aspects of the retro content in older basketball games that are quite impressive, and not just for their era. In fact, I’d go so far as to call them underrated, or certainly underappreciated, especially as they made the most of the resources that were available to them at the time. Let’s take a look at five examples of these aspects!

1. Era-Appropriate Faces

Since I’ve stopped grinding in MyCAREER with every new NBA 2K release, I’ve had more time to bring old games back into the rotation. I’ve also had the opportunity to give games a second chance, or if I skipped them entirely back in the day, a never-too-late first look. Obviously NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 has become a favourite over the past couple of years, but I’ve also made a point of revisiting older NBA 2K games as well. I find them far more accessible these days, and it’s been fun to see what I missed out on by sticking with NBA Live for so long. Although NBA Live did have some great retro content, I like what those old NBA 2K games were doing, too.

In particular, I like that the developers went to the trouble of including era-appropriate faces when legends appeared on multiple All-Decade teams. It’s awesome to be able to play with both a 70s and 80s Julius Erving, the former sporting a big afro while the latter has a shorter cut. Even with the two 90s Shaquille O’Neals in NBA 2K10, one clearly represents his early years with the Orlando Magic, while the other is from his Lakers days. We were stuck with one version of Legends in NBA Live, and while modding could fix that, it was great to have those era-appropriate faces in the game by default. Newer games have also done this, but it was an underrated touch years ago.

2. Content Beyond Retro & Legends Teams

So, All-Decade teams are great. Classic teams were a huge deal when they finally came to NBA 2K thanks to the Jordan Challenge. However, going back and playing those old NBA 2K games, I really appreciate retro content such as the Draft Class squads. Granted, they’re not as exciting as they don’t add any legendary players who wouldn’t otherwise be in the game, but they still represent history in their own way. Much like the International and European All-Stars, the Jordan and adidas squads, and other bonus teams, they were extra content to play with. Again, it’s the kind of thing we could do with modding, but the assets were already in place, all ready to go.

Would I trade the classic teams, All-Decade teams, and All-Time teams that we now have, for those Draft Class squads and other bonus content? Definitely not! Given the choice, the current array of retro content is more impressive than what we had in old games. Nevertheless, I’d classify them as underrated (or at least, underappreciated), as they expanded upon the game’s content quite nicely until licensing so many historical players finally became viable. They’d be a fun throwback in newer games if they could be added without losing any content, but as it stands, they’re there to appreciate and play with whenever we dust off old favourites for some retro gaming sessions.

3. NBA Live’s Legends Pool

While we are able to utilise the retro content in newer NBA 2K games to jumpstart the creation of a bevy of custom roster projects, I do miss the Legends Pool that was in old NBA Live games. For those who are unaware, when Legends were added in NBA Live 2000, there were two copies of those historical players: one in the All-Decade teams (or Decade All-Stars as we often called them), and one in the Legends Pool. We couldn’t trade players to or from those All-Star teams in-game, but we could take a player’s duplicate in the Legends Pool and assign them to any NBA roster. This allowed us to set up fantasy franchise scenarios, and helped with retro roster mods.

Furthermore, we didn’t need to ruin any existing lineups in the process, nor did we have to fiddle around creating those duplicates. It’s not that we can’t make do with how NBA 2K handles historical players – especially with external modding tools at our disposal on PC- but it was so convenient to be able to go to the Legends Pool and bring that player into the active rosters, while leaving the Decade All-Stars intact. I firmly believe that this concept would still work today, and make a fine addition to the array of roster customisation features in NBA 2K. As it stands, it’s another underrated aspect of retro content in those old NBA Live games from the early to mid 2000s.

4. No Three-Point Line For 50s, 60s, & 70s All-Stars

Speaking of the Decade All-Stars/All-Decade teams in NBA Live, they boasted a detail that NBA 2K has neglected with its retro content; for the most part, anyway. If you play a game on the home court of the 50s, 60s, or 70s All-Stars in those old NBA Live games, you’ll notice that there’s no three-point line. Not only that, but because those decades represent the pre-three-point era, three-pointers aren’t in effect! It’s a unique property of those courts, but to that end, modders were able to use them as a base to create new courts that don’t utilise a three-point shot. It’s a great detail, and the NBA Live developers deserve credit for implementing it way back in the late 90s.

Now, we have seen this detail in NBA 2K as part of NBA’s Greatest in NBA 2K12, but in a very limited capacity. When playing with teams from the 60s and 70s in that mode, the three-point arc is indeed missing from the court, and three-pointers are not in effect. Indeed, this led to me failing Jerry West’s game on my first try, thanks to a buzzer beater that would’ve tied the game with that extra point! However, if you play with those teams in any other mode, including exhibition play, the three-point line is there. I’m surprised that they haven’t found a way to implement it again, but with the introduction of MyNBA Eras, it’s possible we’ll see it added in future NBA 2K titles.

5. All Retro Content Was Freely Accessible

That brings us to the most unfortunate and controversial difference between retro content in old games and modern titles. Putting aside any dummied-out players and challenges/cheats to unlock historical stars, whatever retro content was in old games was freely (if not readily) accessible. Again, you may have had to unlock it via an in-game task, and there might be some hidden content left over in the game’s files, but what’s there was there for all to enjoy, one way or another. As basketball games have been infected by recurrent revenue mechanics, there’s incentive for retro content to be behind a paywall. Much of it is still free and accessible, but there are exceptions.

Specifically, there are historical players featured in MyTEAM that aren’t included in any of the retro content that’s playable in other modes. Outside of modding, the only way to play with them is to collect them, and that obviously pushes gamers towards spending money to rip open pack after pack. During the past generation, NBA Live handled the situation even worse, as their licensed historical players only appeared in Ultimate Team. It’s unfortunate that having all retro content be accessible is now an underrated part of old games, but that’s what basketball gaming has come to. Call me ungrateful if you will, but I don’t consider paywalling content to be desirable progress.

What are some other underrated aspects of retro content in old games? What’s your take on the features that I listed here? Let me know in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.