Kind of like Derrick Rose's season, NBA Live 14 might just be a lost cause at this point.

It has been 64 days since NBA Live 14 has made its return to sports gamers’ living rooms, but that still doesn’t say much as the franchise is struggling to keep fans interested in a game that lacks both quality and accessible gameplay.

NBA Live was met with backlash when it was first released, which you might say was well deserved.

The gameplay was clunky, the player models looked strange, and the overall feel of the game lacked the fluidity that the game’s main competitor – NBA 2K – seemed to have nearly mastered. After an endless string of bad reviews, EA Sports announced that they would take on a massive project by attempting to fix NBA Live on the fly.

Sports gaming developers never spend too much time fixing the current game when the next release is already 11 months away, which is just how the sports gaming model works. So while the promise of turning NBA Live into a playable game is exciting, it probably wasn’t a realistic expectation for a dramatic turnaround in the first place. The promises of a dramatically improved experience might have been a bit too much.

But have those promises of a dramatic turnaround even been kept at this point? Sort of, but not really. There have been improvements, but depending on your definition of drastic, you might find the efforts thus far quite lacking.

So let’s take a look and see what NBA Live has become since its release, starting with the key component to any game: gameplay.

Gameplay

First of all, EA has released some tutorial videos that pop up instantly when you turn on NBA Live 14, so the attempts to teach how to play the game is there. But what NBA Live 14 still really needs is a practice mode or an in-game tutorial.

Without both of those, relying solely on the video still results in a daunting learning curve within the game. Less patient sports gamers will surely give up their efforts to learn the incredibly complex controls within the game in short order. Sport games have always been popular because of the pick-up-and-play feel, but that is really lacking in NBA Live 14.

Outside of the controls, the gameplay is still off point anyways. The gameplay suffers from a clunkiness which makes finishing a game feel like a job rather than a game. Passes look like they’re being lofted, regardless if it’s cross court or into the post. Jump shots still look like it’s a step-by-step process: catch, plant your feet, square up, shoot instead of being one full motion.
The “Ratings Only” option is still your best bet for an enjoyable game, but then the argument of scripted basketball comes into play and nobody wants that. It’s more of a work around when I’d prefer a game that works out of the box. Even when battling for a rebound, players seem like they go from Position A to Position B without ever seeing the transition; it almost happens too fast.

There’s just too much that needs fixing in this game on the court to pinpoint it all. But at the same time, especially from a gameplay standpoint, NBA Live might not be too far off from being a competitive game that deserves a chance in your gaming rotation. There is a foundational structure here that could see dramatic improvements faster than most realize.

Many Promises, Not Much Follow Through

With all of the promises starting to creep up on EA Sports, should we expect something soon from the developer? There is proof online that the team is currently attempting to improve the graphics and player models by scanning players from each team.

With the Super Bowl in two weeks, most gamers will start to really fall away from Madden and into the NBA games. Shouldn’t Live be ready for a small influx of gamers? Shouldn’t they be taking advantage of 2K’s extremely flawed Virtual Currency system?

It is easy to see that NBA Live 14 isn’t up to par with NBA 2K14 at the moment, but EA does have an opening here with gamers’ dissatisfaction from their NBA 2K experience. Any forward progress for the series in the coming weeks would be huge for anyone still trying to play Live — but it could ultimately be inconsequential.

By most accounts, Live has not sold well at all -- and the amount of people waiting on fixes for this year might be negligible. The PR disaster that this game is probably can't be fixed by fixing this year's game -- the only shot EA has at redemption is likely in bringing a much stronger product to the table next year.

Lost Cause

Perhaps though, this year’s battle is already lost for NBA Live?

Not only has the promise of constantly updating rosters been broken, but thus far gamers haven’t seen the dramatic improvements promised just after release to this point. While NBA 2K has done a bad job with fixing issues, NBA Live has outright been burning the house down thus far.

I believe EA should begin considering scrapping the plans of trying to fix NBA Live 14 and completely focus on the next iteration of the series. Fixing a game on the fly is unprecedented with sports games, and the fact that EA “attempted” to do this is a nice gesture to the fan base.

But NBA Live 14 can’t be fixed; not the way gamers want it to be, at least. Put all of your time and resources on figuring out how to use the full power Xbox One and PlayStation 4 before the other guys do. Take advantage of Ultimate Team and let the world fall in love (much like they have in other games such as Madden and FIFA).

A sports game begins with great gameplay, and it lasts with great game modes. EA Sports has the latter down, but without that core gameplay – something gamers want to call fun – the franchise will never lift off the way it needs to.

With how this year’s basketball gaming has gone down, everyone gets a clean slate heading into next season. I’m giving EA one more chance when it comes to the NBA Live series. Impress us all next year and you just might save your series – and competition in sports gaming.