Saturday, July 6, 2013

Return of Live

   It's been a few years, but it's FINALLY coming back. NBA Live will return after three long years since it's 'NBA Elite 11' collapse. For as long as I can remember , when it comes to professional basketball video games, the "NBA 2K series" and the "NBA Live" have competed back and forth for the title of the #1 selling basketball game. The NBA Live series lasted until 2010. For 2011, EA Sports changed the name of the series to "NBA Elite". The game NBA Elite 11 was set to release in October of 2011, but due to many glitches and such, EA decided not release the game. In the demo, one prevalent glitch displayed former Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum being stuck at half court.


   Since then, the basketball gaming world has been dominated by the NBA 2K series. NBA 2K 12 sold for over  five million copies, while NBA 2K 13 has the franchise record for most sales during a debut week in the history of the franchise. While these two games have been great, part of their success is because of the lack of competition. 
     Determined to return, EA Sports hired a whole new team to bring back the once very popular NBA Live game. With new features such as bouncetek, the user will have the ability to control how the players dribble like never before. The EA Sports team is aware  that they have a lot of ground to cover, but  seem to believe that they can reestablish their spot as a top notch game within the gaming industry. Since March, EA Sports has been advertising their advancement with a new video machine called the Ignite E3 engine. This engine is something that will be used to take games to another level, especially for the XBOX one and the Play Station 4 counsels. During an EA Sports NBA Live 14 Q & A via Twitter, I was able to ask how this engine will help the game. EA responded to my question stating: "Animation quality, physics, and fluidity to name of few."  As an excited NBA Live fan, I can only hope that this engine would serve as a positive step in the right direction. NBA Live 14 drops in the fall.

 NBA Live 14 Trailer