NBA Live 2004 – GC – Review

It’s that time of year when hoop dreams will soon begin playing out young boys’ fantasies across America. The money, the prestige, and above all, the shoes! With most male teens, it’s a toss-up between the dazzling dunks made by their favorite NBA stars, or what’s currently playing on their feet.

But of course, not every teen can be a James LeBron, right out of high school pick, or every guy a pro like Iverson, and that’s where the fun of virtual gaming comes in. Everyone can be a b-ball wizard with NBA Live 2004, whatever their real basketball skills.

There are several modes of play, the main ones being Play Now, a quick-game mode, Dynasty, a simulated season with reward points earned for certain met goals, Sport Bio, a reward system tied to owning multiple EA Sports games, and 1-on-1, where players can play a game of one-on-one against current or past basketball greats.

In Play Now, users can jump immediately into a quick game. A list of “quick settings” gives players basic options to choose from, and players can also jump to the Settings area from here for more advanced options, if desired. 1-1 is self-explanatory, and pits any two players, past and present, against each other. Dynasty is the meat of the game, and it’s here where the most fun can be had. This is the simulation area of the game, wherein a team can be taken throughout a season and improved by using points earned to hire coaches for specific skill training, sending the teams to training, using drafts to change the team’s roster, and also using points earned for new gear in the NBA store. Other modes are present, but are mainly redundant, as in the Season, which is pretty much covered in the Dynasty mode, Individual Practice, which is useless except for practicing the Freestyle Control moves, and Playoffs, which skips the season and moves right on into the Playoffs.

Dynasty is the most fun mode for single players, and allows the most management. Certain goals have to be met per game, most of which consist of hitting a minimum number of shots, points and plays. These points can be spent on hiring coaches to improve the team, buying new gear and sending players to training camps. The training camps merely consist of watching animations of the guys playing ball, which isn’t much fun. Actually having interspersed lessons, along with the animations, would have been more involving. The coaches work behind the scene, and only the team progress in that particular area is shown.

The NBA store is pitiful, when compared to the recent EA release of Tiger Woods. I mean, nothing like. The selection is small, and the stuff doesn’t look very appealing, again, as when compared to Tiger Woods. Players can spend literally hours in the golf pro shop in Woods, but there’s just not much to the NBA store, even with the brand names and familiar shoes of famous players.

The controls have been changed a little from previous editions, and now players can institute a “pro-hop” move to take a couple of steps and then jam with the ball. Also, there are now two shot buttons, “B” for regular shots (also fakes with a tap of the button), and “X” for lay-ups and dunks. This is a good and bad thing, as in sometimes hitting the incorrect shot button in the heat of the moment can result in a truly horribly executed shot from outside. More advanced moves can be played as in Turbo, Backing down the defender, Alley-oop passes, and direct passes to specific players.

Besides specific shots, players can also control the movements of the entire offensive team, whether they have the ball or not, by using the “off-ball” switch, which allows users to control offensive players to get into position to receive the ball. Quick plays for offense and defense are available by the use of the bottom directional pad, for pick-and-roll, post up, man-to-man, and Isolation for offense, and man-to-man, zone, double team and full court press for defense.

Freestyle control is back. This is where individual moves can be practiced and added to the user’s repertoire of moves with the “C” control stick. Supposedly combos of moves can be created in practice mode, but we were never sure if we were actually creating anything while practicing with the “C” stick in practice mode. These moves consist of spin moves, cross-overs, and other smooth glides on the way to the hoop.

An all new “10 man motion capture” adds to the realism of the game, with all the players acting and reacting like real b-ballers would. Players jockey for position, and wave their arms around signifying they’re open for a shot. Gain the ball, and the other team will be stuck on you like white on rice.

New commentators Marv Albert and Mike Fratello really add realism to the game. Their running commentary is the right amount of play-specific comments on the progress of the game, without being overdone or silly. If your team is lacking on defense, they’ll let you know. There are even occasional comments from the bench, the coach and fans giving general advice, relevant to the situation on the court. Sounds like squeaky shoes, the ball hitting the court, and hopefully your ball swishing through the net, are all present and well done.

There is a jukebox of hip-hop style tunes from groups like Black Eyed Peas, OutKast, Chingy and more. Whatever parents may feel about these groups, there’s nothing objectionable about the songs on the game. Most of the music is only present in the menu arena, as the music doesn’t make itself known too much during gameplay.

The graphics have been improved and feature recognizable players, but still could be improved more. Only on a close-up can the individual players be discerned, and the shoes could have received a lot more attention, especially considering the fans’ obsession with them. The movement up and down the court is fluid and smooth, and the animated cutscenes showcasing those who’ve got game is superb even when demonstrating those of us who don’t.

The gameplay is of a medium range of difficulty, with four levels of play to choose from. There’s really not that much difference in levels in terms of brilliancy in the AI (which is tough for all but the rookie level), but the offense does get somewhat tighter. More of a difference in difficulty can be accomplished by toggling the user and CPU sliders for steals, fouls, fake discernment, shot percentage, plus choosing CPU assistance or not on shots. We actually found the greatest difference lay in adjusting the game speed, which allowed for much easier play because of player reaction times on slower speeds, and more difficulty on higher speeds.

Our family has enjoyed this game, and all skill levels have enjoyed it equally, which really speaks for the effectiveness of the gameplay settings and levels. Some things could be improved, like the tendency of the players to slide at warp speed down the court to defend, rather than run, and the difficulty of fast breaking your team because your teammate always stops and jumps to catch your pass, when the computer fast breaks almost every time, but for the most part the AI works nicely. The edit player feature was a real disappointment after playing with the create a face feature in Tiger Woods, EA should have included it in NBA Live 2004. The EA Sport Bio feature, while admittedly a shameless advertisement for its own brand, promises to be a cool add-on for owners of multiple EA Sports console games, as it allows game-specific rewards according to the amount of time put in on the games. We don’t own any other EA Sports games for the GameCube, so haven’t gotten to test this feature, but it does sound cool.