One thing that I have always felt about sports games is that playing out a full season is the ultimate in gameplay and one of the main reasons I buy them to begin with. It does add to the excitement, but detracts from the realism. One thing of note though, it did seem like players that don't really dunk often will slam more frequently. You will definitely find yourself yelling at your opponent as you slam over the top of them-even if the opponent is just the computer. You have one handed dunks, two handed slams, 180's, windmills, and others. If you like dunks, you will be in heaven. On a more positive note, this game does introduce some cool new dunks. This would help the longevity of the game for sure. I am all for making the difficulty level on a sliding scale, but I think it would have been much better to make the actual competition level slide up one notch so exhibition was actually starter, and starter was actually all-star and so on. I had to set the difficulty level to all-star before the game even resembled anything competitive I needed it set super star to be challenging. I won the game by over 60 points - this on my first game ever. I played as the Sonics and the computer was the Bulls. To give you an example, the first game I played, the difficulty was set to rookie. This is where the game slides down and shows its weakness. You have an adjustable difficulty scale ranging from rookie, starter, all-star, and super star. The overall gameplay is relatively fast with no noticeable slowdown during the actual games. Or if you want a challenge, you can create a team full of scrubs to test your skills. Custom is always fun because you can create your own team of your favorite players to dominate the league. The custom game allows you to create your own teams and mix up the NBA divisions to your liking. Simulation play is where the game becomes more realistic, forcing you to watch the fatigue of your players. Arcade mode has the players playing all out with no fatigue throughout the entire game (like my 15 year old neighbor). Exhibition is just a quick game with little or no setting adjustments. The gameplay mode ranges from exhibition to arcade to simulation to custom. NBA Live 98 has many of the options that have become standard practice among the basketball platform. This year has the usual crop of basketball titles to hit the shelves. The passing game has also been polished with the addition of icon passing, while the overwhelming list of strategies and authentic NBA plays remain intact from last year's hoops heaven-of-a-game. Players can now coolly shoot lean-ers and fade-away jumpers as well. The smoothest game of five-on-five seen to date, Live sports incredible new deke moves, like a killer crossover and a behind-the-back dribble, that are not only slickly animated but performed unbelievably fast. will even make trades among computer teams during the season to strengthen squads trying to make a playoff run. You can create custom teams to compete with in Season and Playoff modes, create your own players, and the A.I. Live has added an awesome new three-point shootout to its lineup of play options which includes Exhibition, Season, and Playoffs. All the NBA teams are represented in flashy form, along with their new logos, courts, and superstar players.
However, he did appear in several video games, such as the Space Jam video game (after a movie Jordan starred in and not NBA licensed) as well as NBA Live 20, his only two official appearances in the NBA Live video game franchise (2) (3).ĢK Sports, the publishers of the NBA 2K series, signed Jordan to an exclusive licensing deal in 2010 (4), before the release of NBA 2K11 to include him in the game (2).Live's impressive list of features will have basketball fans dreaming of dunks all season long. The above explains why Jordan wasn't in NBA Live 97. If so, can you explain why he wasn't in NBA Live 97 (when he was playing like a stud) but then suddenly had a Jordan explosion in NBA2K11 (long after he was relevant)?
Jordan dropped out of the virtual scene when he opted out of the National Basketball Players Association's shared licensing agreement after ushering in sports gaming on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo in the early '90s. This article about Jordan's video game history states:
I assume Jordan's appearance in Tecmo NBA Basketball was before he opted out of the NBA's shared licensing agreement. Jordan appeared in Tecmo NBA Basketball, released in November 1992, which included rosters for the 1991-1992 NBA Season.Īround 1992, Jordan opted out of the NBA's shared licensing agreement, which had allowed the NBA to use his name and likeness (1). Does anyone know the history of Michael Jordan's licensing of his name and brand to video game companies?