I honestly never thought NBA Live would be good again. There were years there where it disappeared completely as crippling bugs and generally sub-par gameplay finally took their toll on public opinion and sales. Even their rebranding to NBA Elite was a complete catastrophe, leading EA to re-embrace the "Live" moniker. This once-great series was in shambles for a decade, arguably longer. Despite not having a release last basketball season, the prior couple years have shown at least glimpses of promise. I'd never buy any of the recent releases, but I definitely looked at them and could see the devs probably knew what was wrong and they seemed to be at least attempting to course correct.

This year might be the first year since NBA Live 2005 where I played a Live game and actually wanted to continue playing. It's well-documented history at this point how NBA 2K5 and its terrifying cover of Ben Wallace released at $20 against Live's $50, and 2K being a better game, began its slow-yet-inevitable crushing of the NBA Live brand as anything anyone could possibly care about. But as previously mentioned, NBA Live 18 seems to be headed in a direction of being legitimately good, if the recently released demo is any indication. What's better is that they're offering to knock $20 off of their game for anyone who preorders--something that may be seen as a scummy preorder practice by some, yet I'd actually argue the demo is robust enough that people can know what they're getting, and that argument probably doesn't hold much water in this case. Anyway! Funny that Live is attempting take a page out of 2K's book there. But on to the game itself.

Let's be real clear up front: I'm not of the opinion that this game is some amazing work of digital basketball art. A lot of my opinion on this game also needs to be read knowing that the only basketball game I've been playing for any serious amount of time for the past 12 or so years has been NBA 2K, minus I guess some of the PSP Live games in like 07 which I played quite a bit of because the PSP was a sad console with sad basketball options. So a lot of my fondness for what I've seen in Live 18 so far could be because it's something different. That said I've dabbled in Live out of curiosity pretty much every year, and everything about 18 seems like a genuinely super surprising leap forward.

Animations are huge in basketball games. If the players aren't moving in a way we perceive as correct, it makes the whole game feel wonky. Shoes need to feel like they're gripping the court. Bounce passes need to feel like gravity is a thing that exists in the game. Rims need to have the right amount of bounce when a ball hits them. When a player goes up for a dunk, they can't look like they're floating by wires up to the rim. Crossovers need to carry weight and player momentum on cuts and spins needs to be spot on. These are all points of failure for Live in the past, and by contrast things that 2K have largely done pretty well. Playing Live 18, It's a little disheartening because you can still totally see what seem like remnants of NBA Live's past. Certain dunk animations still feel floaty or wrong, jumpshot animations seem a little off, ball physics aren't always on point. That said, all of this feels cleaned up to the point where it feels pretty good the majority of the time. The very first thing I noticed when I played the demo was how much player movement and the feel of the action has improved. It feels really good. I'm of the opinion that Live is at the point now where the game is fun to just play, and I can't even describe how huge that is. I legitimately thought Live would never get back to that point, but I'm happy that they have. That's probably the best thing I can say about this game.

Offensive and defensive feel have taken a massive step up. One of the better additions to the game is the way one-on-one defense works. When you lock on to a ball handler, it'll show you a little arrow indicating the general direction you want to go to cut off an offensive move. So if Kevin Durant is crossing over to his left and trying to drive to the hoop, you as LeBron James will see a subtle arrow at the feet of Durant indicating he's trying to drive left. If you react quickly enough you'll cut off his move and foil his attempt to put Tristan Thompson on a poster. This may seem a little arcadey, but in practice it actually feels and looks pretty natural. Crossovers, behind-the-backs, spin moves, in-and-outs, stepbacks, and eurosteps are all simple enough to pull off once you know how, which isn't a guarantee in any basketball game. I'm interested to play against a human as opposed to just the AI, because dribble moves feel good and effective, but then the lock-on defense also seems really effective, so I wonder how that balance ends up feeling.

The way things play aside, everything around that experience seems to be coming together pretty nicely, too. The main crux of the game is that you're creating a character and not only playing through a career in the NBA, but simultaneously kind of having this whole other street ball career. It has RPG elements of earning skill points and unlocking moves and raising skill points as well as unlocking gear. It's similar to what 2K has been doing, but at first glance it seems better. The street ball and the NBA play are more tightly integrated into a singular story and it just seems much more built out, but not in a way that makes it feel like NBA Street or anything too wild. We'll see how their storytelling holds up, but honestly you can't do much worse than the stories 2K has been stuffing into their career modes lately. Yikes. I love you 2K, but yikes.

Live also has the WNBA license this year, which is a neat addition. It's reminiscent of 07 or 08--whichever year Live was the first to bring European teams into NBA games. They're doing a good job to broaden their appeal to as many people as possible, and luckily for them they seem to have chosen a good year to have a wider audience of eyes on them. I just wonder if you can play NBA vs. WNBA matches. Or mix and match men and women onto one team and have them take on Spain's national team or something. Lots of stupid potential.

The worst part about NBA Live 18 is having to listen to Jeff Van Gundy call the action. Ugh. That said, he does represent a larger positive for the series--something that they've always had, really--and that's big-time connections. Live has had full ESPN branding and integration in their games for years and years. They're able to get people like Stephen A. Smith (hate that guy, but you know) to record video of himself in an ESPN studio talking about your created player to provide a cool and realistic type of story cutscene. EA has been partnering to bring cool stuff like this into Live for a long time, but this may be the first year since they'e started doing it where the game holds up its end of the bargain.

This is all very exciting. Again, there are still cracks and seams in Live 18 where past years are trying their best to claw through the polished up exterior, but the game already seems pretty dang good, and if they can keep up this kind of progress year after year, then 2K is going to be feeling the heat. And at $40 for a preorder, I'm actually thinking about giving Live first shot over 2K this year--I absolutely cannot stress enough just how much that fact blows my mind.

Last years 2k was pretty damn bad, so i hope Live can step it's game up to at least make 2k step up theirs. My god the in game UI was so fucking terrible in 2k17, calling plays and substitutions were damn near impossible for me. Glad i waited and got the game for 15bux on steam lol, they did at least make good changes to mygm.

Live needs to either go all sim or go all arcadey, cause the balance they try and strike between the two have not worked at all. The last game was moderately fun but you could just cheese the AI and get steals by mashing the steal button and still get dunks every trip to the paint.

Eh, I felt last year's 2K played the best against CPU that it had in a while. Unfortunately I'm pretty hooked on ultimate team stuff with my sports games right now - well, to be specific, Diamond Dynasty's form of ultimate team - and so when I realized what a mess 2K's MyTeam mode is I walked away from 2K17 having played far less of it than any previous basketball game.

That being said, I'd usually play at least one full season of basketball games in Association (dating myself in terms of 2K fandom, I know) / MyGM mode all 82 games, and I try to find some joy in this Live demo but I just can't. The motion is so bad, the audio is so poorly mixed and mastered. The most glaring example of the dichotomy between good ideas and poor execution is the Jalen Rose halftime show; I'm someone who listens to Jalen's podcast and watches him on TV and has for many years now, so I know what Jalen tends to sound like and know it can be stilted. But his performance in this demo is beyond the pale.

It's a huge step up from the demos of Elite and Live I've played over the past five years but it's still a long, long ways off from 2K IMO.

played the demo. Would agree in general that this NBA live seems functional, and they certainly seem to be trying a lot to make it work- WNBA licence, real work into the myplayer/RPG side of the game- but I still don't really like how it plays. It is actually functional this year, so it is improved, but it still has a long way to go imo. As a guard/wingman if you get any sort of drive to the hoop the rate of success for layups is way too high- if it's not outright blocked or you don't get knocked on your ass it's pretty much going to go in. I found the post controls to be stiff/imprecise, and while I don't expect consistency necessarily- not even the best players can make the same shot go in 100% of the time, I couldn't figure out why I was unsuccessful, unlike 2k's post game, which does a lot better at showing you (shot feedback, ball missing horribly if you're doing something your player isn't capable of, like a stepback or fadeaway, if your guy is too weak will not be able to back someone down etc.). The handles feel mushy and imprecise, like there was lag on top of the same stick move not doing the same animation, etc. The one thing I thought they did really well was the on-ball defense system, like you mentioned. I liked picking/committing to a side, in theory. I think the dribble move "guessing game" of if they're going to switch sides or w/e ends up being too simplistic, but it does feel better than 2k's system, where defensive stats don't matter and everyone can bump everyone else.

In terms of the Myplayer/"The One" mode, there was stuff I liked and stuff I didn't. For the love of god, let me skip cutscenes- 2k had to patch that in this year, and I hope the final version of Live lets you. I don't want to sit through a 5 minute long First Take segment, especially if I reset/create another player and go again. I don't like the attribute level up system- picking certain moves to level up is fine, but that means everyone has 5-6 skills that they're really good at, and sub-70 rating at everything else, which kind of sucks. I like the perk/trait system though, specifically the fact that their "signature skill" equivalent is more interesting than just "you become way better at what your archetype is supposed to do". Buffs like getting better at shooting 3s after assists/rebounding/finishing inside, dunks increasing your defensive rating, etc., are all more interesting than 2K's badges, which for the most part seem to just buff certain stats, like 3 point shooting when you're in the corner. I also like the idea of picking and slotting different skills. While it's definitely not realistic- no one is a good passer one game and then loses that skill and becomes better at dunking the next- as someone who basically only plays MyPlayer in 2K I like the idea of making the player attribute side even more like an RPG with more customization. Finally it seems like they're way more generous with loot/gear/level ups than 2k, which has increasingly felt like they've made the grind take longer and longer to get impatient people to buy VC. Cynically seems like a move they have to make so that people will like them more, but if it gets 2K to also lower the ridiculous amount of VC it takes to build up your character I'll be happy.

Overall I think it's a decent play by Live. Despite all my criticisms it plays alright and feels like a more arcadey version of a basketball sim, so they might make fans of people who don't want a game as simmy as 2K. It feels like they've finally created a solid foundation to build upon, and hopefully in the next few years they do a good job of building upon it; competition benefits everyone.

Thanks everyone for your perspectives! It's nice to see some other opinions. I think I'm a little higher on Live than most of you, but I can understand all of the points that have been mentioned. Before I wrote my original post I played a game of 2K back to back with a game of Live to do a direct comparison, and after playing a lot of Live, 2K did feel pretty nice. It's hard to appreciate the feel of 2K when that's all you play. That said though I think Live does hold its own this year, and the future is lookin' bright. I'm looking forward to there hopefully being some real competition in basketball games again.

NBA 2k17 is a great game, although for me there are certain problems that just have to be dealt with. May write up a review myself, but mostly it boils down to animations and how you lock into them and how they work. It is what is holding the game back from allowing total control. I have seen them say 18 is going to address just that so we will see how it shakes out. Otherwise it is minor problems with other systems which are quite annoying but can be fixed and may (the biggest one for me is the methods of progression and the archetypes in MyCareer, but that is being changed in some way as well). I am eager to see.

These are the problems you get when you play a game for more than 200 hours every year. There are a lot of awesome parts of the game, including how they model players physically, which is getting very advanced.

As for Live I personally am not so into it and think it may not hold up so well against 18, but at the same time I really like that there is comparable competition out there. For me, 2K is a fantastic game right now overall and I don't agree with too much of the criticisms I see of the game, although I do think there are issues and the animation problem is hanging over the whole experience, keeping it from reaching a new level.

I hate Breen and Van Gundy, but also hate Miller. I hate C-Webb and Mark Jackson as well. I think the last three can really talk out of their ass during broadcasts. Breen is just goofy to me and calls Knicks games (where he should stay, be gone) and Van Gundy is a huge blow hard.

Harlan is great, Hubie Brown is great, Tirico is very good, but otherwise it's tough out there for NBA announcing of quality I think. Which is too bad because the game is very good and popular.

Got the demo and you were right, this is the best live in years. haven't played that much but i may like this better than 2k right now, defense feels good and despite animations being a bit wonky at times game looks real good and feels good to do things. Don't feel like i'm stuck in an animation i don't want to be in or moving from side to side because of overstated momentum.

Will probably be picking this up and skipping 2k this year(again)

@kingbonesaw: this has nothing to do with the game but the idea of wanting to listen to Reggie Miller over Breen and Van Gundy or wanting to listen to Miller for any reason at any time is completely insane to me. I've never heard a single person have anything to say about Reggie Miller's commentary beyond him being one of the absolute worst behind the desk, maybe ever.