Wayback Wednesday: Famous Numbers, Not So Famous Players

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: Regional Exclusives & Late Releases

The basketball gaming landscape has changed drastically since our choices were whittled down to just NBA Live and NBA 2K, culminating in a virtual monopoly for the latter. When a handful of developers and publishers were throwing their hat into the ring with hoops games, we received a variety of titles of varying quality, but most brought something interesting to the table. Of course, not every game was available worldwide. While NBA Live and NBA 2K stood as examples of global brands, other games were regional exclusives, usually only released in North America.

On top of that, if other regions did receive a particular game, it might not be until several months later. It may seem like a terrible marketing decision to release an NBA game well after the season has tipped off, but there are titles that have come along quite late in a campaign, even with their domestic release. Indeed, not even NBA 2K and NBA Live have been immune to late releases, if only outside North America. It's an interesting difference in the way that basketball video games used to be handled, so let's take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: NBA 07 by Sony Retrospective

With the lack of options in the basketball gaming space nowadays, I'm often wistful for a time when several NBA titles were on the market year after year. Of course, not every game was available to me. Some were North American exclusives, unavailable to those of us in PAL regions unless we had the hardware to play imported games. This included a majority of Sony's NBA series, making it both a region and console exclusive. In hindsight, that was never going to realistically allow it to challenge the dominance of NBA Live and NBA 2K!

Developed by San Diego Studio - probably best known for MLB: The Show - the NBA series only saw one official worldwide release, namely NBA 08. Mind you, given that the PlayStation 3 was region-free, that didn't have to be a barrier for anyone who was willing and able to import games! Since adding a PS3 to my collection, I've been able to pick up some games that I never had an opportunity to play when they were new, such as college basketball titles. This also includes a few games from the NBA series, and today, I'm profiling NBA 07 with an in-depth retrospective. Let's take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: Revisiting NBA Live 18

It's fair to say that NBA Live didn't live up to expectations on the eighth generation. We were hoping for a fresh start after NBA Elite 11 torpedoed the series during the seventh generation, but instead there were numerous unsuccessful attempts to rebuild. However, there were some flashes of brilliance and genuinely good ideas, which only makes the shortcomings of those eighth gen NBA Live titles more frustrating. Now that several years have passed and the weight of new game expectations has been lifted, those positive aspects do stand out, and can be appreciated.

As such, when I revisit an eighth generation NBA Live, I'm sometimes left surprised by how much I enjoyed dusting it off. While these second looks haven't changed my mind to the same extent as NBA Live 10 or the Next Gen version of NBA 2K14, I do come away thinking that some of them hold up better than I remembered. This was true after Dee and I revisited NBA Live 18 using Parsec and the Xbox App, and had a really fun game. Indeed, I ended up picking up where I left off in Ultimate Team, and it inspired me to reconsider my previous critique. Let's take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: The Misuse of Legends in NBA Live

If you remember hitting the virtual hardwood before NBA Live 2000 was released, then you’ll recall what a big deal it was when Legends were announced for the game. Sure, we had modding, and even on console Create-a-Player could be used to make some serviceable retro players, but now they were going to be right there in the game by default! They’d have proper faces, and their names would be called by the PA Announcer and commentators. And of course, Michael Jordan would at long last appear in an NBA Live game. It was huge news, and a landmark feature.

Considering that EA Sports had found themselves in hot water after trying to sneak some Legends into the 16-bit version of NBA Live 96, it seemed like something that would never happen. That made the official inclusion of Legends even more special, and it’s why I won’t take historical content for granted. However, it’s fair to say that over the years, NBA Live didn’t do as much with the Legends as they possibly could have, leaving the door open for NBA 2K to blow us away with retro content and features. Even before that though, NBA Live was dropping the ball with throwback players. Let’s take a look back…way back…

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: The Original All-Time Teams in NBA 2K

The concept of All-Time Teams is naturally a staple of sports discussion. Which franchise could field the best lineup with all the players that have ever worn their uniform? Who can boast the best all-time starting lineup? Who would prevail in a showdown of stars, if they could all be together on the team in their prime? Such What Ifs are impossible to conclusively prove in reality, but they're a great idea for fantasy matchups in video games. Even in the early days of NBA Live modding, the community was creating Legends and All-Time Teams rosters.

Those projects have remained popular over the years, so it's no surprise that with all of the other historical content in NBA 2K, All-Time squads were eventually added for each franchise. As I noted when I covered those teams in a previous article, while the concept was nothing new, it saved us a lot of time by ensuring that certain players and assets would be in the game by default. However, I neglected to mention that NBA 2K18 wasn't the first game in the series to feature All-Time Teams, as a few such squads were unlockable in earlier releases. Let's take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: Long-Gone Players in NBA 2K11

Even in the early days of basketball gaming, it wasn’t unusual for players who were no longer in the league to make it into the active rosters of a title. Usually, this was due to the roster cut-off date, and the timing and circumstances of their departure. However, they were often still on a team’s roster. When games began including a Free Agents Pool, it was generally empty by default. By the early 2000s though, it had become far more common to see a selection of players in the Free Agents Pool who were unsigned when the game’s rosters were finalised; a trend that continues today.

We’ve never been told the exact circumstances that allow players to appear as free agents, but we can make some educated guesses. Extrapolating from the names we’ve seen in the Free Agents Pool over the years, it appears that they must have been under contract at the end of the previous season, signed to a guaranteed contract during a game’s development (but released before the rosters were finalised), or retired with time left on their deal. That accounts for most free agents in games over the years, but there are exceptions. Notably, the selection of Free Agents in NBA 2K11 includes a few players who were long-gone by that point. Let’s take a look back…way back…

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: Debuting in Games Before the NBA

Every offseason, there's a new crop of players - both drafted and undrafted - that will make their debut in the real NBA and on the virtual hardwood alike. To that point of course, barring Summer League play, basically all NBA players will be debuting in games before the real NBA, and have done so as long as titles with updated rosters have been released before the season tips off. However, there are players whose real life debuts came well after their first appearance in a video game. For the purposes of this article, this is what I mean when I say "debuting in games before the NBA".

This includes players that missed what should've been their rookie season, and future NBA players who made cameos through other means. These appearances can make it difficult to remember exactly when certain players debuted or were drafted, since we recall playing with them in video games much earlier. There are also fun examples of bonus content leading to pre-NBA cameos for players who would become noteworthy names, and in some cases, major stars. It's a lengthy list, so settle in as we take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: Players From NBA 2K14 Still Active in 2023

Can you believe that NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is coming up on ten years old? As I’ve discussed in previous articles and on the NLSC Podcast, it took me a while, but I’ve certainly warmed up to the landmark release! However, while the game itself still holds up extraordinarily well, the snapshot of the NBA that it captures is naturally now quite outdated. A recent perusal of the default rosters made it clear just how much turnover there is in the league over the span of a decade. In fact, some sweeping changes occurred not too long after NBA 2K14’s release!

How many players from the default rosters of NBA 2K14 PS4/X1 are still active as of 2023? Just 73 as of writing, though others were still active as of last season, and may still find a spot in the NBA. When I made a similar comparison with NBA Live 10 back in 2021, only 44 players from the 2010 campaign were still in the league. On top of that, less than 20 players had stints that spanned from the launch of the PS4 and X1 through to the arrival of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Indeed, including a couple that I forgot, only five players are still with the same team a decade later. As we prepare to tip off another NBA campaign, let’s also take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: The Class of 2003 & Video Games

Somehow, it’s been twenty years since the Class of 2003 – widely considered to be one of the best NBA Draft Classes of all time – debuted in the NBA. Only one player from that Draft – LeBron James – is still active, and now playing in his 21st season. With the retirement of Andre Iguodala and Udonis Haslem, he officially became the league’s oldest player. This is something I’ve been trying to get my head around and make peace with. After all, I’m a couple of months older than LeBron, which means I’ve reached the point where I’m older than all active NBA players. Old head indeed!

This day was bound to come, of course, but it’s not something you really think about when you’re a hardcore basketball fan in your late teens or early twenties. However, the entry of the Class of 2003 into the NBA two decades ago was one of my first “Oh, I’m not exactly a kid anymore” moments. More than starting to go out to clubs and pubs, staying up as late as I wanted, or any other rites of passage, realising that there were now NBA players who were my age made me feel…well, not that I was grown up, but definitely in the next stage of life! Let’s take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: Investigating NBA Live 2002 Codes

Here’s a statement that will blow your mind: you can’t believe everything that you read on the internet. I’ll give you a moment to recover from the utter shock of that revelation! In all seriousness, it’s hardly a secret that the internet is as convenient a means of spreading misinformation as it is researching verifiable facts and figures. I’m not going to delve into the Big Issues here, because that’s beyond our scope as a site dedicated to basketball gaming, and I’m not looking to court controversy. Of course, there’s plenty of hoaxes and misinformation when it comes to video games.

All genres of games are subject to what TV Tropes creatively dubs an “Urban Legend of Zelda“. Indeed, the Zelda series itself has one of the all-time famous video game hoaxes, namely the claim that the Triforce was obtainable in Ocarina of Time. Hoops titles have their own urban legends, from claims of certain players being hidden in NBA Jam when they weren’t, to supposedly unlockable modes that in reality would be too big of a selling point to tuck away as an obscure secret. And of course, like other genres, there have been fake cheat codes. I’ve discovered some questionable codes for NBA Live 2002 that bear investigating, so let’s take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: Re-Playing the 1995 Season in NBA Live 95 PC

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...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: Keyboard Controls & PC Basketball Gaming

Believe it or not, keyboard controls are still supported as of NBA 2K24 PC! If you take a look at the system requirements, you’ll see that a dual analog gamepad is only “highly recommended” to play the game. Of course, this is probably underselling the importance of such a peripheral in modern releases. Gameplay is unquestionably designed around the use of a dual analog gamepad, and has been since NBA Live introduced Freestyle Control. On top of that, based on a couple of Forum posts, NBA 2K24 has some issues with configuring its limited keyboard controls.

There was a time when keyboard controls were more than sufficient for PC basketball gaming; even in titles that recommended a gamepad. As a long-time PC gamer, I’m no stranger to using keyboard controls in a variety of titles, including basketball games. There have even been times when I’ve opted for the keyboard on the virtual hardwood despite having a gamepad, including retro gaming sessions nowadays. They have had their advantages, but also their share of drawbacks, even long before hoops games were designed for a controller with dual joysticks. Let’s take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: My 1998 Season in NBA Live 96 PC

I'll readily admit that sometimes it’s difficult to get my head around the fact that it’s been over 25 years since The Last Dance came to an end. To put it into perspective, in 1998, that would’ve been the equivalent of looking back at the New York Knicks’ 1973 championship season! It doesn’t feel like such ancient history when your own nostalgia is involved, and as a Chicago Bulls fan, the 1998 season is naturally quite memorable for me. Those memories also involve the virtual hardwood, as it was during the 1998 season that I made my first roster updates for NBA Live 96 PC.

It was also one of the first seasons that I tried to play along with in a video game. Not in NBA Live 98, mind you. Unfortunately, our family’s aging PC couldn’t handle that game, as I found out firsthand when I tried running the demo! Instead, I used NBA Live 96 PC and my aforementioned 1998 season roster update. Although it was ultimately another season that I didn’t complete, it’s nevertheless one of my favourite basketball gaming experiences, thanks to all of the effort that I put into it beyond simply playing the games. Let’s take a look back...way back...

[Andrew]

Wayback Wednesday: Famous Numbers, Not So Famous Players

There was a commemorative magazine published not long after the Chicago Bulls won their fifth NBA championship. As an avid fan, I read it cover to cover until it was no longer pristine. On top of recapping the championship season, the magazine delved into the history of the Bulls. I was fascinated to learn that although Michael Jordan became the last and most famous Bull to wear number 23, he was the seventh player in club history to don it. You have to remember that in 1997, such information wasn’t readily available and accessible in less than a minute!

That tidbit of Bulls and MJ trivia has stuck with me. The longer I’ve been a basketball fan, and the more players that I’ve seen come and go, the more I’ve seen other stars end up sharing their number with far less distinguished NBA alumni. Like so much other historical trivia, these examples frequently present themselves whenever I’m revisiting an old video game, and see players in the rosters that I haven’t thought about in years. While they may not have reached the same level of fame and success as the stars who donned those jerseys, there’s still that connection to their famous peers and their iconic numbers. Let’s take a look back…way back…