Reviews / previews
You'll find a player-lock feature in NBA
Live. However, it has nothing to do with
simulating the current NBA season's
lockout of players by owners. Rather,
the feature allows you to take control of
just one player for a game, and it's
pretty fun. And that's what Live 99's all
about: good, pure, beautiful, b-ball fun.
Live 99 simulates just about everything you can find in
an NBA game-from three-second violations and illegal
defensive violations to show-boating after a
rim-rocking slam-dunk-but thankfully, there's none of
the ugly "business" behind the game. And the
graphics, polish, and TV-style presentation are so
excellent, you may not even miss the real NBA once
you get involved in running a season of your own.
In addition to a bounty of new moves and dunks
(based on motion-captured moves of the Celtic's
Antoine Walker), Live 99 models more than 30 facial
expressions, and each NBA player's face is
accurately represented. Sure, this doesn't add much
to gameplay, but it does add to the games "wow"
factor quite a bit.
Not to worry, there's also plenty of gameplay
enhancements, such as a revamped AI that makes
computer-controlled players react more realistically to
what's happening on the court. However, the biggest
new addition-which fans of the series have been
demanding for some time now-is the General Manger
mode. You can draft an entire team and take it
through up to 10 seasons of play-with players
maturing with each season. This feature lends a ton of
replay value to the game. It's about time, EA!
In season mode, the computer will also make
intelligent player trades based on the skills of the
players involved-in previous games you could trade a perennial scrub like Greg
Kite for M.J. ("Player," as he's known on the Bulls roster-licensing issues
prevent him from appearing officially).
As good as Live is, it still displays a
number of annoying traits. Free-throw
sequences are still too long, and you can't
speed 'em up. The TV-style presentation is
taken too far-we don't need a close-up on a
player walking to the bench for 20
seconds. And there are still unrealistic
dunks by players who would have trouble
grabbing the net in real life-you can throw
down as massive a dunk with Chris Mullin
as you can with Shawn Kemp.
If you get fouled or foul a player behind the three-point line, three shots are
always awarded. And players score during hard fouls way too much-slam a
player driving for a dunk and he'll put the rock in the hoop as his head's
bouncing off the floor.
In addition, you have to wait two or three
seconds before in-bounding the ball off a
made basket. This makes it tough to have
a realistic running game. There's no control
layout provided for any device other than a
Gravis gamepad. Finally, the game crashed
often upon launch, and I ran into some D3D
compatibility issues on a Win 98 machine
(with no problems in 3Dfx mode).
Still, NBA Live 99 is a boatload of fun, particularly against friends. Up to four
players can compete against each other on a single machine, LAN, or modem
(no Internet play yet). And the upgraded AI, while not perfect, makes the
single-player game more challenging, particularly on the highest of the four
skill levels.-- 0 / GamePro
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