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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 re-playing the 1995 season in NBA Live 95 PC, a few years after it had concluded.
As I’ve said, I was born to be a retro gamer. My introduction to gaming was through a console that was already outdated, and even in the late 90s I was sticking with and going back to old favourites. The family’s aging 486 PC and the Nintendo 64 being the console I owned were also factors, especially when it came to basketball gaming. I didn’t have much choice without the hardware to play the newest NBA Live, nor could I convince my folks that I needed yet another basketball video game (“you’ve already got plenty!”). Nevertheless, my collection began when I was a teenager.
One of the most exciting pickups was NBA Live 95 PC. The Super Nintendo version of NBA Live 95 had been my introduction to 5v5 sim basketball games, but it was a frequent video store rental. NBA Live 96 was the first game I owned on PC, and also one of the first basketball video games that I actually owned, period. It was by chance that I happened across a copy of NBA Live 95 PC one school holidays, and as soon as I had it, it entered the rotation of games that my cousin Clinton and I played as often as we could. We eventually decided to re-play the 1995 season, and it became one of my all-time favourite hoops gaming experiences. Let’s take a look back…way back…
I still remember encountering that copy of NBA Live 95 PC. My cousin and I were in the newsagents, picking up basketball magazines and cards, when we spotted it at the counter. This was around late 1998, early 1999, so it was surprising to see it on sale; especially in that newsagents, which didn’t usually sell video games. It must’ve been sitting around in the back room for a while, and likely put on sale just to be rid of it. At $20, it was a steal! We eagerly installed it once we got home, and also downloaded mods and editors from the NLSC. As is the case when you play a sequel first, it was interesting to note the similarities and differences to NBA Live 96 PC in hindsight.
Unfortunately I can’t remember the first game we played in NBA Live 95 PC. We did quickly find out that no matter which audio settings we chose during installation, we couldn’t get music or most sound effects to work. All these years later, I’m certain that that old 486 PC had some hardware issues, as I encountered some weird problems with a number of games that worked fine on other people’s PCs back then, as well as in DOSBox today. Nevertheless, we liked the familiar gameplay, and the idea of re-playing the 1995 season. Also, despite the other technical issues, we actually had less trouble configuring my gamepad in NBA Live 95 PC, making multiplayer viable.
Since we were re-playing the 1995 season, we decided that we’d mimic history by taking control of the Houston Rockets and guiding them to the championship. On top of the historical accuracy, the Rockets were also a neutral choice. By not using the Chicago Bulls or Seattle SuperSonics, neither of us was using our favourite team, and we’d have to defeat both of them during the course of the season. Although they were underdogs, those Rockets did have talented players, headed up by a couple of all-time greats in Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. And so, we embarked on our mission to re-play the 1995 season: all 82 games on 12-minute quarters, All-Star difficulty.
Looking back, this probably wasn’t the best approach to making it through the entire season! After all, it takes a while to get through a full season even when you can play pretty much every day, or at least quite frequently. We had some marathon sessions during those school holidays, but since my cousin was only coming down for two weeks at a time – five over the summer – there were long breaks where the season was on hold. NBA Live 95 PC was also in rotation with the other basketball and wrestling games we were enjoying at the time, so it was no surprise that we didn’t finish the season. In hindsight, we perhaps should’ve opted to re-play the 1995 Playoffs instead.
At the same time, it was a blast having that season to go back to whenever we hung out, so I don’t regret it! We were so enthusiastic about it that we actually provided ongoing coverage of our progress on the NBA Live Domain, the fansite that I ran before taking over the NLSC. It was basically a forerunner to what the community has done in our Stories forum over the years. I don’t have any analytics data (because I didn’t put a counter on that page; this was the late 90s, you know!), but I’m guessing it wasn’t the most popular section of the NLD. That didn’t matter, though. We did it because it was fun to create that content, and it fuelled our passion for the season.
Those efforts have also turned out to be handy all these years later. That save file is unfortunately long gone, but thanks to still having those pages in my archives, I can reference them for the purposes of this retrospective! To that end, I can confirm that we actually did make it quite deep into the season. Glancing at the Standings listing, we were atop the league at 47-9 after 56 games. That’s actually further along than I had remembered, though it’s no surprise that we stalled at that point. Having played through multiple full seasons in various games since then, it’s around that point in the year when impatience starts to set in. The Playoffs are looming, but are still far away.
Of course, we often looked for ways to keep things interesting. We actually started the season 0-3; this wasn’t the plan, but it did underscore the underdog aspect of the team, giving us a hole to climb out of. From there it became about trying to win every game in dominating fashion, and reach statistical goals. We also challenged ourselves to shut down star players, and took pride in holding Shaquille O’Neal to only 17 points (including just one point in the second half). Interestingly, after 56 games, Hakeem Olajuwon was leading the league in scoring with a remarkably realistic 26.7 ppg. It’s a testament to how we shared the ball and were aiming for realism…well, to a point.
As the season progressed, the urge to keep the game fresh by changing things up and being a bit silly became overwhelming. That’s the influence that my cousin and I had on each other as kids! There was one game where, inspired by hardcore matches in the then-WWF, we switched off the rules. With the freedom to knock down players to create turnovers, Hakeem Olajuwon set a new record with 95 steals in one game, also leapfrogging a number of players to suddenly lead the league in that category! That was a once-off, and it was hard to reconcile with the ongoing coverage, but it sure was memorable! The silliness didn’t stop there either, as we began shaking up our roster.
That resulted in Larry Bird making an unexpected return as a member of the Houston Rockets! Believing it would spice up the story and gameplay alike (and help us to make a few more threes per game), we modded Larry Bird into NBA Live 95 PC, overwriting Zan Tabak. This of course was accompanied by a news article in the section documenting our ongoing season, featuring the ridiculous image above. That incredible piece of art was made using Microsoft Complete NBA Basketball – which provided the Rockets logo and image of Bird at a press conference – and MS Paint. I could’ve made the logo black and white too, but it was much funnier this way!
Larry Legend made his Rockets debut against the San Antonio Spurs, and though his run was ultimately short-lived, it did make things interesting! It started feeling a bit too silly though, so we had him abruptly retire. I won’t share the articles that I wrote announcing Bird’s comeback or re-retirement, because they’re truly embarrassing attempts by a teenager to portray an NBA press conference and imitate professional journalism! And so Zan Tabak, overwritten with Larry Bird and waived as far as the “storyline” was concerned, inexplicably returned to the team with a combination of his and Bird’s season stats…before promptly being traded for Kenny “Sky” Walker.
The deals didn’t end there. Carl Herrera and Tim Breaux were traded to Cleveland for Tyrone Hill and Jon Battle, then Battle and Vernon Maxwell went to New York for Greg Anthony and John Starks. Tracy Murray was traded to the Lakers for Cedric Ceballos. We also had CPU teams make deals: the Warriors traded Chris Mullin to the Knicks for Anthony Mason, Boston sent Rick Fox to Detroit for Allan Houston, the Pacers traded Byron Scott to the Heat for Harold Miner and sent Antonio Davis to the Nets for PJ Brown, the SuperSonics and Hawks swapped Detlef Schrempf and Stacey Augmon, and the Heat traded Khalid Reeves to the 76ers for Greg Graham.
We came up with in-universe stories as to why these trades happened, but from our perspective, it’s because we wanted to see some changes throughout the league, and there were no CPU-initiated trades (and yes, simply because we had the ability to). Reflecting upon it now, some of that silliness might have dampened our enthusiasm more than it kept things interesting. It underscores the notion that we might’ve been better off re-playing the 1995 Playoffs instead, as we could’ve finished it far sooner. Once again though, I have no regrets. Just looking back at those articles, stats and standings, and that terrible MS Paint-job, fills me with joy and makes me laugh!
To recap some other memorable moments from our attempts to re-play the 1995 season in NBA Live 95 PC, Sam Cassell went 0-for-29 from downtown to start the year. This led to quite a celebration when he finally connected on a three! We also held Karl Malone scoreless in one game, admittedly due to an unintentional flagrant foul in the first quarter that forced him to sit out the rest of the night. The screenshot below of him missing a dunk is also a rare authentic capture from that actual NBA Live 95 PC season! Capturing screenshots wasn’t as quick and easy as it is now with all of the readily-available software, so I don’t have too many of them in my archives.
Inspired by the live scoreboards on NBA.com, we meticulously compiled a play-by-play recap of a game against the Orlando Magic. To do that, we hooked up a mic to a stereo, popped in a blank cassette, and dictated the action so that we could play it back and type everything out. We also made jokes, parodied commercials, and sarcastically commented on a couple of cheap plays by the CPU between taking notes. I’m not sure if I still have that recording; part of me wants to go looking for it, but another part of me cautions that I’ll likely be left cringing if I hear my teenage self trying to be a comedian. I obviously greatly enjoy nostalgia, but some things are best left buried!
Even though we didn’t finish re-playing the 1995 season in NBA Live 95 PC, all the hours that my cousin and I spent with the game produced some of my most treasured memories, both of the virtual hardwood and that time in our lives. We were always close growing up (and still are), and it’s with him that I primarily enjoyed and shared my love of basketball. Sadly, adult life doesn’t lend itself to as many catch-ups and marathon gaming sessions, but we’ve often reminisced about the games we played, and this season in particular. No, we didn’t complete a title run, but it’s still up there with the time we played with every team in NBA Jam TE for PC in a single day.
By giving us a reason to keep revisiting NBA Live 95 PC long after it was released, it also solidified my appreciation for retro gaming for years to come. Sure, NBA Live 95 PC wasn’t exactly all that “retro” in 1999, but it was still a game that many people had long since moved on from. The fun that my cousin and I had with that 1995 season demonstrates that it was still worth dusting off though, and honestly, I believe it still is! That file may be lost, but I can still create new memories with the game. The ones I have of that season with my cousin are special, though. I’m grateful for them, and that we visited the newsagents that day and spied a classic on sale for just $20.
