Yao Ming in NBA 2K3 (it's bad)

[boxMAN29]

Here is something that many people who played NBA 2K3 don't know about, in the official downloadable online roster updates that Sega provided during the 2002-03 NBA season, Yao Ming was added to the game along with a few other players, but this rendition of Yao Ming is really bad, and quite nightmare inducing, I have attached what he looks like on NBA 2K3 and an actual photo of him around the game's release.

Yes, the back of his jersey says "YAO" on it in-game

Due to being a DLC addition, the game doesn't have any commentary speech files for him on the disc so the commentators and P.A. announcer call him by his jersey number, and 2K3 is the only known video game to do this to Yao Ming, he also has no portrait for the same reason.

[Andrew]

That is indeed terrifyingly bad!

[boxMAN29]

That is indeed terrifyingly bad!

Yeah, agreed, this actually creeped me out when I first saw this sub-par appearance of Yao Ming, it doesn't even look Asian, it looks like a cartoonish and angry Caucasian man.

This is the worst rendition of Yao Ming in any video game, even his rendition on NBA Jam (2003) looked better than this.

[Andrew]

A definite downside of cyberface updates being rare outside of PC releases at the time. Yao Ming signing his rookie contract late kept him out of the console versions of NBA Live 2003, but at least he signed in time to be in the PC version.

[boxMAN29]

A definite downside of cyberface updates being rare outside of PC releases at the time. Yao Ming signing his rookie contract late kept him out of the console versions of NBA Live 2003, but at least he signed in time to be in the PC version.

[ Image ]

Yup! and Sega was able to add him in the first official downloadable roster update for 2K3