I’m a Kentuckian and basketball is in my veins. We’re born with it here in Kentucky, we pass it on to our children and family, and we die loving the sport. I’m sure there is an arena somewhere up in heaven that is full of our obnoxious fan base. Why am I telling you this? I just wanted to let you know my qualifications as a basketball reviewer. It’s important to gain your trust at the beginning, so when you question me later, it’s less of a hassle for us. With that said, let’s get right into it.
NBA Live ’14 looked like it was well on its way to make a comeback at E3 2013 this year with its Kyrie Irving shoot around demo. The controls felt smooth, the bounceTek actually worked really well (and it still does), but actual gameplay and a rowdy crowds were missing from the demo shown to us. There was a lot of mystery surrounding what EA Sports could pull off in a short amount of time with this title.
So what has changed from E3 2013 and the release of the game? Well, I can tell you that the bounceTek that EA Sports was toting is very much intact and works really well. You can control the projection and dribble movement remarkably easy. You can even do some really nasty crossover moves, something that Kyrie Irving (and John Wall — and a few others) are known for doing, with a flick of your right thumbstick. When you’re driving down the court and need to switch your defender’s stance up, this works like a charm. So, in terms of bounceTek, definitely on the mark and just as good as advertised.
That is sadly the high point of the gameplay and where things really begin to drop off. Moving your players around in the game feels a bit slow and clunky to be quite honest. You press the R2 button on the DualShock 4 to speed up, but stopping your momentum or getting your player to move swiftly/consistently the way you want them to is a bit of an uphill battle. There were times in the game where I would stay in front of the person I’m guarding, who would pass it off to someone down low, which would cause me to temporarily double team the down low person. Keep in mind that I knew not to fully commit to the double team, only to disrupt the offensive player enough to get them off their game. If I stayed too long in the double team, the down low player would pass it back out and I couldn’t turn my guy fast enough to recover. It wasn’t a strategy issue or something stupid like that, rather it was an issue of my player recovering from the lob pass back to defend against the three. I never could defend the three fast enough, as my player took forever to turn around and retreat, and 85% of the time the three point shooter would hit that shot. It was horribly frustrating, as my players always seemed to drag to get back into position. This isn’t how real basketball is played and the possibility of someone double teaming another player, but also getting back into position to cover the outside shooter, is nothing new or impossible.
Staying with the dragging, there were times where the offensive player would set up picks and roll out for the outside shot (which looked absolutely gorgeous — kudos for EA Sports for getting that right, as it looked perfect) and I would hit R2 to run through the pick and catch up with the player. If I let go of R2, my player would drag a bit and then pretty much lose positioning every time. Again, it was a moving problem that dragged quite a bit, which made the defensive portion of the game simply not fun. I can’t tell you how many times I would try to keep up with my offensive player and end up over compensating and dragging to get back into place. Again, it was incredibly frustrating.
On the offensive side of the ball, things were a bit better. Passing and shooting were beautiful in this game, though not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The game actually challenges you to make a proper decision on passing the ball down low. Positioning is completely taken into account when you’re trying to get the ball to your big guy. At the beginning of my journey with NBA Live ’14 on Saturday, I had a lot of passes stolen when lobbed to the down low gent. The reason was because in the past basketball games usually forgave the player for making center court passes to the left/right of the court without taking into consideration the defense’s positioning. If someone did that in an actual game of basketball then the ball would always get stolen, especially if the defense had the outside position. Moving the point guard to the right or left then doing a lob or bounce pass to the down low person made sense every time, and eventually became second nature once I got the hang of it. EA Sports did a great job with passing in this game, and pretty much did their research when it comes to positioning on passes.
Shooting was a bit more of a mystery, as you really do have to make sure you have proper positioning (and the proper player) to get a shot off correctly. For example, having Chalmers (Heat) shoot a three on a consistent basis is completely out of the question. If you have Ray Allen do it then you have a better chance of hitting it. If you have Chalmers and Allen unguarded during a kick out from the middle, then there’s a fantastic chance both will hit it. For the most part, the shooting (sans the free throws — still don’t completely understand how to shoot them, but learning) was just as good as the passing. There were mysterious times where I was supposed to dunk the ball down low (literally under the basket) and end up doing a pump fake and getting blocked. I blame myself a bit for not learning all the controls, but I blame the game a little bit more for making such a simple thing as a dunk, a complicated event.
Now, let’s shift to the worst part of the game — the A.I.. There are so many examples here of bad A.I., I’m not sure where to begin. When you’re playing Rising Star in NBA Live ’14 (this is the option to make a career for yourself in the game — works well for the most part), your teammates will fail you more times than not. I was a PG that was drafted by the New York Knicks, which is bad to begin with, but what can you do? Carmelo Anthony would never pass the ball back out, even when he was double and triple teamed down low. Now, before you make any Carmelo Anthony jokes right about now, just know that Carmelo would literally just sit down low or at the three point line waiting for whatever (no idea what) to happen. No matter where I ran on the court or how open I was, Anthony never passed the ball. In fact, if he got caught the ball down low, was triple teamed and have two teammates wide open, he would get called for a three second violation before passing it. This sort of behavior was not just regulated to Anthony, but he was a funnier example.
Another bad A.I. moment was every time I checked back into the game. If you’re a PG and you tell the computer to simulate the game until you’re off the bench, and you are inbounding the ball on your side of the court, you are simulated to the opposite end of the court. You read that right, you will be 90 feet away from the inbound person. What’s doubly bad is that you will be called for an over/back every time they ‘must’ throw it to you. The inbounds person doesn’t understand that you’re 90ft. away from them. They don’t get it, they just throw it to their PG — no matter where the PG is placed. It was so incredibly annoying, as this happened quite a few times.
What’s also bad about the A.I. is how poorly it defensively recognizes what the offense is doing. There were loads of times where a short PG/SG would drive in and somehow get a layup through three trees blocking their path. It happened so much that I regulated my rising star as the person who simply didn’t go for steals or do anything fancy on defense; my sole purpose was to stop the player from driving. I could do this about 80% of the time, but I had zero faith about the ability from the people behind me. Again, the A.I. is poorly executed in this game. You’ll have far more fun playing with your friends in NBA Live ’14 and depending on human decisions than you will possibly find with the A.I. built into the game. It’s just not very intelligent at all.
Shifting gears a bit, the modes that EA Sports have brought to you are standard with what you’ll find in other EA Sports titles. You get your immediate play, ultimate team (which was bits of fun when the game cooperated), Rising Star, Dynasty, head-to-head (online) and Live Season (which is cool in concept, as you play as the actual NBA season unfolds). Heck there is even an option to play full games of actual NBA played games and have challenges attached to them. All of these options (and more) are hindered by the gameplay. The only fun I had with NBA Live ’14 since Saturday is when I played an editor in a two-player game (he was the Nuggets and I was the Heat). Again, like I stated previously, if you put the human element in the equation on both sides then you’re going to find this game fun. As soon as you go solo and try to depend on the computer to pick up the slack for your team, the fun turns into a struggle and the game really feels rough.
As for the presentation part of this game, it’s really quite divided down the middle. First, the good.
The stadium, the faraway models/animation in the game, hell even down to the crowd (there’s a variety of audience members! YAY! I’m seriously excited that a sports game mixed it up a bit in terms of crowd looks and how they react), it all looks quite good. You get some fantastic reflections coming from the floor, very fluid animation (though, it stutters a bit at times) that looks fantastic from far away. Heck, the voices of Jeff Van Gundy, Jalen Rose and Mike Breen are pretty darn good and entertaining (Gundy is gold on the mic). All of these things were great in NBA Live ’14.
When the animation switches to replays and you get to see the players face, things get bad. In comparison to the NBA 2K next generation title, NBA Live ’14 looks last generation. It looks rushed and far from appropriately finished. When I was playing Lebron James yesterday and just absolutely destroyed one of our writers with a dunk, the replay animation looked nothing like Lebron James. Nothing about his facial features, or head shape screamed Lebron James. So, in that respect, yes the animation can’t compete with NBA 2K — it’s not even close.
So, you sacrifice the replay animation, which drops to a very low framerate, for good on court animation and crowd/arena looks. If I had to choose between them, I would prefer the on court animation, but honestly I would expect both on the PlayStation 4/XB1. NBA Live fans deserved a bit more presentation than they got with Live ’14.
Having said that, folks, I had a lot of hope for this game coming out of E3 2013. I haven’t been a fan of NBA2K since it first appeared on the Dreamcast. It has always felt stiff and clunky to me, regardless of the ‘pretty’ factor. So, when EA Sports announced NBA Live ’14, I had hope that this title, if anything, would push innovation to make NBA titles much better than they were. NBA Live ’14 failed to do so, and I’m really sad about that at the end of the day. I hope and pray they don’t cancel the series ,but they will have to do better than this (or at least give a game like this more time) to compete against 2K.
