NBA Live 08 IGN Review

[NBASLAM2001]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/824/824435p1.html

[funky_chicken]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

Ouch!!! That was a low rating even for IGN who is a bit more liberal with their scores compared to gamespot.

[BrownsFan72]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

Man a 6.9 thats a little low....I hated last years game but actually like this years game. It is far from perfect but I would give it a 8.0 My problem with the 2k game is I feel the controls are too loose.

[joel0078]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

It would have been nice to see Hilary Goldstein (who consistently provided consumers with all the information on the game, throughout the last several months) do the review. Instead they send some zero to review the game. It seemed to me that this guy didn't have much knowledge of the game coming in. He mentions how the FIBA aspect is screwed up, due to Kobe Bryant not being on the roster. I'd like to think the majority of us fans all know that a roster update was said to be coming soon after release, which would add the proper players to the roster. You're telling me this guy wasn't privy to this information, prior to writing an interview? He mentions 2K8 more times than he mentions Live. This is a review, not a comparison to the competitors title. 2K is my favorite, but I at least have the sense to respect the competition and if I'm going to write a review, I'd have the sense to know that the review is for LIVE, not 2K and 2K shouldn't even be mentioned.

I don't recall reading any articles from this guy on this game, prior to his review, or even seeing his name on anything that has to do with Live. All I can say is a review is nothing more than one persons opinion. I haven't played the game yet, but I enjoyed the heck out of the demo and I see no reason why I won't enjoy the real game, despite this guys opinion. He brings up some decent points, such as the back court call not being fixed, but aside from that, I'll make my own decision.

[Tomba]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

Easily a 8.0 Very solid game...been playing it and i honestly feel it's very good. its a mix/cross between arcade and sim. doesn't pretend to be either but can be played as either.

[PlayaHataSupreme]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

There's another issue that stems from inbounding the ball, one that has been in every NBA Live in recent memory. That being a backcourt violation that happens when tossing the ball in from out of bounds. Anyone who knows the game of basketball knows that this should never happen; no matter where you throw the ball in from, there's no way that it can result in a backcourt violation, yet it will happen every time in Live 08 if you pass the ball from out of bounds, back over the centerline.

This was in the review. They don't realize the NBA rules regarding this.

In the last 2 minutes of the half, you can throw the ball anywhere, but you can't throw in backcourt if you are in the front court and it's more than two minutes in the half.

That was one of their gripes, but to be fair, Live got that part right, I think.

[knickstorm]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

This was in the review. They don't realize the NBA rules regarding this.

In the last 2 minutes of the half, you can throw the ball anywhere, but you can't throw in backcourt if you are in the front court and it's more than two minutes in the half.

That was one of their gripes, but to be fair, Live got that part right, I think.

i think he means on the inbound pass..........he's saying the game will call a back court violation on you when it shouldnt.....

back to the review, this line had me laughing
"
If Stephon Marbury has a one-on-one situation with a back pedaling defender, there is no way he's going to miss his dunk or finger roll; it simply doesn't happen. "

now i know steph has dunked before, but when was the last time he took someone 1-1 and dunked it? probably never

[joel0078]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

i think he means on the inbound pass..........he's saying the game will call a back court violation on you when it shouldnt.....

back to the review, this line had me laughing
"
If Stephon Marbury has a one-on-one situation with a back pedaling defender, there is no way he's going to miss his dunk or finger roll; it simply doesn't happen. "

now i know steph has dunked before, but when was the last time he took someone 1-1 and dunked it? probably never

Oh yeah, loved that part too. Listen, I've been to Laker games, been to Knicks games at the Garden, and ALL players miss lay ups. I've seen Kobe miss lay ups and I've seen Spreewell and Allan Houston miss lay ups too. We've all seen superstars miss a lay up on occassion. Sometimes its when they're alone and often times it happens when they are surrounded by defenders. Its ludicrous to say that no star player misses layups, regardless of the defense. The guy who reviewed this game needs to get a clue. As far as the back court issue goes, he's saying that its impossible to throw the ball from the front court/side inbound, into the back court, all the time.

[LandoRigs]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

I was one of those that really wanted Live to turn out to be a great game and I saw so much potential after playing the demo. But the game itself can be no better than a 7 in my book and that would be generous. The 6.9 is about right. There are way too many elements of gameplay that are broken to score it any higher. The teams and players don't really play like themselves, the playbooks are generic (at least from what I've found), and the A.I. is programmed to take it to the hole all the time and too many times doesn't seem to know what a jumpshot is. The game is also too easy for the wrong reasons and isn't fun like a good Live game should be. I also thought that maybe Live would have an option to turn off your computer-assisted jumpshot but they don't and that's bad news. Players should always have the option to user-control their jumpshots.

Live has also ditched its retro jerseys and legends, which added replay value to its games over the years. If they were going to ditch those things in favor of the FIBA mode, the FIBA mode should have been more complete. The create-a-player is horrible with there not even being an option for short hair for a black player. How they could omit this when the league has a high volume of black players is beyond me. Not to mention that the rosters in Live are a mess. July 15 was their cut off date so that means that we can't play with guys like Yi or Penny Hardaway out of the box.

I imagine though that this game will be popular online because I can see two players being able to put together an exciting game with this engine. But for one player, the game isn't cutting it for me at this time. I'm going to be working with sliders to see if maybe I can come up with something better. The game's too biggest strengths are its graphics and sounds (announcing, crowd).

Meanwhile, I've played NBA 2K8 and while it's graphics are terrible in some areas, they are very good in others. I played a Lakers/Cavs game and went into two overtimes before I pulled out the win. Kobe (me) and Lebron (cpu) ran the show. If I were playing the Cavs in Live, Lebron wouldn't had been the main player, it probably would have been Hughes or Big Z. 2K still has its flaws, don't get me wrong, but I felt like I was playing a video game that represented the NBA and not a game that represented somebody's attempt to be NBA-like. 2K has alternates and retros and still has the legends. Magic Johnson and James Worthy's shots have been fixed and look more like the way they used to shoot.

To me the biggest weaknesses in 2K are in its announcing (which by the way is worse than last year because of a poor editing job by 2K), too many missed layups (unnecessary misses), the player models (they could be a lot better but they're not the worst either) and other graphical errors (wrong court colors and jersey textures). Yet the overall gameplay (which is phenomenal by the way and way better than 2K7) more than makes up for it and thank goodness you can turn announcing off. But Live's graphics and audio can't make up for its broken gameplay.

My rating:

Live 08 - 7/10
2K8 - 8/10

[joel0078]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

Without having played either game yet (my xbox is in repairs), I agree with what you're saying about losing the legends, retro jerseys and the ability to edit player accessories. While I don't usually mess with any of those things mentioned, I'd like to hear a valid explanation from EA as to why those things were removed from the game. Its the little things like that, that irritate consumers. And its little things like that, that used to give Live an edge over 2K. I remember when 2K first came out, you couldn't edit headbands, shoes, socks and all that stuff. The fact it could be done in Live, always made the Live fanboys throw it in the competitions face. Why remove such small features, when you know the competition is going to have them? I'm all about Live putting out a better product than the last two years, and from the sounds of it, thats what they did. I understand that you have to give a little to get a little, but to lose something thats essentially been a staple in the series for years, makes very little sense.

[wookie48]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

Man everyone is hatin on this game. Is it me or does anyone appreciate the quality of this game. 2k8 feels to fake to me. Live isnt perfect but hell at least its fun and visually sound. Guess i am not that picky. To me, the crowd is on point, players look like themselves, gameplay is good, and sound is great. Presentation is behind, then again EA really must be retatarded because they have released a ton of games since aquiring the ESPN license and they still suck at the presentation. I would figure they look at how nfl 2k5 used it. But hey, thats me. Oh yea, the dunk contest is hard as hell and no fun since I cant do any of the sweet moves the CPU do.

[Tomba]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

Man everyone is hatin on this game. Is it me or does anyone appreciate the quality of this game. 2k8 feels to fake to me. Live isnt perfect but hell at least its fun and visually sound. Guess i am not that picky. To me, the crowd is on point, players look like themselves, gameplay is good, and sound is great. Presentation is behind, then again EA really must be retatarded because they have released a ton of games since aquiring the ESPN license and they still suck at the presentation. I would figure they look at how nfl 2k5 used it. But hey, thats me. Oh yea, the dunk contest is hard as hell and no fun since I cant do any of the sweet moves the CPU do.

Played it until abotu 3;30am. It's pretty decent

[Bornindamecca]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

To me the biggest weaknesses in 2K are in its announcing (which by the way is worse than last year because of a poor editing job by 2K), too many missed layups (unnecessary misses), the player models (they could be a lot better but they're not the worst either) and other graphical errors (wrong court colors and jersey textures). Yet the overall gameplay (which is phenomenal by the way and way better than 2K7) more than makes up for it and thank goodness you can turn announcing off. But Live's graphics and audio can't make up for its broken gameplay.

I realize this is just a wording problem, but the "announcing" in 2k8 is actually phenomenal. Announcing being the actual arena announcing over the PA. The commentary is what's bad, and it is indeed still very bad. Those low volume sound bites of Harlan are downright unprofessional.

I point out the distinction not for the sake of semantics, but for those of us that turn off commentary and use the "on the floor" settings. For those people, the crowd, player chatter and PA announcer sound GREAT in 2k8.

[Avordo99]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

Have to say I loved playing 2K7 and had reserved 2K8 but once I played was very dissapointed with it, especially the graphics. So dissapointed in fact I exchanged it last night for Live 08. Although Live 08 does not have all the off court "bells & whistles" of 2K8 I seem to enjoy the on court experience more. Live 08 is not perfect by any means but I think EA is heading in the right direction.

[sleepytercel]

Re: NBA Live 08 IGN Review

Have to say I loved playing 2K7 and had reserved 2K8 but once I played was very dissapointed with it, especially the graphics. So dissapointed in fact I exchanged it last night for Live 08. Although Live 08 does not have all the off court "bells & whistles" of 2K8 I seem to enjoy the on court experience more. Live 08 is not perfect by any means but I think EA is heading in the right direction.

Any direction from Live 07 is the right direction. That statement doesn't mean much.