Live 14 Reviews - 4.3 IGN

[Davon6]

Just to be clear; EA, the publisher has had 4 years to get the personnel, ideas, and plan together to get the game right and out the door. The current development crew at EA Tiburon has had 1 year. Does that seem about right? If so, ok. Scott, Sean O'Brien and pretty much the entire EA Tiburon crew working on Live gets a pass in my book. EA Corp HQ does not. There is no excuse for their poor decision making in the past, let's just hope they've learned and let the crew at Tiburon have creative control over the project.

While I do agree with you the problem will reside in the fact that EA the company could care less about the consumer. If we stop giving them our hard earned cash then maybe they might consider their mismanagement but until then, they will push Tiburon to crank out the game no matter what. Subpar or not, if the customer buys it they still get paid. So I suppose a part of the responsibility to get them to right the ship as it were lies with us the consumer. No more money until we get the game we deserve as fans.

[bowdown]

They should atleast sell their shit for cheaper.

[Phreak50]

No excuse. Especially considering the new team have NOT created a new game or a new engine.

This is just scraps (mostly bad) from Live 10 and moreso Live 13.

The animations are disgraceful. Whoever mo-capped and implemented them should never work in the industry again.

And the commentary, my god, games 5 years ago could piece together phrases better. Not to mention whenever they talk about a specific player, it's like they were asked to do so after the recording sessions and have just phoned them in.

Yes, there are some positives but not enough to prevent this from being a joke. The NBA needs to rethink their licencing agreement in regards to quality products.

I wonder if Sony would jump back in, given how well they've done with The Show.

[Andrew]

The IGNITE engine is new to next gen, though it would appear that a lot of assets have been re-used in NBA Live 14.

[Phreak50]

They said the same about FIFA, but you only have to look at the replay in the PS4 version. The engine is fake. As you zoom in with a replay all the bells and whistles draw in. (Similar to what 2K used to do in their games), whereas the gameplay graphics are almost identical to current gen.

I wanted Live to succeed because to me, Live 10 was the best bball game I've ever played.

But EA don't deserve any more chances.

Nor do they deserve a licence like the NBA.

[Andrew]

I can understand where you're coming from, I think a lot of gamers feel the same way and fair enough, too. When the consumer feels burned, you only get so many second chances and that's completely on EA. I personally don't agree with the notion that they don't deserve the NBA license, or indeed that anyone does or doesn't deserve it; it's not as though it's a sacred right, honour or privilege. It's a business deal at the end of the day and if they or anyone else want to invest the time, money and energy on throwing their hat into the ring, so be it. The consumer will ultimately vote with their wallet.

[Patr1ck]

Honestly, I only find a few things wrong with the game. The unfortunate thing is that they are major things that make the game more frustrating to play when it should be fun.

This delay in moving your player around has been in the game since at least NBA Live 09 and maybe 08. It completely kills creativity because you have to anticipate everything instead of being able to react. It makes online play even more frustrating with the network connection delay added on to it, and it is not an authentic representation of the athletic abilities that professional basketball players possess. If they fixed this one area in a patch, I could live with the passing system for this year. I could live with the difficulty of contesting shots in the paint. I could live with a few other shortcomings because this one area would allow players to actually play the game while having a sense of what is going on.

[bigh0rt]

I can understand where you're coming from, I think a lot of gamers feel the same way and fair enough, too. When the consumer feels burned, you only get so many second chances and that's completely on EA. I personally don't agree with the notion that they don't deserve the NBA license, or indeed that anyone does or doesn't deserve it; it's not as though it's a sacred right, honour or privilege. It's a business deal at the end of the day and if they or anyone else want to invest the time, money and energy on throwing their hat into the ring, so be it. The consumer will ultimately vote with their wallet.

The more companies that have the NBA license, the better it is for the consumer. More options, more competition, as thin as it may seem currently, ultimately leads to a better product overall, and lower prices. Recall back when 2K first dropped their prices to $20, as I recall, when they were trying to get people to transfer from EA to begin with.

[chicagoRAW]

To be fair, the graphics on next gen is an all around EA Sports issue. Having Madden and Fifa on PS4, I can say I can't notice any obvious improvements over their current gen counter parts, besides better AA.

As for Live, I think the reviews have been very fair. It's not a good product at all. A few people here have almost been Live apologists, understandable to a point, because this is nba-live.com. But what other product would you be this lenient on? Especially when they're charging you full price on it. I don't understand stand saying you can't compare it to 2K, compare it to other versions of Live. Ok so I shouldn't compare it to a good game, but instead to the game that's been terrible the last handful of releases? Also saying there were people playing who didn't know how to play it the right way, so it made the game look worse, doesn't change the fact that if you know how to play it, it's still clunky, unresponsive, looks terrible, has weird robotic animations, ball floats when you pass, etc. If you have a zombie play NBA2K, the game will still look good, be responsive, and smooth (2K is far from perfect).

I tried to give the demo a go a few times and I quit after the first quarter every time. It's not fun, it plays bad, it looks bad. No other product this bad would have people saying just push through it, it's not that bad.

I'm all for having as many basketball games as possible. NBA Inside Drive, NBA the Inside, NBA Live, NBA 2K, etc. But I want the game to at least be playable. I'm down for popping in a crappy NBA game and messing around in it, hell, I bought NBA08 and NBA09: The inside for PS3 (on sale ofc), it was crap, but at least it was responsive. The fact that Live 14 still has the delay thing and it's supposedly a new team working on it, is a joke. I mean, seriously, there's a delay to moving your player! I haven't seen this in any game of any genre. Honestly, I'd be happy if they just fixed the delay for Live 15 at this point.

[ThaLiveKing]

If they gave us Game Speed sliders, the game would play more to our liking. This game moves so slow, not everybody can play at this slow pace. I know there's some Sim guys out there who play the game at 25 speed, rather than 50 or 60, but this game can't be played at this pace. BounceTek is useless at this pace also.

[Patr1ck]

I don't know if a game speed issue would fix the problem. The main issue is getting your player moving in the first place and the amount of time it takes to stop or even change direction.

[Phreak50]

Oh and as much as EA have massively lowered his volume... that annoying courtside voice (YES THAT ONE) is still there.

So that is now... wait for it... the 18th year since he was first used.

Says so much really...

[ThaLiveKing]

I don't know if a game speed issue would fix the problem. The main issue is getting your player moving in the first place and the amount of time it takes to stop or even change direction.

The play calling is pretty much in your hands. You have to press so many buttons to get player movement, and with the slow speed. You can't take advantage of open court opportunities. Its kind of hard to get easy baskets in this game. The game is realistic though, I played 2 12 minute quarters games and had realistic results and stats. They just have to some how tweak it to make it fun, cause the game is not fun at all

[Patr1ck]

The two biggest crutches that the slow movement causes are the inability to find those open opportunities, like you said, and of course, defensively trying to react and stop the offense or even recover after you are beaten.

I tried to play a game today and it was so frustrating, I couldn't finish it.

[bigh0rt]

The two biggest crutches that the slow movement causes are the inability to find those open opportunities, like you said, and of course, defensively trying to react and stop the offense or even recover after you are beaten.

I tried to play a game today and it was so frustrating, I couldn't finish it.

This is how I feel, too. The game sucks. It's impossible. And not because it's difficult. Because it's choppy and awkward, and you don't have control of your players. The animations aren't fluid at all. I couldn't play more than a half without just being annoyed and not wanting to play ever again.

On a positive note, the crowd looks fantastic. And there's potential with the player models and faces, as well. The gameplay though, is just brutal and unplayable.

[shadowgrin]

This is how I feel, too. The game sucks. It's impossible. And not because it's difficult. Because it's choppy and awkward, and you don't have control of your players.

So much for the goals and the foundation of the Live dev team then...

We felt authentic gameplay, control and the connected experience would provide the best foundation for the future. As a result, game visuals and animation polish suffered. Improvements on these fronts are also in development now for NBA LIVE 14. You will notice in the coming weeks and months that the game’s visuals and animation will improve significantly.

[Patr1ck]

Bigh0rt and my definition of control is more of response from controller input regarding player movement, while EA's seems to be more general. They are most likely referring to the button layout and the variety of decisions you can make both as a player and from a strategic perspective. I think if they could improve that animated response to better replicate the athletic abilities of NBA players, the gameplay experience could improve dramatically.