Menu

The Friday Five: 5 Thoughts You Have When Playing Old Basketball Games

The Friday Five

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! This is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to basketball video games, the real NBA or another area of interest to our community, either as a list of five items or in the form of a Top 5 countdown.

As much as I like to play new and recent video games, I also have a fondness for retro gaming. This extends to my basketball gaming habits as well, as every so often I’ll dust off an older basketball game and spend a little time with it. In fact, through writing The Friday Five and creating content for our upcoming celebration of the 20th Anniversary of NBA Live, I’ve been going back to some old basketball games fairly regularly to grab screenshots, or simply to refresh my memory.

And of course, once I’ve fired them up to do that, I find that I have to indulge my nostalgia by playing an exhibition game or two. Upon doing so, plenty of memories come rushing back, and I can’t help but make a few comparisons and observations. You can probably see where this is going, so without any further ado, here are five thoughts that come to mind when playing old basketball video games.

1. “We used to think that these graphics looked awesome?”

Shaquille O'Neal dunks in NBA Live 2001

The continuing advances in technology and video game development mean that games you once loved – and were impressed by – end up looking quite dated within a few years. Compared to pixel art, which is usually seen as being charmingly retro and is still utilised in games that are aiming for an old school aesthetic, the earlier years of 3D graphics haven’t aged as well. This is particularly true of games that attempt to depict people realistically…like, say, a sports sim.

It does vary a little depending on the game and the platform. For example, the graphics of basketball games on the Nintendo 64 have aged quite badly, but the PC and PlayStation 2 releases from the early noughts hold up somewhat better. Still, it’s jarring to play NBA 2K14 on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, or look at the first screenshots of NBA Live 15, then fire up NBA Live 2003. You can’t help but think, “We thought that this looked good?”

Well, we did. And the thing is, we weren’t stupid for thinking that, back then. What may now look primitive was once cutting edge, or at least very good for the era. We thought that the graphics looked good because at the time, they did look good. We praised them because at the time, they were better than what we’d seen before. Sure, it’s kind of funny to think about now, but it just demonstrates how far video games have come.

2. “Man, I miss this feature!”

Inside Stuff Magazine in NBA Live 2004

It’s something that’s been discussed numerous times on the NLSC Podcast, as well as in previous Friday Fives and other articles, but one of our biggest pet peeves as sports gamers is the phenomenon of disappearing features. There have been many modes, options, and other content that we’ve all really enjoyed having in games over the years, but not all of them have survived through to the latest releases.

Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t done because developers are spiteful, clueless, or spitefully clueless. Features and content are usually removed due to technical difficulties, legal reasons (an expired licensing agreement, for example), or telemetry data indicating that while a certain feature may have been well-liked by those who used it, it wasn’t in fact widely used. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that a feature is greatly missed by a contingent of fans who want to see it return.

For those of us who keep older releases in our collection, one of the obvious benefits is being able to go back and enjoy modes and content that aren’t present in newer games. Similarly, when playing an old game, you might encounter a feature or function that’s no longer available and you’ve since forgotten about, prompting you to think “I really wish they’d bring that back”. Perhaps one day, that long lost feature will return; until then, you’re stuck with Wishlists and retro gaming.

3. “This actually holds up fairly well.”

Michael Jordan lays it up in NBA Live 2002

I intend to come back to this in a future Friday Five, in which I’ll list some old basketball games that I feel hold up surprisingly well. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t all hold up, and I wouldn’t put them on par with the best basketball games of more recent times, but some older titles are more than playable today. In fact, I’ve found a couple of games to be a little better than I remembered.

Granted, nostalgia can certainly fog our view of these matters, but sometimes looking back on an old game allows us to see things a little clearer. When a game is new, we often evaluate it to the point of nitpicking, mainly because we want to see certain improvements over the previous release. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t do that of course, but when you look back at certain games without hype, expectations, or Wishlist items in mind, it’s possible to see some good things that you may have overlooked.

One of the things that I’ve realised about certain old basketball games is that they do actually play a pretty good game of basketball…when an attempt is made to play them realistically. Out of habit, I find myself playing the old games much the same way I do their more advanced successors, with some surprisingly pleasing results. On the other hand, I can tell you from experience that trying to perform right stick dribbling moves in NBA Live 95 is not going to get you very far.

4. “Oh yeah, I remember that glitch/exploit/gameplay quirk.”

Baron Davis with the pro hop in NBA Live 2004

Gamers tend to have good memories…at least when it comes to video games. You may not be able to remember that advanced math that you haven’t used since high school, but I guarantee that when it comes to your favourite games, you can remember the location of secrets and Easter Eggs, the best strategy for completing a certain level or objective, and a hundred other minute details.

Sure, you may not be able to remember all that stuff off the top of your head, but as soon as you’re playing the game, it’ll all come back to you: your favourite strategies, the most powerful exploits, and of course, the bugs and issues that bothered you the most. In short, not only will you pick up a game and be able to play it again, in no time at all you’ll be remembering all the things that you loved and hated about it.

As such, I remember the inaccurate offensive-to-defensive rebounds ratio in NBA Live 2001 and NBA Live 2002. I recall that step-back three pointers are deadly in NBA Live 2003. I know that the pro-hop is overpowered in NBA Live 2004, something that you can take full advantage of when you desperately need a bucket. And I can tell you that there’s a fairly effective way of forcing the CPU to commit an out-of-bounds violation when inbounding in NBA Live 95. Knowledge that remains in the back of your mind, until it comes time to play those games again.

5. “I completely forgot he played for them.”

James Posey dunks on Ricky Davis in NBA Live 2003

That brings us to something that’s less about the games themselves, and more about what basketball video games represent. In a league with over 400 players, several of them changing teams during or between seasons, it’s easy to forget that a certain player spent time with a particular club…especially if it was only a brief stay. As the years go by, you might even completely forget about someone who was actually a fairly prominent role player back in the day.

I’ll be 30 in October, and I’ve been heavily into the NBA and basketball video games for the last couple of decades or so. I’ve also worked on a fair amount of roster updates during that time, so I do remember quite a few role players and noteworthy transactions from years gone by. That said, there are also players that I don’t readily recall, or I’ve simply forgotten that they once played for a certain team (or at least exactly when they played for that team). My memory is jogged when I stumble across an old resource, watch some clips on YouTube, or yes, play an old basketball video game.

That’s the cool thing about basketball games, and sports games in general. They not only provide reminders of what video games were once like and how they’ve improved over the years, but they’re also kind of a time capsule for the sport itself. I’d long forgotten that Vern Fleming ended his career with the Indiana Pacers in 1996 following 11 seasons with the New Jersey Nets, but NBA Live 96 remembers. Even if the games themselves don’t hold up too well, or feel very primitive compared to today’s titles, the “stepping back in time” factor makes it well worth setting up DOSBox to check them out again.

That’s going to do it for this week. What are some of the experiences that you’ve had when playing older basketball video games? Are you reminded of former players and events that happened in real life? Let me know in the comments below, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum. Thanks for checking in this week, please join me again next Friday for another Five.

Support The NLSC on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!
Subscribe
Notify of

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

4 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
JaoSming
JaoSming
July 26, 2014 12:06 am

Why has nothing surpassed the absolute greatness that is NBA Live 2003’s beach court?

lamrock
lamrock
July 26, 2014 4:21 pm

I’ll dust off old Lives from time to time. A big thing for me is the soundtracks. I usually don’t care much for them at the time and ultimately burn out on them but now when I boot up those games they fill me with a sense of nostalgia.

xoamberxo222
xoamberxo222
July 30, 2014 9:34 am

good read !