NBA Live 14 Has Arrived, Post Your Impressions Here

[Tha_Kid]

I'm big on the espn camera but it's great in some arenas (like Verizon center) and not so good in others.

While it's nice that the game has inbounds plays, it's frustrating that they are only available from a timeout and not from a standard inbound. At least some choice over which player to Get open through the screen would be nice.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

[Gerg04]

Figured I'd chime in here, as a casual fan perhaps for the casual fan. My terminology may not he the most graceful, as I'm not a student of the game, so please forgive me. And I'll leave the short version up front here incase you want to skip the book version: I had FUN. Small sample size I know, but I enjoyed it and can see myself enjoying it even more as I get a grip on the controls.

Im not going to nitpick over basketball stuff (mostly because I cant), just what I liked/didnt like.

76ers v Pelicans. Game 1, year 1. After blowing a 7 pt lead heading into the 4th, and being outscored 30-13 in the 4th to lose 94-82, seems like classic EA CPU and put the whoopin on at the end. However, I feel like I made some mistakes that helped them along. Ill advised passes and 3 pt shots for sure.

Dislikes:

Underneath the basket shots seem automatic. Seemed like most attempts went in, for me and the CPU. Just get low, hold shoot, score. Position didnt even really matter as the animation kind of takes over almost regardless of position. I'm also playing on pro and no other changes to gameplay settings.

Loose balls/tipped balls. Is it me or does defending team seem only to react to these, including some rebounds. Just seemed like many times when the ball was up for grabs, the team that had the ball doesn't even go for it or it bounces of their head like they forgot there's a ball involved in basketball. Not every time but most.

Likes:

The arenas are beautiful and the crowd is awesome. Before blowing that lead in the 4th they were chanting " Defense, Defense!" Louder than they had all game. The benches are also so lively. I didn't notice till late, but every time a big play was made they were jumping and cheering, and just as quickly taking a seat when it went the other teams way. Adds to the immersion for sure.

Anyway I look forward to giving this more time. Its a big time change of pace for me but I can see it truly being fun. Very happy with my decision to pick it up.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[The 24th Letter]

Ugh. In a rut right now.

Pro is a little too easy for me, but the paint spamming by the CPU on All Star is killing me...I find myself annoyed whenever the CPU dumps the ball in the post...I know the baseline spin is coming and I feel like if I dont push them out of bounds or block the shot its going in at a very high clip. I am just not seeing any real strategy by the CPU right now offensively. Even when I win its kindve 'meh' because ive succeeded in stopping Robin Lopez's 20 shot attempts (not an exaggeration). I will say I think it was pretty cool how the defense adjusts to my offense though...in some pretty creative ways rather than a standard double team...

some situational awareness and more contexual animations would do wonders for this game as well...Ive made some great plays off ball movement..that would end up with a nice pocket pass a step outside the paint...a press of the shot button there should result in an easy layup and not a jumpshot...but I honestly think this is something that they know about and will address either this year or next...

[mythreesons]

Quote: Originally Posted by The 24th Letter

Ugh. In a rut right now. Pro is a little too easy for me, but the paint spamming by the CPU on All Star is killing me...I find myself annoyed whenever the CPU dumps the ball in the post...I know the baseline spin is coming and I feel like if I dont push them out of bounds or block the shot its going in at a very high clip. I am just not seeing any real strategy by the CPU right now offensively. Even when I win its kindve 'meh' because ive succeeded in stopping Robin Lopez's 20 shot attempts (not an exaggeration). I will say I think it was pretty cool how the defense adjusts to my offense though...in some pretty creative ways rather than a standard double team... some situational awareness and more contexual animations would do wonders for this game as well...Ive made some great plays off ball movement..that would end up with a nice pocket pass a step outside the paint...a press of the shot button there should result in an easy layup and not a jumpshot...but I honestly think this is something that they know about and will address either this year or next...

This. The post play is my biggest issue. The CPU is hardwired to force things in the paint - then pump fake (a half dozen times is not uncommon) before scoring (one pump fake from me has about a 50% probability of being stripped).

Like you I love the AIs adjustment to what I'm doing offensively. I'm still seeing too many bugs with offensive three seconds and 24 second violations off of a trapping defense.

I tend to avoid doing certain things that give me advantage (i.e., use of the y-button in the post; euro-step on the drive) over the CPU which totally kills the sim experience.

[drew_3]

Quote: Originally Posted by thatdudetoo

One other thing that is KEY to me with Live over most other sport games. Other games it feels like you have to do the "right thing" in order for success in the game, not necessarily the "real thing". I wont use the other game as an example but I'll use Madden. Madden sometimes , a lot of times really, seems you have to put the "right play" in even though the play you have should do the job. What you see happening on the screen seems to have little bearing on success. I remember a while ago someone in those Madden tournaments made an interesting statement, "A lot of people know football but you have to play Madden to win", maybe not those exact words but "You have to play Madden" was definitely the thing that stood out. Other games seem like you have to play "title X" and not sport X to win. So far, and that's a big SO FAR, with this it really feels like playing BASKETBALL is key to success, not "playing Live"

This was the biggest reason why for many years I would buy PES instead of the fully licensed fifa, because actually I can spend more time on a game that plays true to the sport but may not look as good compared to one with all the bells and whistles but has to be played a "certain" way.

[The 24th Letter]

Quote: Originally Posted by mythreesons

This. The post play is my biggest issue. The CPU is hardwired to force things in the paint - then pump fake (a half dozen times is not uncommon) before scoring (one pump fake from me has about a 50% probability of being stripped). Like you I love the AIs adjustment to what I'm doing offensively. I'm still seeing too many bugs with offensive three seconds and 24 second violations off of a trapping defense. I tend to avoid doing certain things that give me advantage (i.e., use of the y-button in the post; euro-step on the drive) over the CPU which totally kills the sim experience.

This kind of stuff kills me...I'm genuinely asking, what am I supposed to do against this?

http://youtu.be/_AZhs6gpCig

[Haval93]

Okay so I picked the game up and have been playing for the past week to get an opinion on it. Lets start out be saying this game has a decent foundation. I have completed more games in this week alone then NBA Live 08, 09, and 10 combined. So that’s a good thing.

Gameplay
Dribbling is solid mechanic that has a solid foundation but still needs a ton of working on it. First, some animations look great while a majority look bad and seem to be missing frames. This has been an issue for many years now in the Live series. Some of the dribble animations look really wacky to me, the in-an-out in particularly looks horrible and seems like a damn gumpy player was used to motion capture it. It doesn't look natural in most cases. But overall this is a solid area and a solid mechanic that can be great if built upon.

Shooting in this game is horrible and no other way to put it, it could be from the lack of animations and variety or simply missing functionality. I loved NBA Live 10 shooting mechanics and that should be brought back. Step-backs jump shots look horrible and most of the damn time you get block on the perimeter for your jump shot because either the player shoots to damn slow or the defender simply jumps and defines the laws of physics by jumping from rest to 15 feet in the air. The developers need to look at NBA Live 10 for shooting. Also would like to see dynamic jump shot animations like next-gen 2K14 is doing. Or go back and look at NBA Live 07 shooting. Also why can't you adjust your shot in mid-air or am I missing something? This is 2014, we should have the ability to do so, its been in NBA 2K8 ever since.

Animations, Animations, Animations
This is the black hole for this game, you simply don't know what's going to happen, and in most cases can't comprehend why that specific animations plays out. First it seems that this game or its animations aren't running at a constant 60FPS and it shows badly. I could honestly write a damn novel on what's wrong with the animations in this game, but since I don't have the time I will list key points. First transitions animations are horrible, some animations have you walking then the next one has you exploding in the air to dunk on four defenders. No consistency with animations, some animations are speed up which shouldn't be done, I don't understand the design choice behind this decision? Second not enough variety, simple contextual animations will greatly help this game. Yes, I know dunks are nice to have but there should be thousands of simple animations around the rim, I have seen every Center and PF in this game do the same dunk when they could simply do a smart lay-up. Quality, many of the animations in this game look horrible and I see many of the same animations from previous games. Honestly, the animation team needs to seriously sit down and do something because these animations are not even close to the quality of next-gen, let alone NBA 2K14.

Graphics.
Court and crowd looks nice. Players are bad, no other way to put it. Most people who have seen me play is game believe its Xbox 360 game and not a not generation one. This needs a serious overhaul.

Also, the post game needs fixing, the CPU always does a spin move baseline and jump-step out of bounds and nothing is called and they always end up getting a dunk. This is needs to be addressed in a patch.


Overall, I like this game and will continue to play it with its many flaws. Worth the money.

[DirtyJerz32]

As much as I like the game I can't get past the CPU not calling timeouts. Start edit this game on a 20-0 run and they didn't call timeout once.

This has to be patched or I can't play Live anymore.