Wayback Wednesday: NBA Live on Seventh Gen

In this week's Wayback Wednesday, Andrew takes a detailed look back at NBA Live on the seventh gen consoles.

The post Wayback Wednesday: NBA Live on Seventh Gen appeared first on NLSC.

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 ups and downs of NBA Live on the seventh gen consoles, i.e. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

As of writing, I’m not confident that NBA Live will ever return. I scoffed at rumours that NBA Live 20 would be cancelled, especially after NBA Live 18 and 19 garnered a more positive reception, leading to a loyal following that continues to this day. The game was indeed canned though, and despite assurances that the developers and EA Sports brass were pleased with the progress and intended for the series to return, that has yet to materialise. Frankly, I’ll be ecstatic if I’m proven wrong and these words age like milk in the near future, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

Of course, NBA Live’s downfall began long before those PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases. The series struggled mightily during the era of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 -aka the seventh console generation – culminating with the cancellation of NBA Elite 11 that caused lasting damage. These events are well-known to long-time basketball gamers, though I’d suggest there are some misconceptions; specifically, that the series was never good, that there was nothing good about the seventh gen NBA Live games, and that the series failed because it was too “arcade-y”. In the interest of a clearer picture of NBA Live’s seventh gen collapse, let’s take a look back…way back…

First of all, let’s address an erroneous claim regarding the downfall of NBA Live on seventh gen: the assertion that the series was never any good in the first place. It’s an absurd statement, beginning with the notion that a series could fall from grace without ever achieving significant success. NBA Live was once the best-selling sim basketball series, and while sales alone don’t indicate high quality, several NBA Live titles from its 16-bit origins through to the sixth generation were well-received. Contemporary and retrospective opinions of the standout releases tend to be positive, and rightfully so. In its heyday, NBA Live earned its place as the brand leader among its peers.

Indeed, that’s why seventh gen was such a blunder for NBA Live. Sure, NBA 2K had come along and was gaining in popularity thanks to some great games, but NBA Live was still popular entering the mid 2000s. NBA Live 2001 and 2002 had been rougher releases, and NBA Live 2003 wasn’t quite as realistic as sim heads had hoped, but NBA Live 2004, 2005, and 06 marked what I’d deem a second golden age for the series. They didn’t achieve universal acclaim, but that’s an impossible bar for any title. Our community certainly enjoyed them, with the PC versions being enthusiastically modded. NBA Live 06 was thus unsurprisingly slated to be an Xbox 360 launch title.

I remember the hype surrounding NBA Live 06 Next Gen, as it was being referred to. Obviously, the term “next generation” or simply “next gen” predates 2005, but the seventh gen consoles established it as a popular gaming buzzword. For example, I don’t recall anyone calling the PS1 and PS2 versions of NBA Live 2001 Current and Next Gen respectively, but that’s how we’ve come to refer to any multi-generational releases. In any event, the previews of NBA Live 06 for Xbox 360 lived up to the hype. The environments were more detailed, and the players not only looked more life-like, but they were also dripping with sweat. It isn’t Next Gen without sweat!

There was certainly intrigue, and a touch of envy from PC gamers who had received what was soon to be an outdated port. Of course, when NBA Live 06 for Xbox 360 was released, the results and reception were not as positive. Now, I’ve changed my mind about the game in recent years. Its gameplay – while not revolutionary, lacking the innovation of Freestyle Superstars, and hurt by the 30 FPS frame rate – was solid. It had great graphics for the era that are a noticeable improvement over the previous generation. The Temple was cool, and immediately loading into a shootaround was a fresh idea. It had its issues, but it also had some good bones. It wasn’t an utter disaster.

However, NBA Live 06 Next Gen was let down by its lack of depth. Reviews from 2005 are positive about its gameplay and graphics, but the lack of Legends, historical jerseys, bonus teams, All-Star Weekend, and Dynasty – then the flagship mode of sim basketball games – were seen as inexcusable. It didn’t help that the default sliders made the game slightly sluggish with way too many fouls – though that’s admittedly an easy fix – and it’s fair to say that more innovation was expected of the on-court experience. It was a shaky start for NBA Live on seventh gen, but I strongly disagree with anyone that suggests NBA Live 06 for Xbox 360 is the worst game in the series.

Frankly, I don’t know how you can say that when it was followed up by NBA Live 07 and all of its issues! Granted, NBA Live 06 for Xbox 360 wasn’t the best start to the generation, but the biggest knocks on the game were that the gameplay was just solid at best and not innovative enough, and the lack of modes and content. NBA Live 07 was a complete bust on the virtual hardwood, from clunky movement and animations that rarely transition seamlessly, to poorly-designed controls and shoddy mechanics. It did bring back some of the depth that was missing in NBA Live 06 seventh gen, but it’s a moot point when you can barely stand to play a game all of the way through!

As I’ve mentioned on the NLSC Podcast and in previous articles, I actually had the opportunity to play the Xbox 360 version of NBA Live 07 at the very first community event that I attended way back in 2006. If you can believe it, that work-in-progress version I played at the studio was even rougher! There was no net, and players would frequently fly off behind the backboard before teleporting back to the rim on dunk and layup attempts. Those issues were cleaned up by the time the game went gold and was released in September, but it still had the same broken mechanics, just with slightly more polish. It’s NBA Live 07 that set the tone for the series throughout seventh gen.

All of the recurring issues that led to NBA Live’s downfall are present. Instead of building upon NBA Live 06’s gameplay by bringing in Freestyle Superstars and other innovations that enhanced the existing experience, they changed direction with new tech that was inferior. They brought back Dynasty and All-Star Weekend, but didn’t expand on them in any significant way. Legends and classic jerseys were still absent. The planned PlayStation 3 version was cancelled, which was a bad look for the brand. Aside from the fact that the Xbox 360 version was still released, it’s an example of just about every misstep that NBA Live made throughout seventh gen and beyond.

One criticism that is absolutely misguided however is the suggestion that seventh gen NBA Live failed because its gameplay became more arcade-oriented. Those games did frequently fall short of the excellent sim we were hoping they’d be, but in terms of pace and mechanics, they were hardly arcade-like. In fact, the slower tempo of NBA Live 06 and NBA Live 07 on Xbox 360 underscores how the developers were aiming for realism! The problem is the gameplay was too dry with limited animation variety, or in the case of NBA Live 07 in particular, hampered by unpolished tech and lousy mechanics. They failed to be great sim titles, but that doesn’t make them arcade-like.

To that point though, their on-court experience didn’t delight in the way that we’d hoped. NBA Live 06 felt shallow, while NBA Live 07 was broken. It was a turning point for the series, putting it behind where it needed to be, and leaving it in a hole it needed to get out of. While it never quite managed to do that, it wasn’t all downhill for NBA Live on seventh gen after NBA Live 07. NBA Live 08 for 360/PS3 still wasn’t superb, and to say that it cleared the low bar set by 07 is damning it with faint praise. It did feel like it was slowly moving in the right direction though, shedding some of the worst aspects of its predecessor, and trying to make up for those shortcomings.

Although it’s an extremely gimmicky name, Quick Strike Ballhandling did prove to be a technological improvement. It borrowed tech from NBA Street Homecourt that made it easier to break out of animations and chain them together, as well as make quicker dribbling moves with more rapid movement of the right stick. This is best exemplified by the ability to have your player bend down for a low, rapid crossover dribble back and forth by moving the stick left and right as quickly as you can. As I’ve said before, I’ve also been obsessed with the fake/half spin that you can perform by holding the right stick up since it was revealed to me at the game’s community event!

Introducing Hot Spots and Go-To Moves, going back to just two shoot buttons, and polishing up gameplay with better animations, mechanics, and motion tech, made NBA Live 08 a far more respectable effort. It still had its drawbacks, though. While it was trying to bounce back from previous mistakes, NBA 2K8 was continuing to build on a more stable foundation. As such, although both games were improving, NBA 2K was a great game getting even better, whereas NBA Live was still just trying to catch up to its competitor. This didn’t help NBA Live’s already tarnished image, and indeed, that perception has continued to overshadow its seventh gen releases to this day.

That’s not entirely fair, but it’s not entirely inaccurate, either. While NBA Live 08 took some admirable steps forward, it also provides examples of the missteps that have plagued the series during its downfall. Two that spring immediately to mind concern Dynasty and shooting mechanics. The “push” approach to Dynasty in NBA Live 08 was a welcome improvement that added some depth, but it was also too little too late given what NBA 2K was doing with The Association. It was also the year that shot timing was removed in favour of the ratings and Hot Spots data; an ambitious concept, but not the correct decision. Two steps forward, one step back, if you will.

At the same time, there was a semblance of goodwill there. Like a rebuilding team that’s drafted a couple of promising young players and made some moves that’ll allow them to be more competitive in the upcoming season, there was hope and optimism among long-time NBA Live fans. If “Trust the Process” had been coined around that time, then it definitely would’ve applied following NBA Live 08! To that end, NBA Live 09 was another step forward. There was further polish to the gameplay, to the extent that retro basketball gamers are now taking more of an interest in it. The NBA Live Academy and addition of more FIBA teams were also welcome enhancements.

Reiterating my earlier point about NBA Live being sim rather than arcade, I’ll also point to the introduction of Dynamic DNA in NBA Live 09. Again, it doesn’t help that the name is admittedly gimmicky, which led to more than a couple of gamers writing it off during the preview season. However, striking a deal with Synergy Sports that allowed player ratings and tendencies to be shaped by real life data is absolutely a sim concept. Realism was still the goal, even if they fell short of it as far as the gameplay tuning and animation variety. NBA Live still wasn’t where it needed to be yet, but it was the first time on seventh gen that it really felt like it was truly on the right path.

It isn’t fair or accurate to ascribe this improvement to just one developer, but I would suggest that the influence of Mike Wang was extremely beneficial to NBA Live 09, and also to NBA Live 10 the following year. Beluba had been a key part of NBA 2K’s rise, and now he was on the NBA Live development team at EA Canada. As I’ve said before, what impressed me the most about Beluba when I met him at the NBA Live 09 community event in 2008 was that his first question to me was what I didn’t like about the game; what problems immediately jumped out to me. He wasn’t looking for compliments, but feedback about any troubling issues, and how to improve gameplay.

In that regard, the final seventh gen NBA Live releases demonstrate one of the most wistfully regrettable trademarks of the series: unfulfilled potential. The gameplay was getting better, but there was still work yet to be done, and gamers were sceptical after being burned by their rough predecessors. The modes were there, and they were even pioneering online team play with hints of a career mode coming with Be a Pro, but it wasn’t quite enough, especially without historical content. The developers were fixing the cracks in the foundation, but NBA 2K had blown by them in sales and critical reception. This unfortunately prompted huge changes instead of staying the course.

Furthermore, many of the great ideas that NBA Live only scratched the surface of ended up being done so much better by NBA 2K. NBA Live had a franchise mode first, but NBA 2K has taken the concept to heights we could once only dream about. MyCAREER and its connected modes – while riddled with microtransactions and issues of their own – fulfilled the potential hinted at by NBA Live’s online team play. NBA 2K had modes and content that NBA Live lacked, and continued to add and build upon what was already there. Sure, NBA 2K had its issues – I’ll never be a huge fan of the original Isomotion – but there was consistency in the quality of the games.

The decision to re-brand and re-vamp NBA Live with NBA Elite 11 after NBA Live 10 was so well-received has frequently been questioned. As I’ll get into shortly, it was a risk that didn’t pay off to put it mildly. It’s since been revealed that the plan for NBA Elite 11 was actually in place for a couple of years. That nobody in charge recognised the folly of NBA Elite 11’s design ideas and pivoted from that direction after NBA Live 10’s positive reception is baffling, and absolutely frustrating. Not everyone was on board, of course. Mike Wang returned to Visual Concepts for NBA 2K11, and it proved to be the right move, as he’s been instrumental in the series’ continued success.

Now, NBA Live 10 made a few mistakes of its own. Dropping All-Star Weekend left it without a fun mode that was a unique hook. Dynasty mode had been forgotten once more after the efforts to rejuvenate it in NBA Live 08, and while it was nice to have retro jerseys back, NBA 2K10 still had it beat as far as historical content. With that being said, NBA Live 10 does have some of the best gameplay in the history of the series that yes, is sim-oriented. It’s looked at as the peak of NBA Live on seventh gen, and it holds up impressively over a decade later. However, returning to the rebuilding team analogy, they only ever got to the second round before it was back to the lottery.

NBA Elite 11’s failure is well-documented. The removal of sprint, the combination of dribbling and shooting on the right stick with shot aiming, the fact that it was being inspired by controls from the NHL series…the “Jesus Bynum” glitch in the demo may have been embarrassing, but the real problem was that the new gameplay just wasn’t good. If it had been, then Andrew Bynum getting stuck in the t-pose would’ve just been a rare and funny bug in the demo, rather than the lasting image of a cancelled game. The abrupt and indefinite postponement of NBA Elite 11 following a launch party didn’t inspire confidence, and it was no surprise when it was officially axed.

Since then, the game has become an expensive collectible with copies making it out into the wild. This has also led to the game being ripped and shared in the emulation community. Interestingly, some gamers who have played the full version that way have actually formed a more favourable opinion of it. The curiosity and What Ifs undoubtedly play a role here, but there’s certainly an interesting debate to be had as to whether it would’ve been better to weather a poorly-received release and pivot with NBA Live 12, or to cancel the game as they did. Either way of course, it would’ve been a disaster in the wake of NBA Live 10’s success, but it’s an intriguing question.

It’s also worth noting that the concept of combining dribbling and shooting controls on the right stick is something that NBA 2K has since adopted. In fact, with NBA 2K17 and NBA 2K21, they even implemented shot aiming as well! Personally, I feel that it worked out much better in NBA 2K17, but the point is that once again, NBA 2K took an idea that NBA Live (or in this case, NBA Elite) experimented with, and did it much better. Become Legendary – NBA Elite 11’s career mode – also included goals that would net rewards and additional XP; an idea that we’ve seen adopted by MyCAREER. As I’ve noted before, bad games can still produce some great ideas!

EA Sports elected to skip releasing a sim game for the 2012 season – instead releasing the outstanding NBA Jam: On Fire Edition – with a view to returning the following year. There was genuine excitement for NBA Live 13, in no small part because it was bringing back a name that carried the nostalgia of some great games. A strong return was also expected due to additional development time, and the formation of the NBA Live Council likewise suggested that EA was serious about a comeback. As it turned out, NBA Live 13 didn’t benefit from a longer development cycle, and after a dismal playtest session with the Council, it was cancelled without so much as a public demo.

With the launch of the eighth generation consoles in 2013, NBA Live 13’s canning would secure NBA Live 10’s status as the final seventh gen release in the series. The issues that had plagued NBA Live throughout the generation would continue to haunt it on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, from delayed and cancelled releases to changes in direction, to simply being too far behind what it needed to be. NBA 2K hasn’t gotten it right every single time since 2013, and even NBA 2K14 Next Gen erred in a few ways, but it was able to build on its success and maintain a consistent quality. There were some promising eighth gen NBA Live releases, but it never truly recovered.

And so, here we are. It’s an understatement to say that the seventh gen was incredibly damaging to NBA Live with some disappointingly subpar releases, and two cancelled games that set it back even further. At the same time, it wasn’t an unmitigated disaster for the series, nor completely devoid of any good games. NBA Live 06 was solid but underwhelming. NBA Live 07 was terrible. NBA Live 08 was flawed but getting on the right track. NBA Live 09 was a marked improvement. NBA Live 10 is sometimes called the best game in the series. NBA Elite 11 and NBA Live 13 were total busts. Including the two cancelled games, four out of seven were at least mediocre or better.

Still, that’s not a great success rate, especially when NBA 2K was improving year-to-year. It was also difficult to appreciate NBA Live’s better releases during seventh gen in our community, given how PC-oriented we are. NBA Live on PC remained a port of the PS2 version right through to NBA Live 08, after which it was discontinued on the platform. It was a decision that destroyed goodwill with our community, leading to pledges of never buying NBA Live again. Even if those gamers had a seventh gen console, NBA 2K was becoming extremely appealing even to long-time NBA Live fans. When seventh gen NBA 2K was ported to PC with NBA 2K9, that was that.

It’s not inaccurate to say that the seventh gen was a rough era for NBA Live, and the failure of NBA Elite 11 unquestionably did damage from which it’s never been able to recover, at least to date. Nevertheless, I do think that that generation of NBA Live is sometimes underrated, at least in terms of acknowledging some of the better releases and the good ideas that they tried. The fact that NBA 2K has taken some of those concepts and made them work is proof that they had merit! It’s too easy to say that the game were bad and leave it at that. It’s more interesting to look at how they erred, how they failed to fulfil their potential, and judge each title on its own merits and flaws.

I also believe it’s worth pushing back on the narrative that NBA Live failed because it was too arcade-like, or indeed, that NBA Live’s success before that is because it was an arcade title. I sometimes see that argument from people who want NBA 2K to be less realistic, despite the fact its success came from succeeding as a sim title where NBA Live came up short, beginning with the seventh gen. Statements such as “NBA Live was too arcade” are concise and quippy, and thus often parroted, but they don’t hold up to scrutiny. The reasons for NBA Live’s downfall have nothing to do with trying to be like NBA Jam. Coming up short as a sim is not the same as being arcade.

As a long-time NBA Live fan who enjoyed the series at its height, it’s been frustrating to not only receive games that fall short of my expectations, but live up to the cynical expectations of people who just want to bash it. Throughout the eighth generation, I kept hoping that the series could finally make the leap that would prove all of the pre-release snark wrong, but there were too many setbacks beginning with seventh gen. Mind you, given the greed and other issues with NBA 2K in recent years, anyone who wanted to see NBA Live give up for good has now seen what a 2K monopoly means for the genre. The “right” game won, but it’s still a harsh curl of the monkey’s paw.

The promise NBA Live showed and the positive steps it took after a shaky start on the seventh gen consoles leave us wondering What If. If only they’d been more patient and avoided drastic changes in direction that introduced new problems. If only they’d ported the prior gen version of NBA Live 06 to 360, just with shiny new graphics. If only the ideas for NBA Elite 11 were scrapped. If, if, if. That’s the true legacy of NBA Live on seventh gen: what could’ve (and should’ve) been. The better releases only make those What Ifs more tantalising, but to that end, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. It was ultimately the series’ downfall though, and sadly, one that could’ve been avoided.

The post Wayback Wednesday: NBA Live on Seventh Gen appeared first on NLSC.