NBA Live 10 Demo on Tape Delay

Gasol.640x360Lacking in the presentation department and possessing inferior controls, the demo of “NBA Live 10” is still a solid round-ball simulation, but has some work ahead of it before it can hold the court with the 2K series.

Overall, the demo, which is currently available on the 360 marketplace, gave us enough of a glimpse of the title to see how it measures up with the competition.

Right now, it’s somewhere in between Spud Webb and Jason “White Chocolate” Williams.

For fans of the game that aren’t familiar with those names, let’s just put it this way: The game needs some work.

In spite of boasting solid player models and excellent animations, the presentation leaves something to be desired. Unlike the NBA 2K series, the excitement of watching a professional basketball game isn’t there. While taking free throws, the crowd sounds the same way as they would normally. With jumps in volume during steals, blocks and field goals, the game’s aesthetics are decent, but pale in comparison to the experience in older 2K games.

Is this a reason to stay away from the game? Absolutely not, but it definitely is a distraction for hardcore basketball fans that want everything to be as close to the real thing as possible.

That notion of realism comes into play a lot when you dissect the control scheme of Live 10. While the new dribbling and sizing up controls are  effective, they take away from the fun by forcing you to press way too many buttons to eliminate defenders and score baskets. Unlike the NHL series that features a brilliant and intuitive control scheme, the Live series still feels like it’s stuck in last generation.

As far as gameplay is concerned, once you master the controls, the game is more like chess than anything else and lacks the fast-paced nature that is professional basketball. The transition game in Live 10 also needs work, as the AI [which on one occasion, dribbled out-of-bounds with no one around] usually fails to pick up your drift and run along with you when you want to speed things up.

Things are even worse when you try and set up the offense. Even when using the new dribbling controls, it’s incredibly difficult to get the space needed to take high percentage shots and as a result, you’ll either have to rely way to much on pick and rolls and big men in the paint. After getting the ball stolen from you every time you try and cross a defender over, you’ll want to break their ankles with your controller. Again, mastering the controls looks to be pivotal in this year’s version of Live and must if you want to enjoy it.

On defense, one bad move with a defender and the offense will quickly take advantage and drain buckets. As a matter of fact, even when guarding a player, all it takes is small amounts of space for the opposition to be able to sink their shots. This becomes frustrating especially when players are hitting shots left and your right in front of them.

All these problems considered, Live 10 will benefit a lot from some bells and whistles in the presentation department and even more from some tweaking in the gameplay and AI.

As of right now, it’s pretty, but doesn’t have the substance and depth of the competition.

With a release date in early October, there may be time to remedy some of the game’s ailments, but with so many it looks like the 2K series will be king for another season.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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