Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

[UK_Bullsfan]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

My final thoughts:

I switched from 2K this year after getting converted by the excellent demo.

What I loved about the game then I still do now. The controls are fantastic, razor sharp, simple to use, intuitive and very well thought out. The running shots, step backs, floaters, dribble moves, post moves and pick and roll controls require no silly button combinations or special circumstances and no automatic move selection by the computer, just excellent controls letting you do what you want when you want.. and success depends on skillful play and not just auto trigger animations.

I believe that Live 10 is the most realistic basketball game this year.. and by far the most fun to play. The core gameplay is just really solid and fun. The balance between getting inside and scoring from outside is bang on and the pick and roll game is very well done.

Dynamic season is an excellent idea and works surprisingly well. I'm also enjoying the dynasty mode despite the flaws and nuisances.

There are lots of problems with this game.. but none are game breaking. After patch 1 I did consider buying 2K10 as I was getting a little frustrated with Live.. it did take a while to get the game completely up and running as it should. Now though I'm glad I switched this year and stuck with it. I love the gameplay which is the most important thing. I can overlook the flaws because of this..

Overall, I'm very pleased with the game and glad I picked Live this year.. well done EA for making such an absolutely massive leap forward, a year ago I wouldnt believe I could have bought NBA Live and felt happy about it. I hope EA can make similar leaps next year with presentation and the quality of the game modes (specifically Dynasty mode).. although the most important bit, the core gameplay is in place now (for the most part).

[randombrother]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

Nice post. I'll say the same thing you said. I'll only change "My final thoughts: I switched from 2K this year after getting frustrated by 2K9 and picking up a used Live 09" While it was rough I saw the immense promise in 09. So I wasn't surprised that much at what Live 10 came to be.

[ataman5]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

@randombrother... I don't mind the possibiity of throwing it out of bounds or occasionally a player catching it with a foot on the line, that's cool. Its just the times where a player will be running the break with both feet firmly out of bounds all the way down court, or will catch in momentum and continue out of bounds. These are what Live needs to eliminate.

@ataman.... I watch basketball religiously, between League Pass and NBATV, and I have played this sport all my life. Many others here have as well. Its disheartening to see guys taking posts the wrong way. I enjoy Live, in terms of visuals I think it's the best looking bball game ever from a graphical standpoint. The control and shooting is second to none.

But the thread is "final thoughts" on Live 10. So we're just in here commenting on Live as a bball offering this year, that's all. Not to be misconstrued as "do you enjoy Live". Because I'm still enjoying it a lot.

Sorry man if i offended you in a way, i'm just against the kind of concept of thinking about things happening on real courts and guys just wanting a superficial perfection that does not exist in real world.

[phant030]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

Live is my game of choice this yr. Hopefully, they can figure out the ability vs. performance arguement for me. I understand Kobe can be playing poorly, but, he is still a 40+ point threat every night. He's playing poorly but his ability is there. I should be rewarded with great shot selection that I CHOOSE, not poor percentages reflective of his poor shot selection IRL. At times, maybe, the whole game...no way.

[Pacman83]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

I love it.

Still haven't bought 2k10, but that's only bcuz of how solid Live's been, haven't had to. Got my hoops fix this year.

[brahmagoul]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

If you're content with one game, there's no reason to consider the other one. You're just wasting money you could put to better use.

This year's Live is the best Live since the original Playstation days. The halfcourt game and spacing is untouched. The fact they have the same PA announcer from the late 90s takes me back, as well.

All told, I do prefer 2K10 because of the animations and little nuances like players waiting on the scorer's table when I want to sub them in (however, I've noticed this only happens when YOU DO IT MANUALLY. The CPU does not).

But back to Live. The spacing and speed is done so well that I can look past a lot of things I don't like. That's what makes this Live fun. The spacing and speed. Going after a loose ball or just moving a player around feels right.

Live has some great building blocks and I hope EA uses the Dynamic Season idea for more games.

[bls]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

If you're content with one game, there's no reason to consider the other one. You're just wasting money you could put to better use.

This year's Live is the best Live since the original Playstation days. The halfcourt game and spacing is untouched. The fact they have the same PA announcer from the late 90s takes me back, as well.

All told, I do prefer 2K10 because of the animations and little nuances like players waiting on the scorer's table when I want to sub them in (however, I've noticed this only happens when YOU DO IT MANUALLY. The CPU does not).

But back to Live. The spacing and speed is done so well that I can look past a lot of things I don't like. That's what makes this Live fun. The spacing and speed. Going after a loose ball or just moving a player around feels right.

Live has some great building blocks and I hope EA uses the Dynamic Season idea for more games.

I totally agree with this post right here. Live has the court spacing, shooting and dribbling down. What they need to get is tons more animations, and the little nuances like the players at the scorers table, the celebrations, the difference from player to player (Josh Smith is a completely different player than Joe Smith in 2k10 and you can feel it). Did I say more animations??? They need to clean up the rebounding/warping and the crazy blocks. They need a post game. Another reason I absolutely love playing 2k is because when users like to put Kobe/Wade/Lebron at the 1 all I have to do is go to defensive assignments and put whoever I want to guard them on them and it ACTUALLY WORKS. Adds more strategy to what it is I'm trying to do.

Live also needs to get rid of the DNA. I originally thought it was a good idea but with the 3 point fest this year (which forced me to give 2k a try again/which turned out to be a good thing) I just don't think this DNA stuff is a good idea anymore.

Live has a great foundation to build upon. I personally actually thought Live 09 was a good game they just needed to add to it. Great improvement and foundation to build upon but still aloooooooooooooong ways to go.

[The 24th Letter]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

FINAL THOUGHTS?

Dissapointed. Game was a big tease for me in all honestly...
For me personally, the fact that it has a good foundation, and has promise does nothing for me this year...and there was just too much I couldnt get past.

Thats being said.....there is promise..we can only hope for more comp next year.

[RxB]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

After the last patch, i think it was 1.03 or 1.3 on PS3 (i forgot), i like the game a lot better. I'm more enjoying the online games better now, a lot less 3 point jackers (no strategy just dribble and shoot at the 3). There are still 3 pointers ie. from Cavs, Suns etc but i'm thinking i'd just have to deal with it, they do play like that in real life except others are exploiting it too much. I do believe the Cavs, Suns and those other teams are hard to beat but they can be beat. Anyway, back to the game, i really liked the player models and the controls are easy (too much dumbed down) but overall ok. I like the player spacing, the perimeter and 3 point shooting game is there (i like finding the open man), isolation plays are nice as well. I do enjoy the online games as well especially if i get to play with good players (non cheesers).

I got the opportunity to buy a copy of NBA 2K10. Played a couple of games, not really impressed with the graphics others are saying are nicer, i think the cutscences are nice but the player models are too small for my liking (tried adjusting camera angels and all) and i'm not a big fan of their player movements. It has it's nice stuff (TNT broadcast atmosphere is great though) but overall i think Live 10 is the better and more fun to play NBA game this year.

[blackflash83]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

Happy New Year fellas

Just wondering what your final thoughts on LIVE 10 are, now that the dust has well and truly settled.

I've said this before...but IMO the top 20% of things in this game are the best ever done in an NBA game. The spacing, the half court movement, the play sets, the feel of the controls. They are a class above anything else.

The next 30% of the game is "okay".

But the last 50% of the game is terrible. The lack of animations, the almost amazing lack of rules (no clear path fouls, the wrong team in-bounds after a blocked shot goes out of bounds etc etc), the generic nature of bigs (All bigs taking fadewaways like Dirk)...the almost complete lack of accuracy on player ratings (some haven't been changed for years / others are just completely wrong...)...the amount of generic faces and players...all these things just scream out "lack of attention". IMO this is the key area where these guys fail annually and why people don't switch over to this game.

I really hope Marcus getting moved on doesn't mean this is going to continue as he seemed the only guy there who was interested in fixing this stuff.

Everyone keeps using the word "potential" with this series...but man, that word is getting old. It's been on the next gen systems for five years now. It's getting really old hearing "We'll look at fixing that...next year" over and over.

I really like the 'other game'...but, having played that engine for years now + college hoops, I am definitely ready to change over for a year. I thought this would be it, but the WTF moments + bugs just killed off LIVE's momentum.

I really like PES, but I've switched to FIFA this season as it finally caught up. Competition is good and, in an ideal world, I'll play FIFA one season / PES the next. Both stay fresh that way.

Ideally, that would be perfect for the NBA games also.

LIVE is a hell of a long way behind FIFA though.

I hope they keep Dynamic Season and build on it. I'm just playing one game a week using the Suns and being able to d/l real results + stats is great.

I hope also they keep the "fluid" nature of the game. I hope more animations in LIVE 11 doesn't equal less control.

I really hope they keep the "sim" style direction.

Do you guys see LIVE 11 as the year it jumps into FIFA's class, or is it simply too far behind to ever catch up?

Your thoughts?

CV,

Sorry that it's taken me this long to finally respond to this thread. I think you have it all wrong when you say that only Marcus cared about getting a lot of issues with the game fixed. Marcus has done a lot to interact with all of you on OS and his contributions as a producer were also notable when he was on the NBA LIVE team. However, I can't agree with you when you say that he's the only one that cared about getting issues fixed in the game.

Even before working as a Community Manager I knew first hand just how hard the team has been working to bring back NBA LIVE to where it used to be. Unfortunately the journey to get back has been longer and harder than anyone has imagined and you're right when you say that the game team can't keep saying "next year, next year" because at that point the competition will be so far ahead that EA will never be able to catch up. But I want you and everyone else here on OS to know that EVERYONE on the game team is committed to see NBA LIVE return to where it once was as a top 3 sports title. I see it in all the guys who work on the game when they are pouring in extra hours in the office and a lot of times going well past midnight. EVERYONE wants NBA LIVE to return to where it once was and EVERYONE is committed to that goal.

[Court_vision]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

That's good to know Flash.

As I said, it "seems" like Marcus was the only one...so it's good to know that's not the case.

Side note: I hate to drag another game into this forum...but, as you are here, is there 'any' chance of an NCAA patch to fix the freezing?

A lot of people aren't going to go near another EA basketballl game due to you guys just ignoring this...so it will effect LIVE's sales also. It's really dissapointing to just see it ignored when there's tonnes of people whose dynasty's are experiencing lock ups.

[Benicio10]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

CV,

Sorry that it's taken me this long to finally respond to this thread. I think you have it all wrong when you say that only Marcus cared about getting a lot of issues with the game fixed. Marcus has done a lot to interact with all of you on OS and his contributions as a producer were also notable when he was on the NBA LIVE team. However, I can't agree with you when you say that he's the only one that cared about getting issues fixed in the game.

Even before working as a Community Manager I knew first hand just how hard the team has been working to bring back NBA LIVE to where it used to be. Unfortunately the journey to get back has been longer and harder than anyone has imagined and you're right when you say that the game team can't keep saying "next year, next year" because at that point the competition will be so far ahead that EA will never be able to catch up. But I want you and everyone else here on OS to know that EVERYONE on the game team is committed to see NBA LIVE return to where it once was as a top 3 sports title. I see it in all the guys who work on the game when they are pouring in extra hours in the office and a lot of times going well past midnight. EVERYONE wants NBA LIVE to return to where it once was and EVERYONE is committed to that goal.

wanting success and achieving it are 2 different things, blackflash.

maybe we need to re-evaluate WHY your company has continued to fail us year after year.

is it the budget? is it the talent of the developers? why is the biggest company in the business performing so poorly when it comes to game quality here?

[Behindshadows]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

wanting success and achieving it are 2 different things, blackflash.

maybe we need to re-evaluate WHY your company has continued to fail us year after year.

is it the budget? is it the talent of the developers? why is the biggest company in the business performing so poorly when it comes to game quality here?

It was the efforts of the previous team. Does anyone do any research before they try to put a developer or producer on blast about something.

If you guys forgot these aren't the same devs who made the previous Live titles, Live 10 was the first year that the new team really got to spend a full development cycle together. And they did a great job.

Yeah it's not the best to everyone expectations, but my goodness Live 10 isn't a bad game. It's actually in my opinion the first Live game I've played that makes me look forward to a game every day.

Dynamic Season is video game crack, I look forward to updated DNA so I can beat the breaks off one of my buds online or at the house. Nothing in this game is just killing anything or bad in a way that would just continue to make people whine about little details. We whine about animations and all this stuff, and broken repetitive commentary. Which in my opinion I agree needs a new and fresh feel and sound.

But on the court, Live 10 is a solid game and to me the best playing basketball game this season.

I would say this is just my 2 cents, but no this is my nickel in the pond. I got five on it. lol

Either way BlackFlash, keep us updated with your insights and your info on improvements to the series. Some of us are complaint people, me especially on the commentary levels. But I would also like to give praise for what was done in such a short time. A great NBA game with amazing graphics and great gameplay on the court. I love being in control over my players. I love how not having too many animations, allows me to move them in the directions I want them too. I agree that lack of some animations do cause stiff looking players. But I'm sure you guys are already aware. I would like to give you at least that much credit to say your not just looking over that.

Still loving Live 10.

[GaryT531]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

the bottom line for me is this game is fun, but i prefer 2k10 by far, and bc of that i havn't played this since november. i will not be buying live again next year.

[Pared]

Re: Your final thoughts on LIVE 10?

It's actually in my opinion the first Live game I've played that makes me look forward to a game every day.

Yet, the last time you played the game was 12/26, over 2 weeks ago.