NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

[Steve_OS]

Pasta Padre has posted some NBA Live 09 videos, featuring a full game between the Bulls and Heat.

"This is the first full game I played of NBA Live 09. As such you’ll notice how much I struggle especially on the offensive end. It isn’t until the third quarter of the second game I played that I started to get into a flow offensively. You’ll witness that in the next set of videos which will be Warriors @ Clippers and then especially in the one after that which is Thunder @ Hornets where it all started to come together for me."

[Jay Bishop]

I know all the 2K9 addicts are gonna trip, but I'm just not sold on 2K9 this year and I have already ordered my copy of Live. As a sports gamer I need to feel that the game has made significant changes to the game each year for me to justify buying it. I just feel that while Live has added a laundry list of new features and gameplay improvements, 2K really isn't offering a lot that Live isn't. Sometimes the "if it ain't broke" mode of thimking can be a real letdown. @k must feel that since they are the B-Ball king, Live has to prove worthy before they go deep into the well. But it is this same thinking that has got their once "king of the sim " hockey game regulated to 2nd place by the once laughed at NHL series. I fear that the same fate will fall upon NBA2K if they don't take this thing serious. Why no 100+ classic teams ala college hoops? Why no online 5 vs 5 Teams and/or leauges? Why not a better commentary because Clark Kellogg completely takes me out of the game? I'd rather you just use actors ala NFL 2k and NBA 2k on dreamcast. Good ol' Dan and Mike with years of line you can remix and add new dialog to. Don't talk to me about new signature moves and Association 2.0 when the chemistry feature in 2K8 association was a joke. I won a championship with 7% chemistry for most of the season. My team should have imploded. All that being said I'm still gonna give 2k9 a good look, but if I am not as blown away by the improvements as I was in Live then I'll be hitting up that OS designed "College Hoops 2K9" roster on 2K share and calling that the new2K b-ball game for real.

[elprez98]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

Instead of comparing it directly to 2k9, I'm going to critique it on its own. I haven't played Live in probably 6 or 7 years now so it would be unfair and inflammatory to do a direct comparison.

Good:

1. I love the lighting and coloring in Live. It looks more "real visually." I'm not talking about the animations, just the lighting seems to be spot on.

2. I also like some of the player interactions. Most of the time, the players seem to actually interact instead of going into a preset animation.

3. I also like the sound of the crowd. Its seems well adjusted and is contextual to what it happening in the game.

4. I know this sounds stupid, but I like the net sound and animation. Little things like this make Live look like its really making progress.

5. Maybe its because I haven't played Live, but the commentary is wonderful. I'm sure it get repetitive, but after playing 2k for years, to hear, Collins with insightful commentary is refreshing.

6. Dunks aren't bad. I think they do a good job of jumping and interacting with the rim.


Bad:

1. The animations in Live still need work. There is just something off about the players. They still have a "spaghetti" look when the players are shooting and laying up.

2. Post game looks like it needs work. I think this goes back to animations as everyone looks the same in the post. Also I saw Kirk post some big man up and I'm not feeling that AT ALL.



All in all, Live doesn't look too bad this year. I'm probably not going to buy it, but it may get a rental this year.

[Behindshadows]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

Great Videos, but why do people keep using Youtube with their lame quality compressions.

Just use Gamevee.com and load up the footage, better and HD Quality and no compression, just how you uploaded is how it remains.

Overall game flows nice, can't say more than that, need better quality feeds than Youtube!

[23bluesman]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

Great Videos, but why do people keep using Youtube with their lame quality compressions.

Just use Gamevee.com and load up the footage, better and HD Quality and no compression, just how you uploaded is how it remains.

Overall game flows nice, can't say more than that, need better quality feeds than Youtube!

Yeah, you should have been one of the lucky ones to get the games early Behindshadows, no doubt I would be watching your high quality videos by now!

Back to the game, wow it got quiet at the end, lol! I liked Steve's comments at the beginning of the 4th. Hopefully they have more contextual commentary when being blown out, and when playing a close, tight game.

Nice to hear the crowd boo too. Hopefully when you're home and you build a 20+ point lead after the first 3 quarters and then lose it all during the 4th the crowd also starts booing the hell out of your team....(thinks back to game 4 of the finals...embarrassing, simply embarrassing)

[Pared]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

All that being said I'm still gonna give 2k9 a good look, but if I am not as blown away by the improvements as I was in Live then I'll be hitting up that OS designed "College Hoops 2K9" roster on 2K share and calling that the new2K b-ball game for real.

NBA 2k9 blows CHoops away. Those who would prefer being sentimental, however, won't agree.

[RubenDouglas]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

-commentary has segments where nothing is said for 4-6 seconds. when an action does occur, the commentary is stellar. "when wade normally shoots its off the dribble" when he made the stand still jumper.. nice detailed comment.

-kirk posting up a big man making the shot? pick and roll to the basket over 3 defenders for the heat? I know the sliders work, so theres really no worry in single player. online though, its questionable.

-too many contested made shots it seems. i havent seen a miss and only a few fouls. but again, in the demo, i turned fouls up and saw almost TOO many at just 80%, so there will be some tuning to get the numbers right to the NBA stats. lives demographic wants those points, and i understand that.

-3:45 into the first vid is a nice pass sequence by the user, clean quick crisp pass gives wade an open jumper. the other game doesnt have any smoothness to it in many instances

-best of all i see the CPU running around screens and doing actual NBA stuff. for years it felt more like a pickup game, with their 10 man mocap on the fly style.

-1:20 into second vid, mark blount makes a KG type move with the catch and layup. as suspected in the demo, in the paint defensive AI needs some help

[Rocafella83]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

Sorry but this does not get me excited to play NBA Live 09 and i'm not being a 2k fanboy this doesn't look any different to 08. It just looks way to easy to play and score. And i did think that Live 09 would be good by the way people were talking about it, but this game didn't step up to me. And yes i did play the demo and it was terrible. From watching tons of video from both Live 09 and NBA 2K9, IMO 2K9 is still light years ahead of NBA Live. watch some mod tells me i'm trolling..

And one other thing i noticed is that Live 09 uses the falling animation to much. Drew Gooden didn't even get hit and they put him in that same animation.

It seems like everyone is a good ball handler in live 09 which is so unrealistic.
Crossovers and around the back dribbles are way to effective and covers way to much ground.

It looks like you can pass the ball cross court at will with no deflections.

I didn't once while watching these videos have that wow..moment like i did while watching 2K9 videos.

And again these are just my opinions, so dont bash me for it.

[23bluesman]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

-commentary has segments where nothing is said for 4-6 seconds. when an action does occur, the commentary is stellar. "when wade normally shoots its off the dribble" when he made the stand still jumper.. nice detailed comment.

-kirk posting up a big man making the shot? pick and roll to the basket over 3 defenders for the heat? I know the sliders work, so theres really no worry in single player. online though, its questionable.

-too many contested made shots it seems. i havent seen a miss and only a few fouls. but again, in the demo, i turned fouls up and saw almost TOO many at just 80%, so there will be some tuning to get the numbers right to the NBA stats. lives demographic wants those points, and i understand that.

-3:45 into the first vid is a nice pass sequence by the user, clean quick crisp pass gives wade an open jumper. the other game doesnt have any smoothness to it in many instances

-best of all i see the CPU running around screens and doing actual NBA stuff. for years it felt more like a pickup game, with their 10 man mocap on the fly style.

Yeah, like I said, Steve had some nice comments in the beginning of the 4th, but then it was as if he disappeared suddenly and just came back near the end.

[RubenDouglas]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

-hughes fadeaway long two contested late in the 1st qrt.
-another blount post move. is this the same scrub thats been with miami awhile? he's mirroring KG status

-i missed a heat steal. the cpu PG got picked and i guess got dazzed because he couldnt pick up the ball. led to a user fastbreak. decent alley oop animation. seemed to flow decently.

-3:40 into the 2nd vid, full court pass to wade almost gives them an easy layup

-3:45 into 2nd vid you have a screen and roll with BLOUNt who catches a bounce pass through 4 guys and goes up strong. This really seems too easy, much like a lead pass in the 2k series.

-banks blocked.. then hughes. hughes' animation looked quite terrible lol.. led to a nice fastbreak though with no cpu catchup logic.

[RubenDouglas]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

almost exclusively in the middle to end of the 2nd vid were misses and some fouls.. great to see.. which will make slider changes even harder with this qrt to qrt inconsistencies.

I absolutely loved CPu larry hughes running to the corner after giving the ball up to kirk. and kirk penetrating and FINDING him.


it looks to play a decent game of basketball. imo where live 07 should be. but sometimes that sort of stuff happens

edit:

-3rd video is back to tons of makes. hughes and kirk making tough shots. heat cant make or do anything.. hot streaks and cold streaks in the game??/ apparently. blount with another screen and roll catch and dunk. then a post move by him.. not sure what to say. im left confused and neutral.

[blues rocker]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

wow....looking at these videos it is apparent that it is WAAAAAAAAAAY too easy to score. nobody ever misses a shot...even contested off-balance leaners are going in from all over the court. they really need to lower the success rate of shots based on difficulty and how closely the shots are contested.

i like what live offers in terms of control and responsiveness, but they are still way behind in realism. it is still too "arcade." players are making circus shots all over the place and shooting percentages are like in the .80's. way too high.

defensive AI looks bad...the defense seems to have little awareness and lets passes whiz right by them without sticking a hand out to deflect the ball.

live is much better offensively, but defensively they are really lacking. they need to spend all of their time this year really working on the defense (defensive AI, awareness, control, responsiveness).

[RubenDouglas]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

blues rocker, i feel the same way after dozens of demo games. in the paint defensive AI just wasnt where it should be. not picking up the open man or helping out on helpside defense.

RE the shot make success, sliders worked in the demo. percentages were down, fouls were up, unrealstic blocks were out. There is that HOPE, as always.

my only fear and i didnt touch up on this on the demo but the screen and roll success rate is 100 times too high. bounce passes going through and around 3 guys for a mark blount acrobatic post move. the question is , which slider helps with that? pass deflections raised?

I did like the fluidity of the passing and swinging the ball on the user end. tons of open shots... its the highly contested ones that get made more frequently.

EDIT: finally finished the last video... That last vid was the complete opposite.... nothing but misses.
-nice to see a stolen entry pass off the screen and roll
-but then a marion screen and roll is done with success through and over 3 other guys.
-marion is blocked like 3 times throughout the game. sliders will help this thankfully

final impression: sliders leave me highly optimisistic that this can be a fun and realistic game to play as a compliment to the other game

[23]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)

Im hoping the global editor helps some of those things across the board

[i c u cant stop me]

Re: NBA Live 09 Video: Bulls @ Heat (Pasta Padre)