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Wayback Wednesday: Tom Gugliotta & Basketball Video Games

Wayback Wednesday: Tom Gugliotta & Basketball Video Games

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 Tom Gugliotta and some interesting trivia regarding his career and appearances in video games.

There are some well-known examples of players whose history with basketball video games is interesting and unusual. It seems such a weird and unfathomable situation nowadays, but back in the 90s, Roster Players were frequently a necessity due to the absence of Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, owing to them retaining the rights to their likenesses. Shaquille O’Neal was also briefly exclusive to NBA Live, and even David Robinson once required a stand-in. Of course, I also enjoy delving into virtual hardwood trivia concerning far more obscure players, such as Junior Harrington.

Now, on the scale of obscurity to all-time fame, Tom Gugliotta is probably closer to the likes of MJ, Chuck, Shaq, and The Admiral than he is to Harrington. That is to say, if you were to ask long-time basketball fans and history buffs, they’d be far more likely to recall Googs than Junior. With that being said, like so many players of yesteryear that were very good but not all-time greats, Gugliotta doesn’t get talked about enough. That’s unfortunate from a basketball standpoint, but his career also resulted in some fun NBA video game trivia. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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NLSC Podcast #516: Michael Jordan, NBA Live, & MyTEAM Greed

NLSC Podcast Logo

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #516 of the NLSC Podcast!

Suffice to say, we’ve been on a major NBA Live kick lately! To that point, we’ve got some extremely enjoyable sessions with NBA Live 97, NBA Live 2004, NBA Live 06 (both versions), NBA Live 09, and NBA Live 10 to recap. We also join the community in reflecting on the NBA Live titles that we’ve spent the most time with over the years. On a less positive note, 2K has reached a whole new level of greed with NBA 2K24 MyTEAM. In addition to expressing our disgust, we commend some content creators for (finally) speaking out about these issues. We wrap up this week’s show with a celebration of Michael Jordan’s birthday, as we and our listeners share our fondest memories of MJ on the real and virtual hardwood alike.

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!

1960 Olympic Roster & More For NBA 2K13 (PatTheHead)

1960 Olympic Roster & More For NBA 2K13 (PatTheHead)

If you haven’t been keeping track of PatTheHead’s topic in the NBA 2K13 modding section, you’re missing out on some fantastic roster projects! His latest release adds rosters from the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, complete with courts, jerseys, and faces. Even Pope Johannes XXIII replaces Barack Obama and the post-championship visit to the White House!

While that’s the latest release, the project also contains ABL, BAA, NBL, ABA, and decades of retro NBA season rosters. NBA 2K13 is a game that still holds up today, and while NBA 2K14 has seen more mods over the years, there are still many great updates available for its predecessor. PatTheHead’s roster pack is definitely an example of that, and I highly recommend checking it out.

The project is available to download here. More details on the 1960 Olympic Roster can be found in this post. For more previews and information on Pat’s other rosters, be sure to check out his release and support topic here. Hats off to Pat and everyone who is keeping old favourites alive, especially with so many people expressing frustration with NBA 2K24! With that being said, we welcome mods for all basketball games in our Downloads section, whether you host them here or add them as an external link. A reminder that if you have a big project like Pat’s that you’d like us to spotlight here on the front page, just send me a message and I’ll arrange a bulletin ASAP!

The Friday Five: 5 Additions That Would’ve Greatly Improved Games

The Friday Five: 5 Additions That Would've Greatly Improved Games

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 additions that would’ve greatly improved specific basketball video games.

We’ve yet to see a truly perfect basketball video game. That’s not surprising since true perfection is an unrealistic goal, and we all have our own ideas as to what that would entail besides. We have had some fantastic sim and arcade basketball games though, with the NBA Live, NBA 2K, NBA Jam, and NBA Street series all offering up some candidates for the best hoops titles of all-time. However, much as many of the all-time great players have had a weakness or two, the best basketball video games are often missing a feature or mode that would’ve made them even better.

Interestingly, it’s not just the all-time best basketball video games that feasibly could have been improved by just one addition. There are some very good and even a few mediocre games whose overall quality and reputations would be greatly impacted by the addition of a key feature or mode. It might not quite push them into the upper echelon of virtual hardwood classics, but hypothetically, they suddenly become far more appealing and playable with one big addition. I’ve selected five hoops games of varying quality, and nominated a major addition – one per game – that I believe either pushes them closer to “perfection”, or results in the most significant improvement.

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NBA 2K24 Mod Releases: 2014 Roster

NBA 2K24 Kobe Bryant Edition Cover Art

It’s always great to see retro season roster mods being created, and we have one in today’s NBA 2K24 mod releases. Pick up FurryBeans’ work-in-progress 2014 season roster at the link below, and try not to think too hard about how 2014 is now a throwback to a decade ago!

FurryBeans
2013-2014 Roster

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

NBA Street Vol. 2 Current & Legendary Edition Mod V3.1.5

NBA Street Vol. 2 Legendary Edition Mod

There have been a handful of updates to the Current & Legendary Edition mod for the GameCube version of NBA Street Vol. 2 since agent_michael_scarn uploaded V3.0, so you’ll definitely want to pick up the latest release, V3.1.5! Key features include:

  • Added Harden and Griffin to Clippers
  • Added Lillard to Bucks
  • Added Reaves to Lakers
  • Added Brunson to Knicks for Houston
  • Added VanVleet to Rockets
  • Added DeRozan to Raptors
  • Added Kuzma to Wizards
  • Added Henderson to Blazers
  • Added Wembanyama to Spurs
  • Added Porzingis to Celtics
  • Added Beal to Suns
  • Updated/swapped some player profiles and jerseys
  • Traded Siakam for Rose
  • Updated Carter Jersey
  • Fixed Joel Embiid’s Name

You can pick up NBA Street Vol. 2 Current & Legendary Edition here in our Downloads database! For more information on how to install it, as well as previews, further support, or if you just want to say thanks, check out this topic in the Forum.

The Friday Five: 5 Times My Games Imitated Real Moves (Part 2)

The Friday Five: 5 Times My Games Imitated Real Moves (Part 2)

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 recalls another five times I encountered real life moves being made by CPU-controlled teams in my games.

As I’ve previously discussed, it’s difficult to determine what constitutes a realistic or unrealistic trade or signing by CPU-controlled teams in franchise and career modes. After all, the real NBA has seen a number of lopsided deals, unexpected departures, and unlikely reunions. At the same time, too many highly unlikely deals, or downright illogical moves such as readily trading away your best player in the midst of a good season, are examples of unrealistic trades that sim heads don’t want to see. Still, we have to acknowledge that reality can sometimes be stranger than fiction!

To that end, some of the real moves that have coincidentally happened in my career and franchise mode games might seem far-fetched, if not for the fact that they came to pass. While four of the examples that I’m sharing today happened after the fact, one of the moves did actually occur in my game before it became a reality, making it eerily prophetic. Whether they serve as surprisingly accurate predictions or they’re simply fun coincidences, I do enjoy seeing CPU-controlled teams making moves that turned out (or will turn out) to be real; even if they don’t involve any big names. With that being said, let’s get to five more examples of my games imitating real NBA moves!

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Wayback Wednesday: Trade Confirmation in NBA Live 2000 Franchise

Wayback Wednesday: Trade Confirmation in NBA Live 2000 Franchise

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 trade confirmation pop-up in NBA Live 2000’s Franchise mode.

The evolution of basketball video games has resulted in the revamping or complete disappearance of features, both big and small. To that end, if you’re a veteran of the virtual hardwood, there’s bound to be at least one feature from an old favourite that you miss in newer titles. Of course, sometimes it doesn’t take long for a useful feature or gameplay mechanic to disappear. We’ve seen numerous short-lived features, some of which are unique to the games they appear in. They may not be popular or even absolutely necessary, but our desire to see them return makes them Wishlist staples.

I have a shortlist of such features, but one of the first that always comes to mind is the trade confirmation pop-up in the very first Franchise mode in NBA Live 2000. It was such a fantastic detail, yet it was gone the very next year, and has never returned in any games since. Not only that, but the concept doesn’t seem to have ever been picked up by NBA 2K, or the Season and Franchise modes in any other series for that matter. This may seem like a very esoteric feature to cover, but if you’ve played Franchise in NBA Live 2000, you’ll know why it matters. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Latest NBA 2K24 & NBA 2K23 Tools From Looyh

NBA 2K24 Kobe Bryant Edition Cover Art

Looyh continues to do excellent work with his tools for NBA 2K24 and NBA 2K23, without which the community wouldn’t be able to mod those games! His latest tools include an audio converter and updated roster editor for NBA 2K24, as well as a new version of the NBA 2K23 roster editor. You can pick them all up at the links below!

Looyh
NBA2K Audio Converter
NBA2K24 Tools | Roster Editor (Updated to v1.0.2)
NBA2K Tools Roster Editor For 2K23 (Updated to vV1.1.2)

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 20)

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 20)

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

At long last, we’ve reached the end of this second run of Friday Five articles looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in games, for one reason or another! The series was actually intended to finish much earlier – at least for the short term – but thanks to the help of David L, I ended up with numerous examples that were just too interesting not to discuss. As I didn’t want to scrap the articles I’d already written and the fun stories they included, this second series of articles has ultimately spanned an entire year, becoming a fun recurring topic for the last Friday of each month.

All good things must come to an end though, so this is it for now; famous last words, I know! There are definitely more examples, but I’ve basically covered the biggest names and most interesting stories; a total of one hundred players, as of Part 20! It’s time to move on to some other topics, but we are ending this second run of articles about players who only appeared on certain teams in video games on an interesting note. All five examples this time around are from NBA Live 2000 PC, with one of the players also boasting a second phantom stint in the original NBA 2K. So, let’s take a look at five more phantom stints that have been captured on the virtual hardwood!

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Wayback Wednesday: Revisiting the Lockout Season in NBA Live 99

Wayback Wednesday: Revisiting the Lockout Season in NBA Live 99

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 transitional rosters of the 1999 lockout season, as captured in NBA Live 99 PC.

It’s been 25 years since a lockout led to NBA games being cancelled for the first time, with the threat of an entire season being lost. I’ll admit that I wasn’t paying attention to the looming labour crisis as a teenage Chicago Bulls fan in 1998. I was focused on following the action, hoping that Michael Jordan would win another scoring title and the Bulls would end the year as champions once more. The rumours that concerned me were that it would be The Last Dance, which it obviously was. Furthermore, the magazines I was reading weren’t really covering it, and NBA Action definitely wasn’t!

Fortunately, the season was saved when ultimatums were issued – though, it wouldn’t be the last labour dispute – and the 1999 lockout ended on January 20th, 1999. On top of shortening the 1999 campaign to 50 games, it also meant that video games such as NBA Live had to launch with final 1998 season rosters. Fortunately for PC gamers, EA Sports released an official patch that not only fixed a few bugs, but updated the game for the new season. As such, NBA Live 99 PC in its updated state does preserve the rosters from a weird, yet memorable season. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: Team Rankings & Overall Ratings

Wayback Wednesday: Team Rankings & Overall Ratings

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 Team Rankings and Overall Ratings in basketball video games.

It’s interesting how we get attached to the little details in our favourite basketball video games, particularly the ones that served as our introduction to the genre! I can trace many of my preferences related to presentation and UI to NBA Live 96 PC as it was one of the first 5-on-5 sim games that I played, and it was also the very first one that I owned rather than just frequently renting. To that point, growing up with NBA Live conditioned me to expect teams to be sorted alphabetically by location. 2K’s method of sorting by team name thus felt strange at first, though I’m used to it now.

Another detail that I really enjoyed in the early NBA Live games was the rankings that appeared on team selection screens. Mind you, while I associate them with NBA Live given that it was the series that I primarily played as a young basketball gamer, many sim titles ranked and rated the teams in both individual categories and overall. These rankings gave way to Overall Ratings similar to the ones that players have, which didn’t feel as special, but are also nostalgic in their own way. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Wayback Wednesday: Throwback Stints in NBA Live 06 Xbox 360

Wayback Wednesday: Throwback Stints in NBA Live 06 Xbox 360

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 reflecting on some throwback stints, as portrayed by the Xbox 360 version of NBA Live 06.

Tinkering with the rosters to set up fun scenarios and minimalist modding projects has become a staple of my retro basketball gaming. I enjoy the challenge of seeing what can be done with the assets I have at my disposal, and it’s gratifying whenever I’m able to cobble together something that I can at least get a game or two out of. Some attempts are more successful than others as far as creating playable scenarios, but if nothing else, I’ll get some interesting screenshots out of my endeavours. That’s what happened while I was on my extended retro kick with NBA Live 06 for Xbox 360.

While exploring the idea of a makeshift classic teams roster – something that fell apart thanks to a roster editing glitch that can happen way too easily – I ended up placing a number of players on their former teams, and taking some screenshots. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with those screens, but I didn’t want my efforts to go to waste, and figured that they’d come in handy for an article somewhere down the line. I may find further use for them yet, but for now, here are some throwback stints that I set up in the Xbox 360 version of NBA Live 06. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Monday Tip-Off: Inspiration, Impatience, & Fresh Starts

Monday Tip-Off: Inspiration, Impatience, & Fresh Starts

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on how a combination of new inspiration, impatience, and the appeal of fresh starts, can derail modding projects.

Last year, I was quite relieved when I finally released my fixed official roster for NBA 2K10; a roster that added missing Legends, corrected ratings and tendencies for the original Legends, and made a few other enhancements. Not only was I pleased with the results – as egotistical as that may sound – but it was gratifying to finish a modding project that I’d started, particularly one that can inject more fun into retro basketball gaming, and possibly even serve as a base for future projects. It came out later than I’d hoped, but it did mean that I was able to take more care with it.

Of course, it’s not the only modding project that I’ve envisioned or attempted in recent years. I’ve shared some of the roster mod ideas that have come to mind in Friday Five articles, and of course previewed an NBA 2K11 current roster project that ultimately fell through. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, as I was once very dedicated to maintaining current roster updates for NBA Live, on top of other mods over the years. Unfortunately, as I’ve looked to get back into the hobby, I’ve found that being struck by inspiration for another project has a tendency to cause impatience with the current one, and a strong yearning for the excitement that comes with fresh starts.

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NBA Street Vol. 2 Current & Legendary Edition Mod V3.0

NBA Street Vol. 2 Legendary Edition Mod

It’s been almost a year since the last release, but agent_michael_scarn has recently updated his Current & Legendary Edition Mod for the GameCube version of NBA Street Vol. 2! A full breakdown of the key features of the V3.0 update is as follows:

  • Added Harden and Griffin to Clippers
  • Added Lillard to Bucks
  • Added Reaves to Lakers
  • Added Brunson to Knicks for Houston
  • Added VanVleet to Rockets
  • Added DeRozan to Raptors
  • Added Kuzma to Wizards
  • Added Henderson to Blazers
  • Added Wembanyama to Spurs
  • Added Porzingis to Celtics
  • Added Beal to Suns
  • Updated/swapped some player profiles and jerseys

You can pick up NBA Street Vol. 2 Current & Legendary Edition here in our Downloads database! For more information on how to install it, as well as previews, further support, or if you just want to say thanks, check out this topic in the Forum.