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 examines the five worst parts of retro basketball gaming.

Since I took a look at the best parts of retro basketball gaming last week, it’s only fair that I follow up with the downsides. Look, I stand by what I previously said. I’m all for normalising retro basketball gaming in addition to enjoying new releases. There should be no stigma about going back to an old favourite. We also need to can the misguided notion that they can’t be any good because new is always better. If you’re not enjoying the latest NBA 2K and you’re not beholden to online play and live service content, by all means revisit an older game and see if you still enjoy it!

To that point though, you may not. Retro gaming isn’t for everyone, and basketball titles are no different. Indeed, because they’re aiming to replicate reality, sim games in particular can age very poorly. Even if the core experience does hold up, there are other drawbacks that arise from servers being shutdown, leading to functionality and content being lost. As much as I love retro basketball gaming, I’d be lying if I said that I’m always pleasantly surprised when I fire up a game I greatly enjoyed when it was first released, or that absolutely any old title can re-enter my rotation. With that being said, these are the five biggest downsides of retro basketball gaming, in my view.

1. Gameplay That Doesn’t Hold Up

In last week’s Friday Five, I discussed how the familiarity of retro basketball gaming can be enjoyable, and even comforting. Unfortunately, it can also be very frustrating. As I noted above, sim basketball games can age quite badly, as they’re attempting to replicate the sport realistically with the tech that’s available to them at the time. Not every idea for player control and differentiation worked out in the long run, and after playing newer games, primitive tech and outdated concepts can be difficult to enjoy. Even if you don’t mind inferior graphics, if a game just doesn’t hold up on the sticks, it won’t be able to hold your interest beyond a quick visit to satisfy your curiosity.

One of the worst parts of retro basketball gaming is discovering that a game you loved no longer holds up; at least to your taste. Other gamers might enjoy going back to it, but for you it’s just too primitive, and those issues that you put up with when the game was new are now simply intolerable. This can leave you between a rock and a hard place if there’s something about the newest game that you can’t stand – such as a pushy approach to recurrent revenue mechanics – but an old favourite can no longer sate your virtual basketball needs, either. This usually happens with very old games, but major changes may also make it challenging to go back even just a few years.

2. Rising Prices in Collecting

Video game collecting isn’t a new hobby, and is subject to trends and popularity. It used to be far more affordable to collect old games, but as the scene has developed and people have become aware of the rarity of certain titles, prices have increased. For the most part, popular and widely released annual titles such as games in the NBA Live and NBA 2K series, are more affordable. It can vary according to platform, but no one with any sense is buying into the idea that NBA Live 08 for Xbox 360 is a rare collectible. With that being said, I’ve noticed that eBay prices in particular are on the rise. It makes it tough to get into retro basketball gaming, and collecting legitimately.

The same could be said of retro gaming in general, but once again, many basketball games are not especially rare, and shouldn’t be expensive on the second hand market. There are some rarities that are understandably costly, but even common games that should be readily available are being listed at unreasonable prices. NBA 2K11 PC is becoming ridiculously difficult and expensive to track down on eBay. Interest in the hobby and sentimental value are drastically inflating prices, so if you’re getting into retro basketball gaming right now, you really have to pick and choose – or be flush with disposable income – to build your collection. Personally, I advise being choosy.

3. Missing Content & Inaccessible Modes

While the lack of reliance on live service content can be a benefit to retro basketball gaming, it’s most assuredly a drawback as well. If a game originally launched with modes that depended on connectivity and the live service model, there will be content missing when you play them today. Indeed, modes such as MyTEAM will no longer be available. Over the years, the offline version of MyCAREER has been increasingly watered down, and as of NBA 2K20, it isn’t available at all if you’re not online. As I said in my previous article, it’s good that what’s there is there, but what’s there might not be very much. It’s undoubtedly one of the worst parts of retro basketball gaming.

Similarly, server shutdowns render certain updates and patches unavailable. If you’re reinstalling a game years after online support has ended, you may find yourself stuck with default rosters and none of the in-game tuning fixes that were pushed through independently of the official patches. In some cases this may be preferable, or at the very least, isn’t a barrier to enjoying a game. More often than not though, you’ll want those content updates. A good example is NBA 2K12 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, which launched with final 2011 season rosters owing to the lockout. On PC, we’ve preserved the official roster updates. On console, those updates have sadly been lost.

4. Niche Modding Scene

Just as I’m an advocate for retro basketball gaming, I’m all for retro basketball game modding. There’s a lot of fun to be had creating new mods for old games, and keeping them alive. If you want to mod an old favourite, I would never discourage that. I will however offer up a word of advice: keep in mind that the older a game gets, the more people move on from it. That includes the audience for the work you’re making, and the modders that are ready and willing to help out on big projects. As games age and become more of a niche interest within the community, you’ll be doing a lot of work for the benefit of fewer people, and likely taking on more of the workload yourself.

Again, that’s not to discourage anyone from following their modding passions. I’m all for tinkering with older games, and there’ll always be a place for that work here at the NLSC. It’s just something to keep in mind while you’re weighing up the pros and cons of retro modding. If anything, it’s important to remember that so that you don’t get discouraged by fewer interactions! It’s impossible not to feel slightly wistful when we struggle to keep old favourites alive, especially if they’re in some ways better than their successors. There have been times when we’d have been better off sticking with a previous game and updating it, rather than working on its disappointing sequel.

5. Technical Difficulties (Especially on PC)

So, let’s assume that nothing I’ve said so far is a problem for you when it comes to retro basketball gaming. You don’t care about the missing modes or content. You’re happy to play with the mods on hand, and/or create some of your own. You’ve been able to pick up the games you’re interested in at a reasonable price – or you still had them in your collection – and you can have fun playing them, even today. That’s great, but the question is: can you actually run the games with the hardware you have at your disposal? It’s all well and good to like old games and own them. It’s a moot point if you can’t actually play them because you can’t even get them to boot up for you.

Not surprisingly, this is more of an issue on PC. Newer versions of Windows don’t always have the necessary backwards compatibility, notably the security driver that was associated with a particular disc copy protection in the early 2000s. There are workarounds including DOSBox and running earlier versions of Windows on virtual machine software, but not everyone has the knowledge and patience to set that up. Even if you are technically inclined, it may feel like more trouble than it’s worth. Speaking from personal experience, it’s satisfying when you do work out how to get old favourites running, but I won’t deny that it’s a barrier many would find off-putting.

Have these drawbacks turned you off the idea of retro basketball gaming in the past? If you partake in retro basketball gaming, how much of an impact do the worst parts of the hobby have on your enjoyment? Share your experiences in the comments below, 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.