Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five basketball game intros that were in some way misleading.
There’s something special about the best basketball game intros. Sure, we often end up skipping them because we’re keen to play, but most of us will watch them in their entirety the first time we fire up a game, and probably a few times after that as well. The combination of a great song and either real NBA footage or a highlight reel created in the game itself is a fantastic way to get us in the mood to play some virtual basketball. They underscored how the games were made for hardcore hoop heads, celebrating a beautiful sport and putting the NBA in our hands.
Cynically, I might suggest that that’s why basketball game intros have been phased out over the years. As they’ve tried to appeal to a wider audience and lean into online modes starring user avatars, there’s a large portion of the userbase that probably won’t get hyped up by NBA highlights. Less cynically, the fact that intros do end up getting skipped is probably a factor as well. And of course, if we’re being honest, basketball game intros can be misleading, even deceptive. Like a carefully curated preview or back-of-the-box promotional materials, intros can oversell a game with promises of quality and features it just can’t deliver upon. Here are five examples of such intros.
Even though I’m not a fan of NBA 2K24, I do appreciate that they brought back an intro for the first time since NBA 2K17. It was definitely nostalgic to be greeted by it after the traditional team logos boot screen, and it did a great job of hyping up the Mamba Moments mode celebrating Kobe Bryant, while mixing in some highlights of current players to bridge past and present. It was also produced using in-engine assets, so what you see is what you get when you hit the virtual hardwood. Well, as long as you’re playing the PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X version, that is. If you’re playing on PC, PlayStation 4, or Xbox One, the graphics won’t match what you see in the intro.
Such is the drawback when a prior gen version of a game uses the same introduction as its new gen counterpart. It’s not the worst offender as far as being misleading, since the jump from the eighth to ninth gen isn’t as large as previous generations (at least as far as NBA 2K is concerned). Nevertheless, the prior gen version of NBA 2K24 may set you up for disappointment if you expect the gameplay to resemble the intro. Still, while I’m no fan of misleading gamers, I do understand why the PS5/XSX intro was used. Prior gen is a lower priority, so they’re not going to remake the new gen intro in the old engine; especially when the difference in graphics isn’t as big as it once was.
Similarly, the final three NBA Live games released on PlayStation shared the intros of their PlayStation 2 (and where applicable, PC) counterparts. Once again, it does make sense. If you’ve put together a well-produced, exciting intro for the flagship version of a game, you’re probably not going to be inclined to produce an alternative reel using footage from a legacy release that’s unquestionably an afterthought by that point. It’s much easier to compress the existing video as necessary and use it during the boot-up sequence of the prior gen version as well. Of course, that means the introduction will be showing off gameplay that you can’t expect to see in the version you’re playing.
As I said, that’s not so bad in NBA 2K24, where the prior gen version bears more similarities to the new gen release. The gap between the PlayStation and PS2 versions of NBA Live was much wider. Imagine firing up the PS1 version of NBA Live 2003, seeing players pull off all those cool moves with the new Freestyle Control, and then having to play an updated version of NBA Live 2000! It’s almost as if the games are taunting you with what you could and should be playing instead. Earlier titles that used real NBA footage obviously avoided this issue, but once in-game highlight reels became the norm, legacy releases could easily end up with some misleading intros.
Technically this is an attract mode reel, a demo that plays when the game is left idle. However, the seventh generation NBA Lives basically replaced boot-up intros with those reels, so I’m going to count it. With that being said, while NBA Live 08 was a marked improvement over NBA Live 07 – a low bar to clear, admittedly – that reel does stand out as one of the more misleading basketball game intros. Inspired by a real clutch moment, it features the Washington Wizards running a final play for cover player Gilbert Arenas as they look to steal a victory from the Utah Jazz, culminating in Agent Zero confidently turning away as he nails the game-winning three-pointer.
It’s a great sequence, a well-edited highlight that gets you pumped up to play. That’s exactly what you want out of basketball game intros, or indeed, an attract mode reel. It does oversell the smoothness and overall quality of the gameplay, though. Making quick, crisp passes that don’t move the recipient out of position isn’t nearly as easy as the reel makes it look. Transitions between animations won’t be as seamless, and they won’t look quite as lifelike, either. Again, the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 version of NBA Live 08 is actually one of the better releases in the series during that generation, but its intro/attract mode reel is misleading about what you can expect to see on the court.
When it comes to the player models and environmental details, the intro for Michael Jordan in Flight is an accurate depiction of what to expect. It’s clearly using in-game assets, which is rare for a basketball game released in 1993. Primitive graphics aside, it’s an intro we can still appreciate today. Dramatic MIDI music builds anticipation as the camera pans down onto the court and rests at the baseline, segueing into the main theme as MJ enters the shot. His Airness then dribbles the length of the floor before soaring from the free throw line to throw it down. It perfectly sets the scene for a game called Michael Jordan in Flight, making you eager to start balling with MJ.
Too bad you can’t actually perform a free throw line dunk in the game! The dunk that you see during the intro is actually one that you can pull off, albeit not from that far out (though I’ve certainly tried). Furthermore, given that the gameplay is 3-on-3 and takes place in the halfcourt, there’s no way to run the length of the floor. Mind you, this is being somewhat nitpicky in hindsight. In 1993, an intro like that was a novelty, especially since it does resemble the actual gameplay outside of the staged free throw line dunk. To that end, it’s not as deceptive or misleading as other basketball game intros on this list, but it’s still showing a scenario that gamers can’t actually replicate.
Although lengthy basketball game intros had fallen out of vogue by the late 2010s – NBA 2K18 did away with the idea completely, in fact – NBA Live 18 did feature a short sequence with a virtual James Harden delivering the iconic “It’s in the game” catchphrase after pulling up for a jumpshot. It’s slightly uncanny valley – hardly the best speaking animations you’ll see in a video game (basketball or otherwise) – but it was a cool touch all the same. Still, as much as I do enjoy NBA Live 18 despite some of its roughness…well, that roughness is there! The motion capture in that short James Harden intro is far more realistic than most anything you’ll see during gameplay.
If that was your first glimpse of NBA Live 18, then it’s fair to call it misleading. Now, the game does have some nice animations, but there’s no way that you’re pulling off that hesitation dribble into a spin and jumpshot as smoothly as Harden does there! It raises the question as to whether video game intros like this are a good idea. On one hand, they look cool, and that does get gamers hyped to play. On the other hand, when the gameplay doesn’t match the intro in animation quality, it’s a huge letdown. Ideally, a game’s animations should be good enough to produce a mix of in-engine highlights that won’t be misleading when used as its boot-up introduction or attract mode reel.
What’s your take on these intros? What are some other basketball game intros that you feel were misleading? Have your say in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.
The post The Friday Five: 5 Misleading Basketball Game Intros appeared first on NLSC.
