I am tired of these devil’s advocates coming on here and saying “Live is not what I expected”. Or “This game is really flawed”, yada, yada, yada. How in the world can you already be claiming that this game is not very good when it has been out for 1 or 2 days? Give me a break. I have been playing this game extensively for 2 days, and I for one feel that it plays a very solid game of basketball. I am not going to say “This is the best basketball game ever!”. I cannot say that yet because I have only begun to play this game. But let me tell you this, if I hear one more stupid gripe about things that sliders can help, or fix, I am going to have to hurt someone.
First things first, people bitch about the ratings. “Mike Bibby isn’t very good because they underrated him.” WHAT? DUDE, go to the player editor and edit his damn rating! Problem solved. I like the ratings as they are, it makes star players stand out, which is pretty realistic if you ask me. But, if you don’t like it, that’s why there is a player editor. FIX IT! Stop whining!
“Players stick to eachother in the post, so it’s hard to play help defense, it’s hard to get around defenders without them sticking to you." There is a slider for this people! Turn down the on-ball physical defense.
“Players don’t react to freestyle moves, players don’t go for headfakes.” SLIDERS for this too, turn down CPU Fakeout Discipline, or you can up USER Freestyle Effectiveness. “They fast break too much”. Get your *** back on defense! “The game pace is too fast.” Turn down the speed of the game. “Players don’t make jump shots.” Raise the USER LONG RANGE SHOOTING. “There is no mid-range game.” Raise the MID-RANGE SHOOTING. I mean come on people, there are sliders for just about everything so that you can customize the game the way you like it. But, no you would rather come on here and bitch and complain, and tell us you are taking the game back, and you are disappointed, and EA always does this too us, blah blah blah. SHUT THE HELL UP!
And this is the best one yet, “Stealing the ball is really easy no matter how the sliders are set because if you double team anybody there is a incredible high chance that you will steal it from them.” LOL, that’s why there is a DOUBLE TEAM EFFECTIVENESS slider. And guess what? It really works!” I mean come on people, if you would just give the game a chance and delve into all the features and options, you could make it a great game for you. It just takes some DD, some time, and some effort.
“As for bugs there way too many to me that make this game unplayable. For one speed. You can't run the fast break at all in Live 2004 and your slower then everybody else. Freestyle serves no point what so ever. You can't fake out anybody on All Star difficulty, neither can you head fake them out.” See, this is exactly what I am talking about! FIX THE SLIDERS.
I cannot say enough how disappointed I am in the people that make a snap judgement on the game. They might play it for 5 hours and form this opinion, and never figure out that you can adjust this, change that, edit this, fix that, and then you have yourself the game you like. And people will say “why do we have to do all the work? Why can’t they make the game playable out of the box?” This is a moronic statement because “To each his own.” What you might like, someone else will not, and that is why they try to put the game out somewhere in the middle, and give you sliders to adjust it to your liking. And the harder the game, the better for me as I like a challenge. If it’s too hard, drop down a level. I mean if you really can’t find a way to make the game play realistically with all the slider options, then you really don’t deserve to play this game. Take your $50 and go buy something else. Just don’t tell us about it. We don’t care.
Now, for my personal review of the game.
The graphics look great, everything is crisp and clean. Animations are fabulous. The collision detection is well done. You cannot abuse the pro-hop if you play on the harder levels, and adjust the sliders. The 10-man mo-cap is awesome, and very well done. Guys move around like a team, rather than individuals. If you are having trouble getting open looks, try running actual plays. They work. What I most like about this game, is there is so many different ways to get a shot off. You can pro-hop, double-pump, shoot a leaner, a fadeaway, a tear-drop, a one-hander, a straight up jumper, a jump hook. You can force a dunk, force a layup. You can drop-step, power dribble, crossover, hesitate, jump stop, spin. The variety of moves and shots is unparalleled, more so than in any game I have ever played. What I think is really sweet, and some people find annoying, is when a guy like SHAQ makes a move to the basket, and gets some contact, but stumbles, and misses the shot, and it takes him a second to recover his feet. This is very realistic in my opinion. The bigger players cannot just run into people without losing their balance somewhat. This is collision detection at its best. Being a Laker fan, I have seen SHAQ do this many times before. I love how it is harder to dunk the basketball. It takes into consideration the difficulty and collision aspect. Teams play like their real-life counterparts. The stars get the ball in crunch time. I noticed the end of the game AI is awesome. They will churn the clock with the lead, rush to get a score when behind, and foul you if necessary. I also noticed that if you hold the shoot button to long on a jumper, he will sort of double clutch the shot, and it will cause it to be overshot. On the flip side, if you don’t hold down the shoot button long enough, he will “pull the string” and not follow through, causing the ball to go short. This is brilliantly done, and I am not sure this has been done in any game I have ever seen.
Now, there is a slowdown at times, and I have the XBOX version, but it is not, I repeat, not a game killer. I don’t even notice it anymore. If you are looking to find flaws, you will find them in any game. There is a lot going on; including the coaches roaming the sidelines, bench players moving around, and of course the crowd (which by the way is very responsive and cheers in the right moments, and groans when your team is behind, and goes crazy when you go on a run, or make a sweet dunk). With all this going on, I can accept a little slow down every now and then, and that’s all it is.
Some other things I noticed, Lebron James has a signature free throw, it looked just like him at the line, different from others. I haven’t noticed any others yet, but I haven’t played enough and I haven’t really been looking. The new free throw system is different and takes some getting used to, but I like it. I have not seen one show-boat dunk in traffic yet. On a breakway, McGrady did a 360, but that was sweet and again it was a breakaway. On another breakaway, KOBE did a 2-hand slam, pulled himself up and slapped the backboard. I enjoyed that very much. I noticed also that players celebrate without the damn cut scenes. Devean George made a layup in traffic and afterwards started pounding his chest while the other players ran up the floor (without a cut scene). As a matter of fact, are there even cut scenes during actual gameplay anymore? I don’t remember seeing any. Don’t really care about that anyhow. The NBA store is cool, nice little addition. So far, in every game, I have shot in the high 30s or low 40s (FG%), and I have tried abusing the pro-hop and when I do, I miss the shot, get an offensive foul, or get fouled, but rarely (unless properly done) do I score. I think they did a great job with this. There are so many options for different moves that it will just take time to master them. No game can stay on par with EA when it comes to control, at least up to now. I am no blocking a lot of shots, nor am I getting very many dunks, which makes the game more realistic for me. I want to earn my buckets, and I really feel that I am. I was playing on SUPERSTAR, but after a few games, I had to go down to ALL-STAR because I was absolutely getting my butt kicked. (by like 50 points). BUT THAT”S WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THE GAME! Make it hard, and watch me take on the challenge! Nice job EA. The AI is tremendous. I have only played games against the computer, so I do not know how playing against other players would be like. If you want a score, I guess I would give it a 9.5 out of 10. Nothing is perfect, and this game is far from perfect, but from a fun standpoint, it is top notch.
First things first, people bitch about the ratings. “Mike Bibby isn’t very good because they underrated him.” WHAT? DUDE, go to the player editor and edit his damn rating! Problem solved. I like the ratings as they are, it makes star players stand out, which is pretty realistic if you ask me. But, if you don’t like it, that’s why there is a player editor. FIX IT! Stop whining!
“Players stick to eachother in the post, so it’s hard to play help defense, it’s hard to get around defenders without them sticking to you." There is a slider for this people! Turn down the on-ball physical defense.
“Players don’t react to freestyle moves, players don’t go for headfakes.” SLIDERS for this too, turn down CPU Fakeout Discipline, or you can up USER Freestyle Effectiveness. “They fast break too much”. Get your *** back on defense! “The game pace is too fast.” Turn down the speed of the game. “Players don’t make jump shots.” Raise the USER LONG RANGE SHOOTING. “There is no mid-range game.” Raise the MID-RANGE SHOOTING. I mean come on people, there are sliders for just about everything so that you can customize the game the way you like it. But, no you would rather come on here and bitch and complain, and tell us you are taking the game back, and you are disappointed, and EA always does this too us, blah blah blah. SHUT THE HELL UP!
And this is the best one yet, “Stealing the ball is really easy no matter how the sliders are set because if you double team anybody there is a incredible high chance that you will steal it from them.” LOL, that’s why there is a DOUBLE TEAM EFFECTIVENESS slider. And guess what? It really works!” I mean come on people, if you would just give the game a chance and delve into all the features and options, you could make it a great game for you. It just takes some DD, some time, and some effort.
“As for bugs there way too many to me that make this game unplayable. For one speed. You can't run the fast break at all in Live 2004 and your slower then everybody else. Freestyle serves no point what so ever. You can't fake out anybody on All Star difficulty, neither can you head fake them out.” See, this is exactly what I am talking about! FIX THE SLIDERS.
I cannot say enough how disappointed I am in the people that make a snap judgement on the game. They might play it for 5 hours and form this opinion, and never figure out that you can adjust this, change that, edit this, fix that, and then you have yourself the game you like. And people will say “why do we have to do all the work? Why can’t they make the game playable out of the box?” This is a moronic statement because “To each his own.” What you might like, someone else will not, and that is why they try to put the game out somewhere in the middle, and give you sliders to adjust it to your liking. And the harder the game, the better for me as I like a challenge. If it’s too hard, drop down a level. I mean if you really can’t find a way to make the game play realistically with all the slider options, then you really don’t deserve to play this game. Take your $50 and go buy something else. Just don’t tell us about it. We don’t care.
Now, for my personal review of the game.
The graphics look great, everything is crisp and clean. Animations are fabulous. The collision detection is well done. You cannot abuse the pro-hop if you play on the harder levels, and adjust the sliders. The 10-man mo-cap is awesome, and very well done. Guys move around like a team, rather than individuals. If you are having trouble getting open looks, try running actual plays. They work. What I most like about this game, is there is so many different ways to get a shot off. You can pro-hop, double-pump, shoot a leaner, a fadeaway, a tear-drop, a one-hander, a straight up jumper, a jump hook. You can force a dunk, force a layup. You can drop-step, power dribble, crossover, hesitate, jump stop, spin. The variety of moves and shots is unparalleled, more so than in any game I have ever played. What I think is really sweet, and some people find annoying, is when a guy like SHAQ makes a move to the basket, and gets some contact, but stumbles, and misses the shot, and it takes him a second to recover his feet. This is very realistic in my opinion. The bigger players cannot just run into people without losing their balance somewhat. This is collision detection at its best. Being a Laker fan, I have seen SHAQ do this many times before. I love how it is harder to dunk the basketball. It takes into consideration the difficulty and collision aspect. Teams play like their real-life counterparts. The stars get the ball in crunch time. I noticed the end of the game AI is awesome. They will churn the clock with the lead, rush to get a score when behind, and foul you if necessary. I also noticed that if you hold the shoot button to long on a jumper, he will sort of double clutch the shot, and it will cause it to be overshot. On the flip side, if you don’t hold down the shoot button long enough, he will “pull the string” and not follow through, causing the ball to go short. This is brilliantly done, and I am not sure this has been done in any game I have ever seen.
Now, there is a slowdown at times, and I have the XBOX version, but it is not, I repeat, not a game killer. I don’t even notice it anymore. If you are looking to find flaws, you will find them in any game. There is a lot going on; including the coaches roaming the sidelines, bench players moving around, and of course the crowd (which by the way is very responsive and cheers in the right moments, and groans when your team is behind, and goes crazy when you go on a run, or make a sweet dunk). With all this going on, I can accept a little slow down every now and then, and that’s all it is.
Some other things I noticed, Lebron James has a signature free throw, it looked just like him at the line, different from others. I haven’t noticed any others yet, but I haven’t played enough and I haven’t really been looking. The new free throw system is different and takes some getting used to, but I like it. I have not seen one show-boat dunk in traffic yet. On a breakway, McGrady did a 360, but that was sweet and again it was a breakaway. On another breakaway, KOBE did a 2-hand slam, pulled himself up and slapped the backboard. I enjoyed that very much. I noticed also that players celebrate without the damn cut scenes. Devean George made a layup in traffic and afterwards started pounding his chest while the other players ran up the floor (without a cut scene). As a matter of fact, are there even cut scenes during actual gameplay anymore? I don’t remember seeing any. Don’t really care about that anyhow. The NBA store is cool, nice little addition. So far, in every game, I have shot in the high 30s or low 40s (FG%), and I have tried abusing the pro-hop and when I do, I miss the shot, get an offensive foul, or get fouled, but rarely (unless properly done) do I score. I think they did a great job with this. There are so many options for different moves that it will just take time to master them. No game can stay on par with EA when it comes to control, at least up to now. I am no blocking a lot of shots, nor am I getting very many dunks, which makes the game more realistic for me. I want to earn my buckets, and I really feel that I am. I was playing on SUPERSTAR, but after a few games, I had to go down to ALL-STAR because I was absolutely getting my butt kicked. (by like 50 points). BUT THAT”S WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THE GAME! Make it hard, and watch me take on the challenge! Nice job EA. The AI is tremendous. I have only played games against the computer, so I do not know how playing against other players would be like. If you want a score, I guess I would give it a 9.5 out of 10. Nothing is perfect, and this game is far from perfect, but from a fun standpoint, it is top notch.
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