Tag Archives: NBA Live 15

Following on from his video earlier this week, Dee has uploaded even more NBA Live 15 highlights to our YouTube channel! This time, he’s assumed control of the Lob City Los Angeles Clippers featuring Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, and DeAndre Jordan, in order to take on the CPU-controlled Sacramento Kings featuring DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay.

The real life Lob City Clippers may not have lived up to their potential given the talent on their roster, but one thing’s for sure: they’re a ton of fun to play with in basketball video games! Dee demonstrates this with some devastating dunks, and other spectacular plays. These NBA Live 15 highlights also show that when the game is being played by someone who knows basketball and basketball video games alike, it looks a lot better than it’s often given credit for. See for yourself below!

As I mentioned when I posted Dee’s previous highlight reel, he and I discussed NBA Live 15 and its tendency to be underrated back in Episode #480 of the NLSC Podcast. Be sure to give that a listen, as well as subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming highlights. As always, also feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play!

In addition to the NLSC Podcast and the Top 10 Plays of the Week, Dee and I are frequently uploading basketball gaming highlights to the NLSC YouTube channel. To that end, we present some fantastic NBA Live 15 highlights as Dee takes on the Miami Heat using the Washington Wizards!

Looking back, the 2015 Heat and Wizards were a couple of interesting teams. Miami was reeling after LeBron James’ surprising return to Cleveland, but still fielded a respectable roster that included Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Luol Deng. As for the Wizards, they feature Paul Pierce on the back end of his career, teaming up with the once-exciting backcourt of John Wall and Bradley Beal. Both Dee and the CPU made some excellent plays and spectacular finishes with those players, in a close battle that came down to the waning seconds.

What are you waiting for? Check out those NBA Live 15 highlights below! You can also go back and listen to Dee and I discuss NBA Live 15 in Episode #480 of the NLSC Podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming highlights, and don’t forget to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #519 of the NLSC Podcast!

We’re tipping things off this week with a strange (but not altogether surprising) incident on Twitter/X. Indeed, the quality of discourse on social media is on our minds this week, as we feel compelled to respond to the latest ridiculous narrative being pushed about Michael Jordan and NBA history. We also check in with Troydan’s quest to pull a 100 Overall card in NBA 2K24 MyTEAM, and discuss the new mobile game, NBA Infinite. In this week’s mailbag/featured discussion, we join the community in reminiscing about the basketball video game modes that have kept us hooked over the years, and the titles that we played them in.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:25:28 — 59.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the EA Sports cover players that can be found in NBA Live 16.

Did you know that every single NBA 2K cover player is available to play with in NBA 2K24? Between the cover players that are still active and the game’s array of classic and All-Time teams, they’re all accounted for. Obviously, we haven’t had a new NBA Live since 2018, but even then, NBA Live 19 didn’t include every cover player in the history of the series. On top of that, a couple of the cover players that were included in NBA Live 19 were nevertheless retired, and thus exclusive to the collection of Legends in Ultimate Team.

If we want to find the last NBA Live game that featured a healthy selection of players who appeared on the cover of EA Sports’ long-running basketball sim series, we must go back a few years to NBA Live 16. In fact, not only does NBA Live 16 feature a number of NBA Live cover players, but also players who graced the covers of EA Sports’ college basketball titles. And so, I thought it might be fun to spotlight those cover players who are readily accessible in NBA Live 16, wearing EA Sports jerseys in the game’s practice mode. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #509 of the NLSC Podcast!

Happy New Year basketball gamers, and welcome to the first episode of the NLSC Podcast for 2024! We’re in the mood to make some basketball gaming resolutions for the new year, as well as reflect on some of our favourite content from 2023. We also join the community in discussing the basketball games that we spent the most time with last year, as well as the modes we were playing and other activities we enjoyed, including modding. Additionally, we share our thoughts on the new NBA Playgrounds game that’s been released on Roblox, and how it feels like a fall from grace for a once-promising series of arcade basketball video games.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:33:18 — 64.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

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 Part 19 in an ongoing series looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.

In Part 18 last month, I covered a couple of well-known players who only appeared on certain teams in video games, including an example from last season. For Part 19, I’m going back a bit further, with the most recent phantom stint occurring during the 2015 campaign. The older examples are also more obscure names that even hardcore NBA fans likely haven’t thought about in years. I do enjoy discussing those players though, as I’m sure that I’m not the only one that gets a nostalgic kick out of seeing or hearing the name of a long-forgotten journeyman that was once a mainstay in the league!

The fifth example – the one from the 2015 season – is the only player to have enjoyed a lengthy NBA career, which included an All-Star appearance and a couple of other honours. It’s obviously a good idea to include at least one player that we’ve all heard of and remember, but I’m also pleased with that example because it’s another one that I encountered by chance! As I’ve said before, David L has been extremely helpful in pointing out many players that needed to be covered in this series, but it’s always fun when serendipity delivers another name to me. With that being said, let’s get to the next group of five players whose phantom stints have been preserved in video games!

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #508 of the NLSC Podcast!

We’re back on the air after a hard drive mishap, and it’s also our 2023 Christmas Special! After celebrating the arrival of a brand new desktop, we catch up on an exciting Top 10 Plays, and also compare NCAA March Madness 08 to NBA Live 08. Since we got into the festive spirit by playing a couple of games of NBA Live 16 using the Christmas Day jerseys, we recap those sessions, and once again discuss the game’s strengths and weaknesses. With the 2024 season well underway, we also join the community in listing the players and teams that we’re enjoying watching, and reflect on some of our favourite Christmas gifts involving basketball and basketball video games.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:35:28 — 65.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at some famous jersey numbers that were worn by players who weren’t so famous, and the video games where you’ll find them.

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…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #504 of the NLSC Podcast!

If you can believe it, last Wednesday marked a decade since NBA 2K14’s release on PlayStation 4! As such, this week we’re celebrating the tenth anniversary of a truly iconic game, and a personal favourite. That includes looking back to our first impressions of both versions of NBA 2K14, reminiscing about the countless hours we’ve spent with them right through to today, and reflecting on the PC modding scene. We also read out some memories of NBA 2K14 that the community shared with us. Additionally, we have some fantastic basketball gaming sessions from the past week to catch up on, including a game of NBA Live 16 that makes us wistful about yet another missed opportunity for EA Sports.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:27:40 — 60.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #499 of the NLSC Podcast!

Last week, we imagined the ideal gameplay for NBA 2K and NBA Live by combining our favourite mechanics from previous games. This week, we’re imagining the worst possible NBA Live and NBA 2K by cobbling together our least favourite mechanics; in other words, we’re describing how NOT to make a basketball game! We also revisited NBA Live 07 and NBA 2K18 ahead of that exercise, and suffice to say, that helped us with some of our selections! On a more positive note, we reflect on some fun sessions with NBA 2K6, Blacktop in NBA 2K14, and NBA Jam: On Fire Edition using the Legends On Fire Edition mod, and a recently released fixed roster for NBA 2K10 PC.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:19:31 — 55.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at some examples of players debuting in video games long before tallying their first NBA minute.

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…

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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 gimmicks in basketball gaming that didn’t last very long.

A common complaint about features, mechanics, or modes in basketball games is that they’re “gimmicky”. Of course, it’s possible to describe the more positive attributes of basketball games as “gimmicks”, in the sense that they’re selling points. However, we usually reserve the terms “gimmicks” and “gimmicky” for features and mechanics that we feel deserve the negative connotation. They’re the aspects of basketball games that add little value, and perhaps even detract from the overall experience. It’s why we say we want to see real improvements and great additions, and not just gimmicks.

Unfortunately, basketball games have experimented with ideas that turned out to be more gimmicky than beneficial. They’re not alone in that regard, though. Other genres of video games, television shows, films, social media platforms…not every idea will be a winner, particularly if the concept wasn’t necessarily intended to be beneficial to the audience. Some ideas are certainly creative and merited a try, but didn’t pan out as well as hoped. The good news is that although we’ve seen a number of questionable gimmicks in basketball games, many of them didn’t last too long. They either evolved into a better concept, or were dropped very soon afterwards, as in these five examples.

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m giving NBA Live 18 a second look.

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…

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at a time when certain basketball video games were regional exclusives, and/or had 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…

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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 players that have been difficult to rate over the years.

Since they became visible attributes, Overall Ratings have been the subject of much contention and debate. They aren’t nearly as important to realistic performance as individual ratings and other tendency data, yet they’re not completely irrelevant either. If a player’s Overall Rating seems too high or too low, it’s usually an indication that some (or many) of their individual ratings are off. Also, because they’re factored into rotation logic and trade value in franchise modes, it’s important that a player’s Overall Rating generally reflects their ranking amongst their peers.

It’s why in official and unofficial rosters alike, it’s necessary to pay some attention to Overall Ratings. Attributes such as “Intangibles” – found in certain NBA 2K titles – have been helpful in artificially adjusting Overall Ratings. Otherwise, it’s usually a matter of fudging a few ratings here or there so that the Overall Rating feels more accurate, without compromising realism in player skill and performance. Even so, there are some players that have been historically difficult to rate, especially without the aid of an Intangibles attribute. Looking back, these players are among the most likely to end up being overrated or underrated, at least according to their Overall.

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