NBA Live 16 Demo Out Now (Post Impressions Here)

[Andrew]

The NBA Live 16 demo is out for both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, so feel free to post your impressions here!

[Andrew]

Still downloading it myself. With any luck, it'll be done by the end of today. Thank you, Australian Internet speeds!

[[Q]]

Played a game and defense seemed non existent until the 4th quarter where the cpu came back from a 17 point deficit lol

Some new animations are awkward but not deal breakers. There are moments of greatness in the demo but I was hoping that there would be a bigger jump from 15 to 16. I've only played one game Cavs vs thunder so far as it has been installing. Really excited to try pro am once it's installed

[Patr1ck]

My first impression is that EA doesn't know what "responsiveness" means.

[[Q]]

Posts moves are better as is some of the right stick dribbling

[Alphasim]

Played some of the Cavs/Thunder Finals game while the rest of the game downloaded, and it blew me away how much time Ibaka and Mosgov both spent camped out at the three point line while on offense. Mosgov even kept trying to cross people over and slash to the rim! I hope this is just because this mid-download demo is on Rookie (or maybe Dummy) difficulty or something because it's driving me crazy.

[Phreak50]

My first impression is that EA doesn't know what "responsiveness" means.

Want to elaborate? I found the responsiveness fine in about 3 hours of demo time tonight. Probably the best it's been this gen as well.

[Patr1ck]

I'll probably go into more detail later, and if I can, I'll make a video with a more detailed explanation. I was just a bit hyped up about the improvements I heard about the responsiveness because it is my number one gripe and it's why I don't play Live that much. So after my first experiences with the demo, I let off some steam.

A little detail about it is I started yelling at my monitor wondering why a pass to a player cutting baseline to the basket ended up happening so much later that the cutters momentum ended up taking him almost all the way to the corner. There are some other instances where the game just decides it won't perform the action. It's quite frustrating.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's as smooth and responsive as it was at the community event. I don't feel there's any issues with that aspect.

Still waiting for the full version to download (man, it's going slow), but I've played some games of the Finals match-up between the Thunder and Cavaliers. Definitely some issues to be worked out, though it'll be interesting to see what impact we can have with sliders, and of course, what the Day 1 patch does. It's a bit too up-tempo and spacing could be better, and of course there are awkward animations that could perhaps be patched out (and need to be phased out in the long run). However, the game is still feeling a lot better on the sticks, as far as being in control of your player.

By tomorrow, everything should have finished downloading, so I'll be able to play with more teams and give LIVE Pro-Am a run, with my face scan. Didn't turn out too badly, the only issue was with the lighting, so I'll give it another try at some point.

[The X]

Haven't played pro am as gave up on install when at 92%. Played Finals a couple of times & is noticeably better than Live 15 demo. Better graphics, less awkward animations (still a few though), notice CPU plays a bit smarter. Was too easy to score but sliders will help there. Seems more arcade at this stage but sliders might help here too. I love dribble handoffs. Shame no international teams in game or I could reignite NZ dribble handoff motion offence.

One big letdown was presentation. I expected better. Lack of Finals atmosphere etc. also expected better responsiveness as others have alluded to.

Not sure on game yet, will check out pro am and see how that goes.

Overall game plays alright.

[itr_k1lo5]

Played a few games of ProAm both with online players and by myself. Still learning all the controls but so far its nice. Game speed is on point as i have a big guy who cant keep up with lil guards, rebounding is about position not just button bashing. Happy so far.

[chicagoRAW]

My first impression is that EA doesn't know what "responsiveness" means.

Agreed. I keep waiting for this year to be the year NBA Live is finally responsive and then same old story.

Pass the ball to a player, catches, waits a second then passes (while I already had the pass button pressed 2-3 seconds ago). It's literally hit and miss like that all game. Some times you can do a semi quick catch and pass, other times, takes several seconds for the input the register. Same with steals, blocks, rebounds, etc. Anyone saying that the game is responsive, I'm curious as to what your definition of responsive is. When I press a button, I expect the player to execute that command almost instantaneously, which does not happen in this game more often than not.

The movements are still clunky, offense rebounds occur unnaturally, players with good rebounding positions don't get the ball as much as they should. Online seems like it runs at 30fps.

At this point I'm done with this franchise. Every year I'm optimistic, I even for some stupid reason bought Live 15, and every year it's a fail. I'm not an apologist, won't grade on a curve, and I could care less about moral victories for this game.

[[Q]]

I did appreciate the cpu not standing around on offense as the new feature fixed that for the most part. It does cause problems as cpu teammates don't know where you are and wind up crowding you. There is one pass animation that I don't like where the guy takes a step before passing.

[Andrew]

Pass the ball to a player, catches, waits a second then passes (while I already had the pass button pressed 2-3 seconds ago). It's literally hit and miss like that all game. Some times you can do a semi quick catch and pass, other times, takes several seconds for the input the register. Same with steals, blocks, rebounds, etc. Anyone saying that the game is responsive, I'm curious as to what your definition of responsive is. When I press a button, I expect the player to execute that command almost instantaneously, which does not happen in this game more often than not.

That's strange, my experience has been the opposite, for the most part. Rebounding is sometimes a little quirky, but in terms of dribbling, passing, and moving, it's far more responsive than NBA Live 15, and speaking in general, in my opinion.

Have you tried the touch passing, where you hit pass again before the ball reaches the first recipient? Sometimes it can be tough to pull off the timing, but you can throw some quick passes with that mechanic, as well as the Freestyle passing.

[burnshroom]

I have to say that thus far I am a fan of Pro Am. Just fun playing with other non AI guys.

The paint is a cluster though. But still having fun. Started as a slashing guard but am having WAY more fun as a 7 foot rim protector. Banging down low for my points and hitting boards and blocking shots.

Not fun when you play with ball hogs though, but I suppose that is the life of a big man.

On Xbox One myself, as I see most are on PS4.

Didn't get into 2K's online 5 on 5 game last year, if it is as fun as this I may.

[Phreak50]

I've played probably 5 or 6 hours of full games with the 4 or 5 different teams, adjusted sliders, played 'sim' like, played purposely crazy like etc just to see how the game is as a whole.

To me, given I played 15 almost the entire 12 months, 16 is a very, very minor update.

With all the talk of the changes and upgrades and animations, from my time with the demo I honestly felt like I was still playing 15 just with a fresh coat of paint.

Yeah the hand offs are neat, the post and backdown animations and controls work now and the touch on to the next guy passing works well but what else really sticks out during gameplay?

It's like they polished (albeit to in my opinion the best looking bball visuals ever) the graphics engine, added Pro Am and that's it.

The automated ragdolls animations have almost all but been removed, the set up dribble animations (one of 15's highlights) are gone (unless there's some new way to control them I haven't seen), and the terrible shot animations around the hoop still exist.

I bought Live 14 to support EA on their road back. I bought 15 because I liked the game and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was ready to buy 16, no questions asked after seeing the visual upgrade and expecting more big leaps in gameplay.

But I am hugely, hugely disappointed so far. As I said on another forum, it's like 16 is aimed at everyone who DIDN'T play 15.

- the comical pass out of a shot animations still exist
- the embarrassing pre-determined rebounds still exist
- point guards not only grab offensive rebounds amongst a paint full of giants but casually flip up the shot over them every time as well
- there are literally 2 post moves (spin and drive - into an existing and not specific to a post move layup or dunk) or do a turnaround ugly hook or jumper
- the great work done with the ball physics is slowly being undone by those automated behind the back dribbles which now look like a yoyo on a string and some of the passes warp to their receiver as well
- as I say, 5 or so hours of gameplay and I heard maybe 5 seconds of new commentary, which again, as a loyal player of 14 and 15 is an insult

It's not a bad game at all. In fact, I highly recommended 15 and that people give it more of a chance beyond initial impressions. There are some good things from 15 that have strangely been removed, as I mentioned above. And even with the new additions being largely positive, I'm almost certain I won't be buying this game because I played it for the last 10 months basically.

[Yo1]

Here's mine impressions:
PROS
- The thing i liked the most is quick play-calling and simple/smart way you can organize every possession
- I'm really pleased with look of courts (perfect, IMO)
- loved the jerseys and how well they look on players (better than in 2k series, IMO)
- shooting seems better than previous games and that's good
- i noticed that player bodies looks pretty much spot on (at least star players) and they even put LBJ his curvy legs like this ( ).... LOL
- on top 3 plays CPU actually select and put in right order real 3 best plays from a game (nice touch)
- Jalen Rose game break is fantastic and welcome feature. LOVE IT!!!!
- love design of shoes (don't like how some shoes look like your player have bigger shoe number, some small like a midget, LOL)
- didn't tried Gameface scan feature, but it's probably very good, based on comments i read on internet

CONS
- unresponsiveness at it's best (after press a button pass/rebound/steal occurs about 2 sec later)
- players with full charge (turbo) going trough defense and dunk like in NBA Jam series
- quick players is virtually unstoppable (dunking everything all the time)
- big guys playing like PG's
- whenever i got a rebound i ended up with 2 big guys waiting for ball on backcourt, while my PG was on other side of the floor doing nothing
- weird animation where you feed a ball to big man, he stands still, than make a move 2 sec after without dribble the ball and score and refs wasn't calling obvious travel
- a lot of players that i saw in demo was completely NOT like a real one (Mirotic etc.)
- players on the pictures looks different than those on court (i noticed that Pau Gasol that is SPOT ON in game, looks awful of picture...weird lighting or something)
- a TON of weird and unnatural (shooting/layup/passing/rebounding) animations & psychics (no-look sky-hook I'm looking at you, ROFL)
- and the last thing that drives me mad a big time was connected with unresponsiveness and that is fact that i pass a ball to guy that with in the corner (for example) all alone, no one near him at least 5 feet, and when i press shot button because of 2 sec lag or something defender suddenly appeared and contest that shot and every time, I MEAN EVERY TIME, my shooter end's up with a brick (getting a "contested" mark)... grrrrrrrrrrrrr

All in all i had a solid time with a demo... A little change was welcome for me, BUT... This demo feels like a bloody pre-alpha test at the best. So much weird thing going on. I think that EA should delay this game at least 2 months, but not gonna happen, because of 2k monster that overshadows Live series for so much years. I don't expect any changes in a final release of this game. Sad but true. With some good patch this game could be around 6/10, but for now it's 4/10 in my book. You notice that i didn't comment on Be a Pro mode and that's was because i was focused of gameplay itself. I'm not a guy that could pay for 60$ game just for some game mode. This is one more step for EA in right direction, while 2k series jumping 10 steps at time and that isn't promising thing for Live series. EA could bring some new more talented guys and let them create some new bball experience for us, instead of this mediocre 60$ demo game! Cheers!

[Kenny]

I thought the demo was pretty solid. It actually made me a little more hyped about the game, since it has seemed to improve a lot.

Just a couple of things:

-I don't like the free throw system. I'm not against having a type of accuracy bar (for lack of a better term), but it doesn't really seem like it means anything. You can get it practically perfect for both free throws and still miss them both. Maybe it just bugged me because I missed two crucial free throws with Dion Waiters down the stretch (of all people to choke against the Cavs!). Kyrie of course hit the game winner after that.

-The dunking can be a little cheesy at times - particularly when you're controlling Russell Westbrook.

EDIT: Skip to about 44 seconds... unless you want to see the intro bit for the 50th time.

phpBB [video]

[buzzy]

In terms of cutscenes and and screenshots this is probably the best looking basketball game I've seen.
Such a shame that the animations are not up to par.

[[Q]]

yeah this does seem like an "upgraded 15", but that's a good thing. It's a step in the right direction. That's the same way 2K built themselves up when Live was the superior game, so hopefully they continue to build on this and get better. With that said, I actually stopped playing Live 15 late in the season so the Cavs/Thunder game didnt really interest me.

I finally got to play Pro Am last night and I actually had a lot of fun playing that mode. Given my love for Live Run in Live 10, I expected to have fun playing the 5v5 mode although I'd prefer to play with NBA players, but ti was cool to put my face in the game. I hope next year they have an option to play with all NBA players. I had to redo my face and it took a few tries but I got it in and the only thing the mode could use is maybe an icon underneath a player or at least his position to indicate what kind of player he is. The first couple games were 2 on 2 and they were ok but I got into a couple games with other people with mics and it was pretty fun. Then they added more players for a 5 on 5 experience and it was awesome because we destroyed the other team 2 games in a row after a guy oin the other team called me a scrub .

Lastly, I tried Summer Circuit and got stuck on a team with 4 others that were also guards. We could not rebound anything but wound up losing 22-20. Wasn't that fun but maybe it would have been better if the team was more balanced.

Still getting frustrated occasionally with some of the passing animations. I've always said that icon passing and passing in general isn't the most realistic in games because you can pass to players that are across the court that you shouldn't be able to know where they are. So if that's the reason that the players turn/take a step before passing, then I applaud the team at EA. If not, then the passing animations defintely need some work. I was able to queue up the pass command a few times before actually getting the ball like Andrew had pointed out which was cool, but man it is tough to get the ball to the open guy in a timely manner at times

I wonder if there were any changes/additions to Dynasty Mode or the regular Superstar mode (probably not since they haven't hyped it or mentioned it) but if there is, that would be icing on the cake

[Shawn15oth]

amazing graphics.
the passing game needs work, cause some of these passes are easy cookies on 2k.
game play is okay, i still see some glitches. overall its good.
i love the face scan feature a lot, this is what my player really means.

[Phreak50]

I am getting the feeling the 'sluggish/unresponsive' comments are to do with online lag.

The single player VS CPU is as responsive as any bball game has been.

Unless you mean with rebounding, which in that case isn't the game being slow to respond to you pressing the rebound button. It simply isn't letting you jump.

The game seems to have a set slider, calculating how many rebounds each player/team should get and if it pre-determines player X will get the rebound, then he does.

[thelegend23]

Courts, shoes, jerseys are simply amazing The disappointing part is the animation- rebounding, passing, free throw, dribbling like a yoyo