NBA Live 07

[JoeyMcM93]

Here's my review.

Live 07 isn't that bad as a whole. It can be really fun, but there are little glitches and a BIG glitch that can hurt and even destroy the fun factor.

The sub bug absolutely kills the potential enjoyment of the game. The "Fatigue effect" slider is non-existant, even though its still in the settings file, the game doesn't use it(I did some hacking). The same goes for the cpu auto-sub slider, but it is at a default 50(again, hacking). The only substitutions that will happen are from players in foul trouble, injuries, OR if you are you are in a blow out, the cpu will sub in all the bench players. I like that feature, but with the fatigue-sub-bug, its pretty useless(YAY the cpu bench players get to play with 2/1 minute(s) left! :roll: ). Oh, and the PG for each team has a miraculous amount of energy, almost never tiring. Maybe thats the reason for the PG dominance.

PG dominance(hard to stop their penetration, too many shots taken, not enough passing) can be easily shut down by the user with a double team, or by playing help defense with another player. On the PC version, the PG bug can also be fixed by the mod community with the aiact file(MVP datafile equivalent).

The commentary is better than ever, and they finally say common last names for created players. Commentary file this year is 700 mb compared to about 200 in previous versions.

The crowd really gets into it this year. You can even tap up on the right analog while on defense to "pump up' the crowd and they will all start cheering louder. Its an older feature that was left out before, but brought for 07. On great plays for the Home team, they explode into cheering.

EA took away two cameras - Center Court, and Sideline. Many people enjoyed those cameras. Not like the current cams aren't buggy as-is. The Press Cam is very close to a TV style presentation, but when you are inbounding, you can't see the inbounder. Not to mention the inbounder hasn't been able to move along the baseline(like in the real NBA ) for years.

The Freestyle Superstars are once again too powerful, and the risk/reward is a whole lot of reward, very little risk. For instance, I am shooting 65% with Elton Brand four games into a Dynasty using 90% superstar moves. My guards are at a more realistic percentage in the lower 40's.

Rebounding is much better this year. The fixed the offensive rebounding problem that plagued 06, but centers and power forwards get most of the boards. I have yet to see a player box out. Its just a leaping/position contest for the ball. At least the numbers are better.

They lessened the turnovers by allowing passes to go through a players body. In 06 that player would have knocked the ball loose or stolen it entirely. You can now hold the pass button for a lob pass or tap it for a quick pass.

Alleyoops are alot better this year, you can't just toss one up and you got an easy 2. You can also direct the alleyoops with the left analog. Many bad alleyoops go out of bounds. Timing is key.

Direct passing/switching is horrible. You can't direct switch while the cpu is inbounding or shooting freethows. Also, they mixed up the Dunk and Layup icons so pressing dunk while direct passing gives it to your power forward like always, but the power forward has a "layup" icon over his head. They also switched the buttons for the center and small forward. It was fine how it was, everyone was used to it. Useless change. Sometimes direct-pass triggers off-ball control which confuses the hell out of you as you scramble to get back control of the player with the ball.

Your teammates have a big problem playing help defense. So you have to do everything. Its not always, but when you are beat by some penetration and your teammates just sort of stare at him like a statue allowing the easy layup/dunk, it shows you how unfinished the game is.

There are a couple little bugs that are annoying.

Bench animations are back and buggier then ever. After a "and-1" foul, one will get up very excited jumping and throwing his arms, another will get up and clap, another will point his hand towards the court, but the other players will sit motionless, some of them laying on the floor of the court. Not only that, but when the aniamtion is over, the one who jumped out his seat sits backdown on thin air and not in his chair, or in another players chair, while he's still in it.

Sometimes a player will dribble the shot clock to zero and turn it over. This is due to bad AI, because what happens is the cpu calls a play and one player is trying to get into position to trigger the play only to be running in place because a defender is in his way and not moving. Happened to me once.

When you edit a player or create a player, you choose your shoes for Home and Away games. Go back into the edit palyer screen and you will notice that the shoe you selected for Away games is now your Home shoe, and your Away shoe is at the default. Also, if you don't go into practice mode first, when you go to edit any player, it looks like they have a genereic headshape.

There is also a typo with one of the rookies birthdates. The game shows him as 57 years old, and he retires after one year during a Dynasty.

Along with the sub bug, players who are put on the bench do not recover quickly enough. I'll often bring a starter back in with 3/4 stamina because the bench player is completely out of stamina. I don't think it really matters, because it doesn't appear that the game actually fatigues the players, and I believe that is why players are not subbed. It looks like they are getting fatigued because the stamina bar lowers, but if you pay close attention, they don't look or play tired at all.

About the reviewer

When the reviewer talks about missed dunks, he lost me. I do not recall missing but a few dunks which were putbacks or alleyoops. He is an obvious NBA JAM enthusiast. He also talks about putting up shots in the lane that end up having you go behind the backboard and tunring the ball over out of bounds. This was a big problem last year with mid-air adjusted shots. They have changed the animations this year and it really cut down on this alot. The only time this happens to me is because I don't know all the moves. So performing a sweeping hook on the baseline can cause me to shoot the ball behind the backboard, but I could have easily pivoted to the middle or performed a jumpshot that wouldn't have gone out of bounds.

He also has horrible timing with jumpshots. I have made many open jumpshots in Live 07. They are not hard at all, release just before you get to the peak of your jump.

The biggest bugs are the fatigue-sub bug, Offensive passing/shooting selection AI, and Defensive Help/Rotation AI. If EA can fix those, even without freestyle superstars or ESPN integration, they will have the best PLAYING basketball game on the market. In short, their priorities are screwed - marketing game features to get sales. I'm sure its hard as hell to create a game every year that has something new, but still plays great, but I am not sympathetic.

Overall the gameplay is enjoyable, but encountering the bugs doesn't make you laugh as much as it makes you want to break something. Being a very serious NBA Live gamer for the PC, If this fatigue-sub bug isn't fixed by December 25th, I'm grabbing an xbox360, and 2k7 with my christmas money. Because I love basketball and I want to enjoy the video game version of it. For now, I'll just play MVP and keep up hope that they patch the PC version.

Dude, you hit the nail right on the head with that post right there.

[ixcuincle]

The new free throw shooting system stinks and I miss the old lines system. The new one requires you to push up and push down , which I do but then the player misses because the game claims the free throw was "missed to the right" even though I press the joystick up. The game is also difficult offensively , the only reason I beat Miami today was by Marbury going "Starbury" and scoring 45 pts. I am still trying to get adjusted to the game , though , so I will probably get used to the shooting eventually.

What I do like about the game is the new bar overlay. You can also hire assistant coaches , have off days , and research rumors , which is all very cool. If my team wasn't 2-7 I would like the game more but I'm the Knicks so I guess I am to blame for choosing such a poor team :)

[mvp23]

I agree waht you guys said about the game. I mean the game really is not that good compared to some of the previous versions like 2004 version. It seems like the game was just updated, not upgraded. Not alot of improvments from last year. The graphics are the same and game play is bad. The PG scores/takes most of the points, even with the lakers Kobe does not take/score more than 10 points in the game and that is all you need to know how the game is. In the NBA Live 2004, the players seemed bigger durring the game. In the 06 and 07 the players in the game look/are smaller and unforems really suck. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying that this is the worst game ever but compared to other Basketball games, nba live 07 is not that good. The only two things that I like about the game are the Menue and Sound Track. The Menu layout with those little clips is very good and the music is awesome.

[pdub]

myk13 , it's weird that you missed so many consecutive dunks. I know one of the reviews talked about the same thing, but I haven't experienced that myself. :???:

I like the new freethrow system, but I'm not sure if it takes the players freethrow ability into consideration or if it just goes by the users timing. You only have a tiny bit of room when you press up, if you push a little left or right, you will miss. Youc an also just press the shoot button and the cpu will take the freethrow for you based on the players freethrow rating.

A patch for the PC version is under development. :jive:

[Klesko174]

yeah, i bought nba live 07, played about 2 games, rented nba 2k7, which is infinitely better. traded live in the day after i bought it and bought nba 2k7. i wish i could express in writing how much better 2k7 is than live. there's no way to do that. 2k7 muuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, better.

[jogar84]

A new patch is coming out for PC. But i doubt it will fix all of the problems and bugs reported. They'll probably fix like 1-2 games. No way I am buying or playing this game.

[ronmexico]

myk13 , it's weird that you missed so many consecutive dunks. I know one of the reviews talked about the same thing, but I haven't experienced that myself. :???:

I like the new freethrow system, but I'm not sure if it takes the players freethrow ability into consideration or if it just goes by the users timing. You only have a tiny bit of room when you press up, if you push a little left or right, you will miss. Youc an also just press the shoot button and the cpu will take the freethrow for you based on the players freethrow rating.

A patch for the PC version is under development. :jive:

I just hope they do patch it up cause then I can actually play it. I borrowed it from a buddy of mine, and jeez, is it terrible. It's a lot better for the PSP, and it's about half the size. I guess they used half the memory for terribling it up. :(

[Don]

What's so good about 2K7?

[ronmexico]

300 unique player shots. Not messed up shooting. Great realism. What's not so good about it? Even the dynasty mode is quite good.