Best NBA Live of the last decade?

[benji]

NBA Live 99 is from EA Sports, obviously, it's part of their NBA Live series.

NBA ShootOut and its successor series NBA 0x (often tagged with "The Life" or "The Inside" and are on PS3/PS2/PSP only) have been produced by Sony since the mid-90s.

In 2003, MJ either retires after the first or the second year of the franchise. If he doesn't retire, he drops from like 88 overall rating down to the upper 60s, his stats drop off the edge and he's never on a team.

Like most 40+ year old NBA players. They wouldn't write extra development code in franchise specifically for him.

[rise]

I just thought it was funny that he drops 20 points on a 50-99 scale over the course of a four month offseason.

[atlwarrior]

I wanted to say Nba live 10 but nothing else was really good in that besides online and exhibition play if you think about it. Dynasty mode was horrible. Wanted to say 05 there is plenty of annoying things about that game too. Like the excessive blocking and the fastbreak is broken but overall everything else was good. Especially Dynasty Mode. Besides, this game did bring back the dunk contest to basketball video games. Nba Live 2000 was dope at the time. I think that was the same year 2k came with their first game on Dreamcast and I also was all over that game. Me and my friends would play it all the time. Anyways the one I chose was Nba live 06 pc. Why? Look at any nba live and you'll see that the ai fastbreak is excecuted better than any other nba live. This game was the first to have team plays implemented CORRECTLY and the ai would use those plays in the game and the defense was just as good. There were so many different plays in that game. The freestyle superstars were not all that bad to me. They couldve toned them down a bit though. This was also the last nba live game on pc with a stable dynasty mode. And it was the last nba live game to have no issues with sub and fatigue. There were a lot of great things about this game people didnt give it credit for. Then again this was also the year 2k came with their solid title NBA 2k6 which really took over the spotlight.

[Jeffx]

2000 was also a high point, if not the high point in the series (for its time).

That was the last time I was seriously into Live, and I've been rocking EA basketball since Bulls vs. Lakers. That was such a great game.

[karlsanada10]

I love creating player, that's all.lol

What's your fave team back then?

BEfore, I never liked NBA(real life), I started to like it last 2007, when my uncle bought me a NBA 2k7. I saw Rockets, and really liked it. Anyways, when I was playing live 2000, my favorites back then were Utah Jazz and Memphis Grizzlies. I thought Gasol was a pg back then, he could steal ball so awesome! lol, and because their jerseys were blue.haha.

[shadowgrin]

Gasol wasn't even in the NBA during 1999-2000 or 2000-01 season.

[Andrew]

And the Grizzlies were still in Vancouver.

[karlsanada10]

Wasn''t Gasol? Hmmmm....what were the the teams that had blue jerseys before?

[Andrew]

Around the time of NBA Live 2000, teams with blue jerseys would include the Pacers, Timberwolves, Knicks, Magic, Nets, Wizards and Cavaliers (well, blue and black for the Cavs).

[karlsanada10]

I'm pretty sure it's Gasol.*scratches head* Maybe I was wrong on what year of Live I started.

[BD1899]

NBA Live 2003 and 2006 are tied for me in terms of my favorite. I'd probably lean towards 2003 for nostalgia purposes.

The game really was before it's time with the dynasty cutscenes and "little things" (something EA has never really implemented into the game since) dynamic attendance, the only NBA game to use draft classes from the NCAA game, the dynasty ticker. If you can look past the terrible skating and tweak the sliders to help the canned blocking the game is just brilliant.

To be honest, I completely forgot about the cutscenes in '04 until now. Kinda wierd that a feature created way back in 2003 completely disappeared from basketball games until NBA 2k11.

[[Q]]

i don't think it's fair to compare the games with the criteria that they be made in the last 10 years. you are obviously gonna undervalue the older titles, especially with you young whippersnappers who don't even know Jordan was even ever in an NBA Live game. I say you divide it up into the PC era (when PC graphics were better than consoles): 95-2001. PS2 era (when they started porting console games to PC [or had no PC version]): 2002-06. Current era (console only): 07-10.
in that case, the best of the PC era was 2000 with 98 close behind. PS2 era, 06 with 2005 close behind. current era, live 10... hands down.

[Andrew]

Fair point, but you could still judge each game on the expectations, tech and quality relative to its time.

[[Q]]

sure but it gets to be a problem when they remove stuff between eras (or how EA likes to do it between consecutive years) i think "ok, live 06 was great, but in live 2005 the jerseys were PERFECT... no problems at all." or "i wish it had 1 on 1 like live 2000" or "i wish it had all-star weekend" etc. we seem to get more disappointed as time goes along

[Andrew]

True, but that's where comparisons can be made; how does each game stack up given the expectations at the time and the technology available? NBA Live 2000 and NBA Live 10 isn't a fair competition when it comes to graphics - despite what snide hyperbole might suggest - but in terms of being a well-rounded product with features we want and the ratio of things we like to the things we dislike in each release, you can still compare them.

[SkyLine03LT]

2004 for me. I was playing it for nearly 4 years- never got bored

[Mandich]

MY vote goes for NBA 200 , i played that game until 2005 I guess , best game ever to me

[JaoSming]

2 years of being a man but over 1800 years old

righto