"Was it all a dream?"

Those were the famous words sung by Faith Evans on the classic Jay-Z album Blueprint 2.

They also happen to be the same words some NBA Live fans are repeating after recently learning that producer Mike Wang is migrating back over to 2K Sports. Obviously, questions remain about the direction of the franchise after the latest news.

While Live fans keep praying for another breakthrough in next year’s release, here are some ideas to ponder.

Footwork

EA Sports runs a lot of their games off similar animation-technology (ANT) engines that are shared amongst their titles. So some of the footwork and momentum issues you see in Madden also exist in Live, but not to the same degree.

Nevertheless, footwork is a critical part of the post game, and Live 10 does not deliver quick, intuitive controls complete with foot pivots, fakes and the leans we all are looking for.

Right around when Live 10 was released, Mike Wang at EA Canada told me his team utilized the FIFA locomotion engine quite a bit when working on the Live 10 footwork. While he said it was very difficult to strike a balance between responsiveness and realistic momentum, he believed Live had achieved this goal.

Here is my issue with using FIFA's locomotion engine for the game of basketball: Soccer is played on enormous playing surface with players covering many yards in longer strides.

So, while you can learn a great deal of footwork by playing soccer and apply it to basketball, it is still a different sport with different athlete skill sets and running styles.

And when I look at Live, the footwork resembles players dribbling a soccer ball on a giant playing field rather than a dribbling a basketball in an NBA arena. I feel like the players are in a constant state of evasiveness instead of protecting the ball while they dribble through traffic and around defenders.

As you play through NBA Live 10, throw an outlet pass and try to turn it up court. You will find that players take a long period of time and space to make their initial turn towards the opposing hoop. These moves should be quick and explosive from start to stop. These issues carry over to the low post.

Why EA Can Succeed

To EA Canada’s credit, the foot-planting technology in the NBA Live engine was improved, with much of the credit going to the development team's ability to recognize the natural footwork issues in the game. EA Canada added animations this year to make the moves tighter and improved the momentum.

Also, Live 10 differentiates players based on their first step, acceleration, top speed in the open court, ability to change directions and ability to stop on a dime.

In theory, this sounds like an amazing approach to bring solid footwork to the game of basketball –- but theories do not always translate into realistic gameplay, especially on the low blocks.

Still, the strategy is in place, EA Canada just has to execute it now.

The Dream

The locomotion issues I stated above affect a lot of the small adjustments in attributes that were added to the game. I feel as though this is one of the main reasons why the post game struggles.

I also find a lack of weight and balance on the blocks in Live 10; the offensive players in the post take big steps -- too big to make any sort of tight, quick pivots down in the post.

Instead of using Hakeem Olajuwon footwork, we are forced to use back downs and baby jump hooks the majority of the time. I feel like there is no inherent sense of methodology going on in the madness of the paint.

Live 10 needs to hit the gym with The Dream himself -- similar to what Kobe did this past summer -- and get the post game down. Sure, getting a guy like Dwight Howard in the motion-capture studio will get you the flashy dunks, but not the fundamentals. And after what the development team did this year, the game still has so much potential to be a great basketball title.

Therefore, motion capturing for bigs, forwards and guards is needed. Get all their footwork into the game to distinguish the different playing styles for each position.

And the great part is that The Dream can instruct motion capturing of athletes for all of these positions -- that is what made him such a wonder to watch.

His unique blend of size, style, agility and elegant grace re-invented and reborn in a basketball video game would help Live take the crown without question.


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