

On my wishlist for Live 99: make those faces move like in real life. Since all spectacular plays are automatically shown using a great close-up replay, the fact that the players seem so much like themselves makes for a real incentive to play well. It's great fun, and is doubly impressive when you realize that all players have their real-life counterparts' faces bit-mapped onto them. Malone delivers like Malone, and Barkley (yes, he's "in the game" this time) dunks like Barkley. This helps the fluidity of the movements immensely, and allowed EA Sports to include things like real player moves- not only generic plays, but also specific ones.


You see, what they did was, they added frames. And the results, dear reader, are no less than amazing. this year, EA Sports concentrated in refining their technology. First it was Virtual Stadium technology, then motion captured polygonal players that actually looked like real humans. Every new game, every year, breaks new ground. But what I wish to discuss now is another of EA Sports very well known market footprints- a hallmark, really- graphics. Their main problem was always getting the balance right, and how NBA Live 98 answers this issue will be discussed later. So EA Sports chose a middle ground, of arcade based games that are influenced by statistics. Anyone after a simulation of a real season should go for a stat based management game anyway- after all, there is no sense in allowing a player to actually participate in a match if the game world is simulated, as player skill (as opposed to simulated player skills), for example with a joystick, can never be factored into the simulation. We want the thrills of exciting matches, not the boredom of, well, boring ones. This isn't necessarily bad, as games like Fifa 96 and the original NBA Live 95 easily prove. it's in the game" thing, but in truth, their games were always more arcade than real-life oriented. Yes, they have this "If it's in the game. may actually do you goodĮA Sports have never really cared for the simulation part of their games. But is it good enough to restore our faith? So many polygons. And so, this year, in came NBA Live 98, stomping around the arena with the usual showmanship. The third incarnation, Live 97 (this time it was less surprising), was somewhere in between- it regained some of the original's playability, and upped the ante on graphics, but it was still not as much fun as it were two years back.ĮA Sports had to do something, fast, or they would lose their fans.

It was much worse, and made me feel very sorry for myself because I already traded my original Live 95 copy. The successor to Live 95 was called, surprisingly, Live 96 - remember, that was before everyone started accepting the change of two digits at the end of the title as normal practice.
#Nba live 98 game series#
One such series is NBA Live, the first of which was the first really good 5-on-5 game since TV Sports Basketball. Overall, though, EA Sports continue to supply us with perfectly serviceable games annually (except, maybe Fifa 97, winner of last year's "game which sold a huge number of copies even though it was almost unplayable" award by a huge margin). Yes, failures occur from time to time, but that can only be expected. To be honest, they wouldn't have been so successful if they weren't any good. And so, every year in time for the holidays, we have a new bunch of 'em coming in, most simply changing the title by adding one to the yearly designation. Their "yearly" franchise, which includes games from most major sports, has become so successful, that a lot of people are buying them year-in, year-out, as loyal as puppies.
#Nba live 98 game Pc#
Have they learned their lesson?ĮA Sports is, without a doubt, the most successful PC sports games company in the world.
