Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five weird bugs and design errors that I’ve encountered in the modes of basketball video games.
It bears repeating that no video game, basketball or otherwise, is going to be perfect. If it were possible to design games and software that were completely bug-free, it would’ve happened a long time ago! As basketball games and their modes have become deeper and more sophisticated, the chances of there being a few bugs here and there has only increased. Likewise, while there have been some very smart and passionate people working on basketball video games past and present, not all ideas pan out as well as hoped, leading to what we could reasonably call design errors.
Needless to say, it’s frustrating for everyone when bugs and design errors stand in the way of modes being as fun as they could and should be. In the best case scenario, a patch can fix the problem, or the issue will be resolved in next year’s release at the latest. Sadly that isn’t always the case, and there are times when we’ve been stuck with bugs and design errors for a few games running (and sometimes, even longer). Even when bugs and design errors don’t completely ruin a mode, they still have an impact on the experience, and they become one of the things that we remember most about a title. Here are five weird bugs and design errors that I’ve encountered in modes I play.