NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions Here

[shando14]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

Cancelled my pre-order for the other game. Let’s Go!


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[ForeverVersatile]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

I don't know if people know about this move but you can do an in and out between the leg while moving by flicking up then down on the RS.

https://youtu.be/iAJoLrdMl7c

The left stick can be kind of cheesy with simple left-right taps while stationary leading to a crazy behind the back combo.

https://youtu.be/gwZb_in4S_s

Edit* Those behind the backs with the LS seem specific to Kyrie.

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[Shadow]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

Anyone mention no player sweating in the demo?

[DonWuan]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

Anyone mention no player sweating in the demo?

Someone mentioned they sweat in practice/scrimmage but not play now.

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[zrohman]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

One of the biggest STRENGTHS of NBA Live is how fast it plays. 2k you dunk in slow motion, quick cuts to the basket are done at snail pace. They do that because it looks nicer with smoother animations. This game plays much faster, there is much more control of your player, even if it doesn't look quite as fluid. Not sure what anyone means when they say the game plays slow. Or clunky

[skinnybonez]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

y doesn't kyrie start the 2nd half

[strawberryshortcake]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

One of the biggest STRENGTHS of NBA Live is how fast it plays. 2k you dunk in slow motion, quick cuts to the basket are done at snail pace. They do that because it looks nicer with smoother animations. This game plays much faster, there is much more control of your player, even if it doesn't look quite as fluid. Not sure what anyone means when they say the game plays slow. Or clunky

You can change the game speed in both games.

Let me preface by saying that I like a lot of the essence of an NBA game captured in Live 19, especially in the Boston Garden on broadcast camera. The arena floor, lighting, uniform color, many of the player movements because they’re realistic when looking at things from afar.

Yes, Live doesn’t feel animation heavier and you feel more in control of the player. I will certainly agree there.

Live is on the clunkier side during a real game because contextual animations aren’t always realistic and don’t follow the 12 principles of animation (the bible to realistic motion), and animating believable realistic motion. The dunks you’re experiencing in Live may be faster but the upward deceleration acceleration phase and downward landing acceleration phase doesn’t capture the proper physics of an object in flight (or a free falling object). It’s floaty. Once in a while they look great, but frequently there’s a disconnect. The same with block shots, and contested shots. Other times, movements can be hyper speed that loses what’s called "slow in, slow out, anticipation, proper follow through and overlap, etc" (just some of the important principles of creating realisic movement). All these small nuances unfortunately pushes Live into a negative light.

I personally think that if they actually invest in the animation department or rethink the way they approach contextual transition animations or blends, they would have a very solid product. But the animations must be cleaned up, first and foremost especially the free falling, or vertical axis animations (jump, blocks, dunks, some awkward looking post shot animations and layups, etc.). Gravity isn’t well respected for these vertical axis animations. The horizontal axis animation such as ball speed can also be wonky sometimes with bullet passes and one handed jump passes. A lot of the horizonttal animations looks great, slow dribbling up court, fighting around screens, defensive guarded stance, cutters, etc.

I’m still playing the demo and enjoying it especially now that I was informed by I believe the developers on how to execute off-ball control.

[dasunsrule32]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

I'll put this disclaimer out there now, I play the One mode only when bored or going trophy hunting on PS4... I prefer online franchise, h2h and local franchise.

Graphics:

First and foremost, this is the easiest part of the review. The player likenesses have gone through the roof. Channing Frye, Lebron, Kyrie, Hayward and almost every player so far that I've seen in the demo look amazing. They look clean, I feel like the more natural tone of graphics colors is well suited and am glad the overly saturated colors are mostly gone.

I feel like the body types actually fit really well. I feel like the bodies more closely resemble their real life counterparts this year than any past version of the franchise. Quite a feat and they should be proud of what they accomplished here. It's not perfect, but it's really getting close.

The jerseys are an excellent upgrade, they move realistically and I don't feel like they float on the player like 2K. They fit correctly this year, it's a welcome change. Previous iterations looked off, whether they were too loose or looked like every player had a spare tire around their waist. Those days are gone.

The environment and arenas look amazing. The initial fly in over the arena looks stunning, like real life stunning. I couldn't believe my eyes the first time I loaded up a play now have and saw the Warriors court.

Reflections and arena details are top notch. Everything from the arena signage showing up on the floor, to player reflections on the floor, amazing!

This year's iteration frame rates are much improved. The last 2 years (2016, 2018) have had issues with stuttering graphics. The frame rates would randomly drop and cause issues with the overall experience. While there is still occasional frame rate drops, it's much improved and the game stays smooth most of the time now. This is a huge improvement. I'm playing on a PS4 Pro for those wanting to know.

I do have some nitpicks however. While overall, the graphics are much improved, the player skin textures look more pixelated when you zoom in on the player models. Look at Steph for instance, is quite noticable on that model.

It would be nice to see signs in the crowd being held by the fans. It would be cool to see team mascots and add player and crowd interactions.

Animations:

Live is introducing RPM (Real Player Movement) this year. This is a new movement system for the player skeletal system, physics and I'm sure touches other areas of the game, that helps with the players movement on court and interactions with the environment.

So far, I've had a mostly positive experience with it. Players for the most part animate correctly and there are not as many wonky animations and odd transitional animations now.

I am able to create some odd looking animations still be quickly performing crossovers and attempting to chain spin moves or post moves together. I've seen some warping issues as well, players sucking into each other, that broke some of the immersion.

If they can fix the little areas like that, the game will flow much better and create a more immersive experience. Overall, it's a step in the right direction and should continue to improve.

Environment:

Live Arena is the newly touted feature to add a new level of immersion in the game. It's been a cool feature that's added some nice touches to the game.

When you get going as the home team, the crowd really explodes, and provides that home court advantage.

When a player gets hot, I've seen the crowd patting the home players on the back and pushing them back down court, while attempting to grab and hold back the road team players between changes of possessions. I've not seen where this actually impacts the game, but it is a nice touch.

Gameplay:

This is the meat and potatoes of the game, I mean what's the point of a basketball game with all the bells and whistles, but not being able to play a game sufficiently enough to enjoy it.

I've played about 15 or 20 games of the Play Now mode, playing as both parties (Warriors, Celtics). Overall, the gameplay has seen some steady improvements.

Shooting has improved drastically, it's much smoother, and not seeing odd hitches in the release. I know the devs claimed that the shot timings have changed to per player shot releases, but I've honestly not noticed a difference between players. Maybe it's a demo issue, I'm not sure.

Passing, while it has improved somewhat, it's still a mixed bag of beans. Bounce passing has improved quite a bit, but there still issues with the legacy floaty passes that seem to randomly trigger. There is still the issue with random short passes coming seemingly 100MPH towards a player only 4FT away. Dribble handoffs work more smoothly this year. Alley oops still need work, most times it looks very arcadey and seem to be able to complete them successfully at a higher rate than should be possible.

The tip off has finally been fixed, good riddance too. The old animation of always going to the PG on tip got really annoying. This being fixed is a breath of fresh air. What would be cool if if you could select who you wanted to tap the ball too.

I've seen some new and interesting wrinkles added this year. The new momentum meter below the player is a welcome edition. It's nice to see the flow of the game in specific players like that. I've seen AI adjustments to how I play now as well. It used to be I could run the same plays over and over again and know I'd never have a problem scoring. Now the computer compensates and reacts to you as the game progresses. The AI may not react the same way they did earlier in the game to dribble moves, play calling, etc

The AI defense will also take exception to you lighting then up now. I've had Kyrie, Steph, Klay and others start to heat up and the AI moved it's best defender over to the player that is hot to shut them down. This is the coolest feature of the game for me gameplay wise. It makes the game feel legit.

The new coach options for full motion is a blessing for play callers like myself. It keeps the flow of the game going without those wierd awkward moments that all the players just stands around and do nothing. Why this isn't enabled by default is a bit of a mystery to me.

I like the improvements to the dribbling mechanics. Players can dribble longer and string more moves without getting as tired based on their stamina and dribble ratings. If you over dribble or pull the wrong move, you can lose control of the ball allowing for easy steals by the defender.

Defense, to me, seems more controlled by the player this year than in the past. It's easier to get shook by going the opposite direction and leaving your man wide open for a jumper or drive to the lane. The ability to dive (Square in PS4) for loose balls works well. I've actually dove, grabbed the ball at the same time, tapping square and forced a jump ball. It was a nice change of pace and a new introduction to the series. The blocking seems balanced to me. You take dumb shots, or force up shots, there is a good chance you'll get stuffed. I'm ok with this, as it promotes smart basketball rather than looking for exploits in the gameplay. Stealing has been toned back some, which is good. I like the fact that you have to rely on moving your feet now rather than just reach. You'll get penalized for reaching this year. There are also branching steal animations now. For instance, you can partially knock the ball loose, but the offensive player still has partial control. At this point you can keep trying to deflect the ball and try to dive or run it down the court. Animations for defense have been improved. There are not as many outrageous block or steal animations now, they've been toned back to more realistic animations.

Full court heaves don't always hit the rim, sometimes catch only air, bounce off the backboard and I've got the shot clock as well. Good stuff.

Players don't seem as generic this year, which is a good thing. Steph has his layup, shooting and dribbling packages. Kyrie as well. I've not noticed other players, but they play well enough that it's not terribly noticable.

So ball physics leave a lot to be desired. The ball will often go from bouncing to a dead ball in two or three bounces, then stop rolling in less than two feet. Not very realistic and something that needs to be seriously addressed. The rim physics are better this year, but some of the layup animations happen too often, specifically the bounce on the rim and go in after 5 bounces. I've yet to see one of those type of layup animations miss yet. The ball rotates much more realistically this year off the hand, spin looks great too.

The net should be fixed, the Live 10 net looked fantastic and has the correct shape. I think the net animations look fine however.

Floor spacing is great, the teams play like their real life counterpart, even when you're playing as one of the teams.

The pick and roll game has a few nice additions, such as the ability to slip the pick is great.

Overall, the gameplay had been more solidified than I anticipated. Kudos and hopefully we'll see continued improvements here.

Sound:

Audio is great, arena, crowd, player chatter, it's very immersive. One thing that bugs me a bit is the PA announcer is the same generic announcer from Live 95 on PC. Somehow he's made it all the way to today and it hasn't improved much. It would be nice to see a refresh for that audio.

The ball dribbling sounds good, but the rim and ball audio when mixed sounds terrible, not realistic at all. 2K has the same issue here as well. Net audio sounds good.

The audio commentary is a mixed bag for sure. It's a new team, I'm sure they are still adding lines, but it's definitely a step backwards so far this year. It just seems bland and not much excitement for what's going on on the floor.

My rating for the demo:

7/10

The game has improved in the gameplay department so far. Seems like there will be variety enough now with the adaptive AI to keep the games fresh and different. For this game to get into the 8's+, it really needs to flesh out the franchise mode (based on information we have for now, it doesn't seem like it's been touched), eliminate the Live legacy issues, reintroduce online franchises/dynasties, improve player editing and continue to create more immersive experiences.

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[Cavs2016]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post You

Release timing for Maya Moore is definitely different. I’m still struggling to adjust to her shot.

[Cavs2016]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

The fluidity of movement that alot are clamoring over is head scratching to me because its not fluid at all. Feels clunky and SLOW.

First things first there’s a billion different basketball movements. But live has an extremely fluid and realistic base movement. The way players move on both ends. It’s extremely noticeable to us real basketball players. It’s incredibly realistic and fluid. The RPM. But there are hundreds of areas where the game is stiff and clunky when it comes to basketball fluidity.

for passing, shooting, finishing etc there’s a lot of unresponsiveness and things that are slow to develop. We lose control of our players too often for too long.

The game lacks fluidity from transitioning from one basketball movement to another. It’s barebones. It feels like a very limited tree of long canned animations. Very predictable.

Passing sucks. Rebounding sucks. Shot blocking sucks. Finishing sucks.

Nothing is fluid in those areas. So canned, unresponsive, slow to develop, basically dog shirt

They put very little effort into improving those areas and we’re left with the same complaints from last years.

There’s some improvements but gameplay needs to be their focus for ‘20 if they want to make a real comeback.

The honeymoon is over.

[FerdBrown]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

My take is that people just REALLY REALLY want Nba Live to be relevant again which is why so many people on here are saying how good this demo is.



I think NBA2K games have been so lackluster lately and the devs for 2k just dont seem to really care about the grievances the consumers have. Which is disgusting because alot of the issues have been going on for YEARS.



With that said.... ive played this demo for a few hours. While it is an improvement it is still pretty bad. Some of the face scans, specifically shaqs, are AWFUL. The fluidity of movement that alot are clamoring over is head scratching to me because its not fluid at all. Feels clunky and SLOW. Shots look and feel weird. Rim dynamics are horrific to see. The ball looks way too small for the rim and hoop.... among other things.

You mean we just closed our eyes and approve NBA Live without critique?

[TheLand1987]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

I think your giving people too much credit. In this day and age I really doubt most people are “rooting” for NBA live as a franchise.

I think it’s more probable that the people actually do like the game and just have different tastes/expectations than you.

You didnt understand my post. People arent rooting for NBA Live specifically... I am saying they are rooting for someone to give 2K a run for its money in essence, making 2K have to give at least moderate effort. Because they clearly lack in that category.

[DBMcGee3]

I haven't unlocked Play Now yet but I'm really enjoying the 5v5 scrimmage.  Graphics are night and day from last year and I feel like they've really smoothed or removed out most of the weird animations, as well as adding a ton of new and better ones.  I'm definitely seeing too many crazy blocks at the rim, and overall it's kind of easy to score, but I also haven't touched the difficulty yet so I'm sure I'm playing on Pro or whatever is the default.  I've enjoyed playing against the CPU, although that apparently puts me in the minority.  Durant has given me the business in numerous different ways, Curry and Klay will both pop a 3 in your eye if you give them any space, and I'm really liking the way guys will take what you give them, including mid range jumpers which were practically nonexistent last year.

To each their own, for me this is a no-brainer at $40.  It doesn't do everything as well as the other game but I am having soooooo much more fun, which is ultimately the goal.  I'm really impressed and encouraged for the future of this franchise, and hopefully it lights a fire under the competition, which has been lacking in recent years in my opinion.

[Vic_Clancy]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

TL;DR: The demo has been enjoyable to me, but not quite enough to get my $60. Perhaps after more things are fleshed out, i'll pick it up on a sale.

First things first, i'm primarily a 2K player, so naturally in my head i'm comparing the demo to 2K18. I like a lot of things Live does, and 2K can obviously take a page or two out of EA's book, however, I still think Live is a year or two away.

On the positive side
Last year, my only experience with Live was the demo, which didn't impress me at all. This year's demo displays a much better game. I enjoyed all of the things available to me and enjoyed the basketball, somewhat (more on this later). It's great that I've been able to play the demo co-op with my friends.

Character creation is easy, and the game doesn't punish you for wanting to go back and try different builds. Over the weekend, I tried 4-5 different builds. Clothes, animations, and everything (except progress) is maintained through characters, and there's no mandatory cut scenes. Big positive. Being able to be useful on the court out the box. Fantastic. Also great that your avatar can be female. I understand that there's no females in the NBA, but there's no reason to limit our avatar in non-NBA modes. Girls play basketball too.

I enjoyed the concept of the Live Event Challenges. I'm able to use my created characters with friends against computer generated opponents. Something that I've wanted in the other game for a while and is a nice touch. Live also nails the ambiance of playing in these pick-up games. The (orchestral?) instrumentals that change with changes in possession, the hand-cam footage, the trash talk...all made those games pretty fun.

On the not so great side

Gameplay. First, I have to note that I still need to try the sample NBA/WNBA games available to us. However, with that said, the games that I did play, while generally enjoyable, didn't really do much to move me. I can see the gameplay easily becoming repetitive and leaving me bored.

I played a ton of Live Events duo'd with a friend, and I saw a lot of the same things over and over again.

For one, it sort of feels like everyone is the same. For computer players, it felt like Steve Nash and Anthony Davis were equals defensively. Both could stone wall my player (thinking of my 6'7 playmaker, Magic path) on the perimeter, but neither could really stop me from laying the ball in or dunking. My various created players all played about the same (I imagine they differentiate themselves as you get further up the tree, but that wasn't evident in the demo).

I imagine the experience against other human players is different, but I felt that the ticket to win in this game was to find a way to drive to the basket and you couldn't be stopped (Westbrook demonstrated that as well on the Paris court).

I also wasn't in love with a lot of the animations. Some of the dunk animations felt jilted and awkward. Like when you see an athletic, but non-basketball playing person on the court. There were also a good number of weird quirks, like the opposing AI, standing still, dribbling the shot clock out 3 or 4 different times. Obviously, these things can be ironed out, but I felt it was worth noting.

In the End

I like the direction Live is going. It's clearly learned from its past, and some of the well-known short comings of the other game. The other game is still someways ahead of them, but Live is steadily catching up. I imagine this installment will siphon off some of the fan base, but i'm not quite ready to make the swtich...though I will be keeping my eye on it.

[lareka]

Re: NBA Live 19 Demo Available Now For Both Xbox One & PS4 - Post Your Impressions He

My take is that people just REALLY REALLY want Nba Live to be relevant again which is why so many people on here are saying how good this demo is.

I think NBA2K games have been so lackluster lately and the devs for 2k just dont seem to really care about the grievances the consumers have. Which is disgusting because alot of the issues have been going on for YEARS.

With that said.... ive played this demo for a few hours. While it is an improvement it is still pretty bad. Some of the face scans, specifically shaqs, are AWFUL. The fluidity of movement that alot are clamoring over is head scratching to me because its not fluid at all. Feels clunky and SLOW. Shots look and feel weird. Rim dynamics are horrific to see. The ball looks way too small for the rim and hoop.... among other things.

"My take is that people just REALLY REALLY want Nba Live to be relevant again which is why so many people on here are saying how good this demo is." TRUE !

"I think NBA2K games have been so lackluster lately and the devs for 2k just dont seem to really care about the grievances the consumers have. Which is disgusting because alot of the issues have been going on for YEARS." SPOT-ON !

"The fluidity of movement that alot are clamoring over is head scratching to me because its not fluid at all. Feels clunky and SLOW. " I think it LOOKS clunky but it's not clunky when you play it. I think the movement is very fluid compared to NBA LIVE 18. They made crucial gameplay improvements.

"Shots look and feel weird. Rim dynamics are horrific to see. The ball looks way too small for the rim and hoop" Yes that's true as well