Old School Friday
Time to reminisce about the greatest NBA video game ever made. That’s right, it’s been more than a decade and the Old School is still beating the New.
Almost forgot! The other day I mentioned how J.J. Redick will be on the cover of College Hoops 2K7, and it led to a little exchange about how basketball video games just aren’t that good anymore. Well, I present to you my favorite Basketball video game of all-time, NBA Live ‘95.
Sure they’ve made all kinds of advancements in graphics over the years. The stat keeping and season modes are incredibly deep. Artificial Intelligence is good enough that you can’t get 8 blocks a game with your shooting guard cause you know that the computer will get the ball, run behind the 3 point line and fire away over and over. But the title rhymes: “Live ‘95″ is all you have to say, and the gameplay was so easy. On Sega Genesis, A was turbo, B was pass, C was jump to shoot, and on defense the object of the game was to bump your man 20 feet out of bounds. My timeline of basketball video games where the newest entry revolutionized the genre goes like this: Double Dribble, Bulls vs. Lakers, NBA Showdown ‘94, and Live ‘95 as the best. Honorable mention to the first 2K game for Dreamcast, but not really.
Look at the cover! Today it’s all about marketing the athlete who gets the sacred cover of the game slot. Who’s on this cover? Horry? Starks? Hakeem? Charles Smith? The two teams from the Finals made it, as they should.
Memory lane section of the post: I had to invite myself over to a friends house to play, and this was when I went to High School in the Bronx and wouldn’t get home until 6 if I left right away. There was alot of NBA Live played on the weekends. We once got into a fist fight and had to be separated by parents because I scored 80 with Hakeem against him and it messed up the stats in his regular season. One day I couldn’t take not having my own copy anymore and I actually bought it for the PC (Genesis was like $240 back then. Now you can pretty much get one for free). I still remember to this day when I beat Orlando with a buzzer beater hook shot from Derrick Coleman.
I would strongly advise against breaking out your Genesis or downloading an emulator and ROM of the game. It will only destroy your memories, and you’ll be like “These are all stick figures.” But trust me, this game is a classic, and when we talk about the different players on Old School Fridays, they’re all right there in their prime in Live ‘95.
My favorite team to be was Golden State. Hardaway, Sprewell, Mullin, Owens, Webber. Unstoppable.
Ah… the memories. And with that, I’m off for a week on vacation. Have a great weekend everyone, a better week after that, and an even better weekend after that!
20 Responses to “Old School Friday”
Aug.4 at 5:36 pm
Jack says:
Haha nice timing man. I’m going on holiday tomorrow for 2 weeks and I was thinking “damn… I’m gonna have to go through 2 weeks of Links…” Have a good vacation, man.
Aug.4 at 6:44 pm
Waxtron says:
SNES owns, owned, pwnd & will always & forever own all over that Genesis crap son!
Aug.4 at 7:24 pm
winston and the telescreen says:
live 95 for genesis was indeed a classic
it was so much a classic that when a few months ago I went out to finally once again buy a basketball game I went with the nba live series remembering how quality they were
anyone else notice how D-wade broke the curse?
its a fairly good game
the only thing that really bothers me is how Kobe misses over 50% of his shots
thats nonsense, they should have him shoot at about 92%
Aug.4 at 7:41 pm
DP says:
Yeah son, Live 95 was pretty straight. I just wish the basketball games today were more exciting.
Aug.4 at 8:56 pm
Atma Brother #1 says:
It’s all about Jordan vs Bird! Unstoppable Baby!
http://www.goldenstateofmind.com/story/2006/8/4/205323/4850
Aug.4 at 11:40 pm
Soulless says:
The best game imo was nba inside drive 2000. The commentary was funny.
Aug.5 at 2:42 am
Mighty says:
i remember that if you fouled a player going for a dunk or lay up in the snes version that you can push them so far they fly off!
Aug.5 at 3:10 pm
baller numero uno says:
the best game is live 07 which hasnt even came out yet that i already got what yall know about that because i knoe all about that peace!!!!!!!
Aug.6 at 2:40 am
Michael NZ says:
Live 95: best basketball game ever. I haven’t bothered playing any bball game since Live 03 on PS2 which sucked so bad.
Aug.6 at 5:10 am
Mighty says:
the lay ups were so dope and the behind the back passes that id just keep messing with the replay! this game has so many memories for me that i think thats how i memorized the players jersey numbers. and when you sub, the music was cool plus it had those colorful stamina bars! this is for snes version the opening of the game was the bass music would grow louder while the NBA letters one by one would lit up… “EA SPORTS…its in the game” i first heard that line in this game wait…oh that was in bulls vs lakers 91 in sega!!! also back then, it was so hard to injure players even if i foul the hell out of them as to compared to the games today. pls do that NBA ALL STAR CHALLENGE game on sega next time! i think that game came out 92-93. it had horse!!!!
Aug.6 at 12:28 pm
Derms says:
You are correct sir! That game is the bomb. I scored 100 points with Hakeem and my brother dropped 90 with Sir Charles in the same game. Tons of D. Ha Ha
Aug.6 at 12:57 pm
Lang Whitaker says:
Mighty, I believe you’re referring to the Chris Childs glitch in the game whereby he could magically fly all over the place. Or that might have been in a later iteration. And Sam, you’re sleeping on Larry Bird vs. Dr. J.
Aug.6 at 4:36 pm
Chou says:
i had this on SNES and i was only, like 9 or 10. NBA LIVE will forever be my favorite basketball video game franchise. (i still feel bad they took away the shove function [or hand check, that’s button A for SNES] because sometimes i really feel like i wanna Bill Laimbeer some players gunning for MVP in my LIVE 06 dynasty. (i have a 2010 Knicks team with Starbury[MVP!], Tha Goods, C-Frye, Chris Wilcox and a rookie named Kerri Teini) oh, and they have a playable version of LIVE 95 in LIVE 06 but the players were all AI-generated. (it’s still fun, though)
Aug.7 at 1:25 am
Mighty says:
im scared why i remember this but the celtics vs lakers in sega had a really nice half time show! there’s a guy in a suit with a small tv(where your game shown in the 1st half) while he talks. i guess as a kid i just thought half time was a 1 button start/exit corny graphic page lol! the video game boxes of them were amazing, it had the 10 top players at the back performing their own signature move then next to it is a super small box with their video game copied moves!
Aug.7 at 1:34 am
Mighty says:
then also around 95 sega came out with NBA ACTION starring the admiral. i remember it because it had a create a player mode for sega! marv albert would shout in the start even while the screen was black, “he throws a prayer……ITS GOOD!” but that game had a confusing menu for me
Aug.7 at 11:29 am
Garett says:
In terms of straight fun games, everybody’s forgetting about the first NBA JAM’s (original and tournamnet edition)for SNES and genesis. Stupid games, but fun as hell, whether draining three’s non-stop or doing ridiculous dunks.
Aug.7 at 11:54 am
Patrick says:
NBA Jam doesn’t belong with these games, but its one of the best video games (also arcade) ever made. Its still addictive on the SNES (even Tournament Edition, with its larger rosters and injuries) with 4 people, but was truly amazing in the arcade. I thought Live ‘96 was classic.. cant forget Coach K either
Aug.8 at 1:14 pm
DBlizzy says:
I’ll never forget the first time i played that game…I was like in 6th grade and had gotten kicked out of the after school program for fighting. i went by my boys house and played live 95.. after that I was like fuck the after school program. I remember i played with Orlando and I had penny and he had a wide open dunk and while i was in the air i pressed the pass button by accident, just so happened that shaq was in the lane too and penny through a mid air alley oop to him, I fronted like i meant to do it Classic!.
Aug.14 at 6:33 pm
Brian Culshaw says:
Live 95! Wow, I used to play ball all afternoon, full court 4 hours, then stop by the store, pick up some brew, head to my boys house, play Live (my team was G’State too, we had some fierce games between the nuggets Robert Pack and Spreewell) for like 4 or 5 hours a night (i know get a life) then hit the clubs, get up the next day and do it again. ‘95 was the best, but when you could create your own player, that was the bomb. My neighborhood crew could be any nba team! lol
Sep.14 at 4:20 pm
Spurfan1 says:
What?