NLSC Your source for basketball video games.
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 my 1996 roster for NBA Live 2001 PC.
Whenever I’ve contemplated making a retro season mod, the 1996 campaign is always the first to come to mind. The reason is simple: not only is it a memorable year in NBA history, but it’s also the season when my basketball fandom truly blossomed. Revisiting the 1996 season, whether by watching real highlights and recaps or via the virtual hardwood, always brings back such fond memories of that joyful time of fully falling in love with basketball. My nostalgia was already firmly entrenched by the early 2000s, leading me to create a 1996 roster for NBA Live 2004.
However, it wasn’t my first attempt at bringing the 1996 season into what was then a new generation of basketball games. It was also far from the first retro roster for NBA Live, as the updates for NBA Live 95 and NBA Live 96 PC had famously included rosters for earlier years as well as the current season. Looking back, it wasn’t the most complete retro project, but I still have fond memories of making the 1996 roster for NBA Live 2001. Let’s take a look back…way back…
As I alluded to, there’s always been a certain appeal in adding old season rosters to the latest basketball video game. In theory, it’s allowing us to play with rosters that we’re nostalgic for, in a game that is more technically advanced than one that actually came out that year. If we go back far enough, we can also re-create an NBA that was never represented by a contemporary video game. With the way that NBA Live and other basketball video games were rapidly improving along with technology in the late 90s and early 2000s, NBA Live 2001 had made several strides over titles from 1996, so there was interest in a retro season roster that took advantage of those improvements.
Of course, those improvements also meant that making a comprehensive 1996 roster for NBA Live 2001 would be more challenging than the retro mods for earlier games. In NBA Live 95 and NBA Live 96 for example, there were no real player faces. The variety of heads with all of their combinations of hairstyles and facial hair sufficiently differentiated players, while being generic enough to be recycled. Created players also used the same heads, and so didn’t stand out from original players during gameplay. By NBA Live 2001, players had individual face textures that were quite realistic for the time. Even taking the most time and care, created players always stood out.
Indeed, the more detailed graphics in general presented challenges as far as achieving authenticity. That’s not to say that those retro season rosters for NBA Live 95 and 96 didn’t have inaccuracies with logos or the occasional jersey colour, but the lack of detail could work to their advantage. Not only were the textures for jerseys and courts far more detailed by NBA Live 2001, but several teams had made significant changes to their branding since 1996. Now that we had the ability and knowhow within the NBA Live modding community to update jerseys, courts, and so on, there’d be added pressure to minimise the number of inaccuracies in team branding wherever possible.
At the same time, there was an understanding that modding (or patching, as we used to call it) was a hobby, and that the experience of playing with old season rosters was the main priority. Internet speeds and hosting facilities weren’t what they are today either, so sharing a massive file wasn’t convenient or feasible for most of us. To that end, the rosters at least needed to be accurate, and this too was a huge undertaking. It’s not until you’ve attempted to create a retro season roster that you realise just how much turnover there is in the league in only five years! Veterans retire, journeymen come and go, and young prospects wash out of the league much sooner than expected.
Fortunately, NBA Live 2001 PC does have Legends in its roster, including retirees who were big names during the 1996 season. There are also several younger stars that entered the NBA in the early to mid 90s, as well as aging/former stars that were still around. With that being said, I ended up having to create 187 new players to complete a 1996 roster in NBA Live 2001; mostly, but I’ll get to that. Since I wasn’t going to be able to distribute the roster with accurate faces, I had to do the best I could with the face creation options at my disposal. NBA Live 2001’s body sculpting options for created players also yielded mixed results while trying to assign accurate weights.
Needless to say, it was a time-consuming task. For accuracy’s sake, I also needed to adjust the original players’ ratings to revert former stars back to their prime, as well as some of the younger stars back to a pre-breakout level. This is always the way with retro rosters, though it’s an even more daunting task now given the increased amount of ratings, tendencies, and so on. Back when I was creating my 1996 roster for NBA Live 2001 PC however, there was a hurdle that we don’t face today: accessibility of information. These days we have Basketball Reference, Wikipedia, and so many other resources that we can refer to, and quickly find stats and info that we’re looking for.
Back then, we had to get more creative. In order to create players, modify ratings so that they were year-appropriate, and assemble 1996 lineups, I utilised a combination of trading cards, magazines, physical almanacs and NBA encyclopaedias, Microsoft Complete NBA Basketball, and of course, NBA Live 96 PC. Together, those formed some comprehensive resources, but they still had their limitations, and in some cases, inaccuracies. This was particularly true of NBA Live 96 PC, which was my primary source for team rosters. Although it’s obviously fairly accurate being a game that was released for the 1996 season, there are some issues, including several missing players.
I’m not just talking about Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, either. They’re quite obvious omissions to say the least, but other players who were missing in NBA Live 96 PC can easily fly under the radar, even with all of the references I was utilising. There are also a number of players who technically should be included as they were under contract when the rosters were finalised, but didn’t play that year and were soon out of the league. NBA Live 96 PC was also a later release and thus included players that weren’t in the SNES and Genesis versions, but to that point, it didn’t actually feature opening night rosters, which is what my 1996 mod was supposed to have.
This means that despite my best efforts, my 1996 roster for NBA Live 2001 PC is not as accurate of a mod as it would be if I were making it today. Basketball Reference would allow for far more accuracy, as I’d be able to double-check the transactions listings and omit some players, especially if I switched up my approach and created final season rosters instead. Indeed, when I went back and fixed up my 1996 mod for NBA Live 2004, that’s exactly what I did. I also included fewer jersey updates than I remembered. Other modders generously provided those updates, but in hindsight, it’s not a very detailed mod as far as adding appropriate jerseys, courts, logos, and so on.
Nevertheless, I’m still proud of that mod! I still put a ton of effort into it, especially considering how creative and dedicated I had to be to compile all of the necessary resources. Once again, in the era of dialup internet, huge downloads were not the done thing. Even if I’d had all of the necessary art updates, including comprehensive retro team branding along with real cyberfaces for 187 new players just wasn’t realistic. The handful of jersey updates that were contributed did spice up the roster during gameplay, and went a little beyond what was usually expected during that era. Even with some inaccuracies, it was a 1996 roster with the advances of NBA Live 2001.
Since I’ve been able to get NBA Live 2001 working on Windows 10 and I’ve sorted out an issue with it recognising my keyboard and mouse as gamepads, I’ve found myself revisiting the game. A combination of talking to Nate and Roger (the two biggest advocates for NBA Live 2001 you’ll find), and my forthcoming twenty year high school reunion, are inspiring nostalgia for that era of basketball gaming. That includes the modding scene for games like NBA Live 2001, and with projects like my 1996 roster, there’s nostalgia upon nostalgia. It’s been fun to revisit NBA Live 2001 as-is, but mods like the 1996 roster can make retro gaming even more enjoyable.
There’s also an element of making up for lost time and missed opportunities. By the time I finished the 1996 roster for NBA Live 2001, I’d mostly moved on to NBA Live 2002 for PlayStation 2, and NBA Live 2003 was on the horizon. Because of that, I didn’t really get to enjoy the fruits of my labour, since I wasn’t playing NBA Live 2001 that much anymore. Now that it’s a more nostalgic title and part of my retro basketball gaming rotation, I’m able to put the mod to good use. It’s difficult to say without sounding like I’m patting myself on the back, but the project turned out alright to say the least, ably injecting a fun experience that isn’t in vanilla NBA Live 2001.
It also takes me back to a memorable time in our community. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not so nostalgic that I’ve forgotten some of the drama that’s always been a part of the modding scene. That was NBA Live’s golden age however, as well as the golden age of NBA Live modding. There was no charging for mods, nor exclusive clubs and releases; just a community of people that loved basketball and basketball games, and wanted to create some cool stuff for themselves and each other. Anything that could change up the game, such as a retro roster, was appreciated for the new experience it provided. Bigger and better projects were in the near future, but we had to get there.
Since I’ve gone back and fixed up my 1996 roster for NBA Live 2004, I do have an itch to do the same with the NBA Live 2001 mod. There are better resources that I can make use of, not to mention art updates now that it’s feasible to provide a bigger pack to download. I wouldn’t rule it out, especially as we’re making an effort to promote and support retro basketball gaming. Whether or not that comes to pass, I’ve enjoyed pulling that 1996 roster out of “storage”, and getting it running along with NBA Live 2001 PC. Sure, there are inaccuracies that make me cringe, but it was a labour of love that I saw through to the end, and it makes NBA Live 2001 even more fun to revisit.
