Your Favourite Basketball Gaming Experiences

[Andrew]

I'm posting this thread in part to shamelessly plug my weekly Friday Five feature, in particular last week's installment: Top 5 Basketball Game Experiences.
http://www.nba-live.com/the-friday-five ... periences/

However, I also thought it might be fun to reminisce about some of our favourite basketball game experiences, particularly in Dynasty, Association and My Player/MyCAREER mode. This week's feature is going to be five of my basketball gaming ideas that ultimately flopped, so hopefully that'll be a fun topic to discuss as well. I'll create a separate thread for that when the time comes.

So then...what are some of your favourite basketball game experiences? What would your top five be?

[JaoSming]

Hmm, not really "playing" experiences, but

1. Using NBA Street Vol. 2 to come up with low-rim dunks with friends.
2. Creating a "MyCAREER" with a player in March Madness 2004 and NCAA 2K7, then transferring and continuing with them in Live 2004 and NBA 2K7.
3. Getting sucked into College Hoops 2K8's Legacy mode
4. Modding the hell out of NBA Live 07, SUM/Street being highlights
5. All the time spent reverse engineering with Pat or Leftos in chat

[Kenny]

Well, I knew I wasn't going to be able to write a short reply to this, but I didn't think I'd write this much

#5: Creating a Legend: Kwame Brown (NBA 2k13)

Taking control of Kwame was fun because I knew if I was terrible at the game, it wouldn't matter. There are greater pressures when you're controlling a player like LeBron James or Kevin Durant. With Kwame, if you're on a team and getting playing time, you've essentially exceeded all expectations.

I was able to turn Kwame into a contributing player for the Sixers and the Thunder. In fact, I won two consecutive 6-man awards while playing with the Thunder and picked up a championship ring as well. When the Thunder declined my team option (what were they thinking?!), I signed a deal with the Jazz. But I didn't play a game for them, since I thought I already played the mode to its fullest with Kwame. I started another one with Jason Kidd, but it wasn't as good.

For anyone looking to start this mode, I recommend starting with a scrub and working your way up once you get better at the game.

#4: MyPlayer: Kenny Young (NBA 2k11)

I did a MyPlayer game in NBA 2k10, but the mode didn't impress me. The fact that I couldn't find a menu option to increase/decrease quarters really killed it for me. So when 2k11 came out, I was happy that you were able to do that.

Admittedly, this game was more fun during the trials and tribulations. My player was ridiculously injury prone at the beginning of his career. I was also playing for the Washington Wizards, which was a challenge in itself. That team was so woeful, and I was benched so Hedo Turkoglu could start.

Although it was a much better game mode in 2k11, one thing I enjoyed about 2k10 was the ability to play in the D-League. Being an undrafted rookie working your way up to the big time makes for an exciting experience. I'd love for future 2k games to include this challenge, as well as the upgraded gameplay. Perhaps even a choice to whether your player is a lottery talent or someone who will be overlooked could be a fun option.

#3: Cleveland Cavaliers (NBA 2k13)

This one is only relatively new, but already I'm willing to rate it as high as number 3. With Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters, Tristan Thompson and J.J. Redick, this team has been a lot of fun to control. Not to mention that coming from NBA Live 10 made me appreciate how detailed Association mode is, as well as the enhanced gameplay.

So here's a shameless plug for my new story. Go check it out.

#2: Denver Nuggets/Milwaukee Bucks/Utah Jazz (NBA Live 06)

An offline dynasty I did in NBA Live 06, back when your services could be poached by other teams.

I began with the Denver Nuggets. Much like my NBA Live 10 dynasty, I won a couple championships with them and had Carmelo Anthony win the Playoffs MVP without ever winning the regular season one. Once Carmelo walked away from the team, I acquired Andrei Kirilenko, who was an absolute beast in the game and the loss of Melo didn't affect me as greatly as I thought it would. I also had great fun controlling players like Nene, Kenyon Martin, Andre Miller, Earl Boykins and various others. I also acquired Lattrell Sprewell in his swansong season, sending DerMarr Johnson to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

With the idea of conquering the East, I took the job with the Milwaukee Bucks. I didn't get immediate results and I made a couple of head scratching moves. One was great, the other was possibly the worst trade I've ever done. First of all, I sent Andrew Bogut to the Hawks in exchange for Josh Childress. This move worked out eventually, as Childress became my Finals MVP. The other was sending a then All-Star caliber Michael Redd to the Miami Heat for Antoine Walker. Yeah - genius move that one.

After an unsuccessful first season - which including LaMar Odom, Antoine Walker and Josh Childress in the starting line up - I had a much more successful second season. A big key to that was picking up Dirk Nowitzki as a free agent (IIRC). It was fun playing out that "what if" scenario, since Nowitzki was originally drafted by them.

With a couple of seasons done in Milwaukee, I moved on again, but this time to the Utah Jazz. I acquired Josh Childress again and I was having a great season. But by that time, the dynasty had gotten a bit dull.

This dynasty was really memorable for me and it's part of the reason why I like developing generated players. I had a string of great ones on my Denver Nuggets team (August Brunson, Ruslan Guolla, Michael Respert) and it was fun developing their games and characters.

#1 Denver Nuggets (NBA Live 10)

phpBB [video]

Goes without saying really. I completed 17 seasons of this dynasty and created a reality almost entirely out of generated players (Dwight Howard is the last real player in the 18th season). To the people who read my thread, Taylor MacKenzie, Borislav Perko and Ty Maximilian became the household names of the story and their progression really contributed to my continued enthusiasm to keep it going.

In fact, if it wasn't for NBA 2k13, it'd still be going today. Perhaps at some point I'll pick it back up like Andrew did with his NBA Live 06 Bulls dynasty. But I haven't even touched NBA Live 10 since buying 2k13, so it's probably not going to happen soon.

I have many fond memories of this dynasty, as I chased rings and individual accomplishments. And I'd love to be able to be captivated as much by another gaming mode again. But it's hard to see that happening.

[Andrew]

Good stuff, guys.

The Five ended up being mostly focused on Franchise/Dynasty/MyCAREER, but I was originally thinking of other experiences as well (a few of which I did give honourable mention to in the closing paragraphs). Jon's post reminded me of something that I mentioned in a recent podcast, which was my discovery of patching for NBA Live 96; my created Michael Jordan didn't have to go without bio data any longer! I have fond memories of working on updates for those early games too.

[Phil89]

Mine probably all come from my second Thunder dynasty:

1.) Beating the Heat to win the 2010 championship
2.) Beating the Heat to win the 2011 championship
3.) Beating the Heat to win the 2012 championship
4.) Beating the Heat to win the 2013 championship
5.) Beating the Heat to win the 2014 championship

[Andrew]

Well, that's just cheating!

...I'll allow it.

[Woogie98]

My Favorite moment of all time:
Hours Spent playing one of the greatest games ever.....NBA STREET VOL.3!!

[[Q]]

Wtf street 3 and not 2?

I always tried to get my players' jerseys retired in NBA Live 2005.

Looking at the cheerleaders in Live 98 which Kenny admitted to doing as well

3 point contests

[Mandich]

3 point contests

This.