Dyansty Mode Review

[rookie1082]

Me and my friend spent hours on the dynasty mode, playing and simulating several seasons with the atlanta hawks. So here goes my review of the dynasty mode, hope you enjoy!


Ticker: Good

As far as the in-game dynasty features, it is far and away better than last year. The ticker alone gives you a great feel for the league leaders, injuries, upcoming games, scores, etc. However they do go a little overboard sometimes because in one game i counted the leading scorers showed up 4 times in the ticker. I mean its a nice feature, but we dont need to know who is leading the league in scoring every single quarter.
All in all though, a nice addition.

Injuries: Better

In previous versions of live, the injuries were messed up when playing. When you simulated the injuries were for the most part realistic and fine. This year in the in-game there were partial injuries as most of you have already heard. And after a couple mins they give you an update ala madden and nhl hockey on if the player is available to come back or not. After the game, if the player was hurt for a certain period of time they would tell you app. how many games or time he will miss.

Trading: Not that great

The trading of draft picks was a good addition, but it's almost impossible to trade for a first round pick unless you give up a superstar.... like garnett or kobe, etc. Even then its hard to get a draft pick in return. And when you are GIVING up a draft pick, you wont get as much in return as you would if you were getting it. The interest bar is kinda cool but it really doesnt matter, as we tried giving terry for hudson in minnesota. They wouldnt accept it, now i mean i know they arent interested but who wouldnt do Terry for Hudson? Just kinda weird... oh and the wolves wouldnt have gone over the point cap. Overall trading has been improved but still needs a lot of work.

Draft: Same old crap

In an IGN interview (i think it was IGN, maybe OS, dont remember) The producer was raving on how there were cutscenes of the rookies sitting in the green room. I mean that is okay and all, but it got old after the first time we saw the cutscene... And tell me, since when is the 47th pick in the draft STILL sitting in a green room? Not realistic. They give you the same old strenghts and weaknesses on each player, and not much else. Not an upgrade since last years live whatsoever, the only new thing is the cutscene. And that gets old after the first time like i said.

FA Signing: GRRRRR!

We tried signing big name FA's and that was fine. Then i heard about that bug where if you simulate it, that it goes kinda cooky. So the first offseason the FA's were kobe and garnett, and we skipped the FA signings. Behold, the first day of the season they are still FA's, willing to sign for the minimum. That made me furious, because how do you NOT fix a problem as big as that?

Training Session: Eh....

I was very very disappointed that you couldnt participate in the training camp yourself, only watch cutscenes. There was really no point to even do the training, because even if you put all of your points into once category like shooting or defense, more than half the players wouldnt even improve one points in DEF awareness, or FG's, or whatever. So it is really a waste of points. The Plane and Lockers room does help though, because it improves the ratings of each and every player. Overall though, its very disappointing as its not very interactive.

Overall impression of Dynasty: Same as last season for the most part, could imrove A LOT MORE!

They spent more time on the cutscenes it seems, than improving the actual dynasty mode as far as playability and improving your players manually. As we simulated more seasons and as the time passed, i was getting more and more frustrated and disappointed because it was the same as 2003 for the most part. After about 4-5 seasons i said screw it and went home from the frustration, lol.

I know most of us had said this before and its like comparing apples and oranges, but they could REALLY take a page from Madden. BY FAR, madden has the best and most in depth franchise/owner mode you can come across. It has so many features, stats, and realism that it is bar none at the top. Players retire and turn into coaches, the salaries are actually Dollar amounts instead of the points, Hall of fame players, All time records, Great training camp, great draft, great owner mode (By far the best new innovation in a video game that isnt just a simulator), and many many more features. nba live was a slight bit better than last year but overall i was very disappointed. Hope this gives you a nice outlook at what to expect.

[Vins15]

great review problems u mention are the keys ones...once again great job on this review

[JAY__JAY_]

ea makes madden right. and ea makes live. so why arent they basically the same except for the changes need to be made beacasue of the different sports.???

[rookie1082]

ea makes madden right. and ea makes live. so why arent they basically the same except for the changes need to be made beacasue of the different sports.???

I totally agree... Although i know they have totally different production teams for each game, they should take a page out of each others books and make the best game in each sporting category. NHL, Madden, and MVP baseball are great. Top of the line in each sport... Unfortunately the sport that i love the most, EA doesnt feel the need to match up with their coworkers.

[rookie1082]

ea makes madden right. and ea makes live. so why arent they basically the same except for the changes need to be made beacasue of the different sports.???

I totally agree... Although i know they have totally different production teams for each game, they should take a page out of each others books and make the best game in each sporting category. NHL, Madden, and MVP baseball are great. Top of the line in each sport... Unfortunately the sport that i love the most, EA doesnt feel the need to match up with their coworkers.

[Swoosh]

Dude, u forgot to give attention to the gameplay, playin GM is one of the most interesting aspects of the game i know but gameplay is definately as important, and if the FA signings are a problem with simming, then just don sim? No offence or sumthin like that mate (i know its a dynasty review but i dont think it's right to just make a verdicht comin' to the dynasty mode, there are other aspects of the game, but i agree, dynasty should have been much better, as far as the cutscenes go, i predicted they would spend too much time on that in stead of fixin' bugs)
Great review though

[Jase23]

I think the maybe the best thing about live04 (not that i'll have it for many weeks) is it does atleast sound like progress.
Sure you cant participate in training, but its there, and maybe next year we will participate. Injuries are better which is good, that was one of my pet peeves... along with the FA signing thing.

Last year we got freestyle for the first time, and this year that has been grown aswell. Aslong as they continue making progress we will eventually get the game we want. Just a shame the progress isnt as fast as that of the Madden team!

[Vi1n5ce]

Thank you for your unbias review...

ea makes madden right. and ea makes live. so why arent they basically the same except for the changes need to be made beacasue of the different sports.???

Hmm.... I totally agree with you, athough I think that's impossible...
The production teams are located at very different place and it is almost impossible for the programmers to get together and share their ideas... Afterall, they barely made the realease day just worring about their own title...
I think that if they do share ideas, then the games will become much better, but have you ever heard NBA GMs share idea on how to run their frachaise?? More generally, do you ever see NBA GMs talking with other sports (NHL, NFL etc.) GMs about how to run the business???... I don't think so...
This is because of competition, they are stilll individual games and consumers may buy one game instead of the other just like games from different companies.... They compete with each other to see which one sells more and the winner might get a raise in funding from EA.... But that's just my guess....

[king edz]

no way man.. part of success in business is looking at what works and applying it to your own model. This could work in two ways for the inconsistent EA though..
1. They hopefully look at the Madden, NHL or Championship manager(soccer) etc series' and say 'what can we take from them and bring into our game', which would inevitably be a lot, and thus take a very long time to incorporate. Maybe, along with all the other additions/improvements too much for one year, but possibly (finally) ready for '05.
2. They probably look at all us suckers and say, 'what is the minimum amount we can spend to make the maximum amount of money', sucking enough of us in to buy it, we want better, they suck us in again, we want etc etc vicious cycle.... That has been happening for a while with a number of EA titles.

[Ceasar121]

I do not understand why they can make such solid franchises in sport where free agency isn't as shocking and spectacular as the NBA. Let's face it... NBA free agents are made the biggest celebrities in sports. If Sam Cassell was in the NFL, he wouldn't be a celebrated free agent. In basketball, it's like they are so much better for getting him. For this very reason, I don't understand why Madden's franchise is so deep, and Live's is, in a word, crap. I know they don't have the same programmers, but c'mon, the Live design team has to hear this every year. If the franchise was a good as Madden's, people could look past the inferior graphics, and would hail Live as the best basketball game ever....