Poor old NBA Live. While it keeps showing up to tryouts every year, it never really makes the team. The all-star — NBA 2K — sails through each year with great updates and tweaks and while it can fumble (aka this year’s MyPlayer story) it still comes out on top. NBA Live 16 has improved and isn’t totally terrible to play… but at the same time it’s still not great.
What NBA Live 16 nails is shooting and passing. Actually, offense in general is pretty tight this year. The new shooting indicator gives an easy to read visual representation of your player’s shot and even gives a percentage feedback of the likelihood of it dropping in. It makes taking shots in the right place at the right time much easier and helps let you know which shots work and which don’t. Passing is fast and simple. Either press the pass button to pass to an open player in the direction your facing or use a combination of the shoulder button and face buttons to make tactical passes. The ball rarely deviates from its intended path, as it should, and so getting open looks or assists is a breeze.
On-screen feedback during offense is also helpful as it shows you where your player should be based on their playstyle and position and will flash up directions to run or moves to make in order to create plays and get open. Oddly, during Rising Star (Live 16’s take on MyPlayer) you’re encouraged to be selfish. You get better feedback and more player points if you take shots, even if they miss, than pass to your open teammates. It’s a little bizarre that you’re encouraged to play selfishly and makes Live 16 feel more like an arcade game than a sim.
On the other end of the court, Live 16 fares much, much worse. Defense is hopeless. You’re able to hold down the left trigger to apply pressure to your man, but when they can simply pivot around you and get to the rim every time it’s a little disheartening. I am by no means an amazing player of either real life or simulated basketball, but I know the fundamentals of defense and apparently Live 16 does not. It wasn’t just me that the opposing team’s players would blow by. It happened constantly to every player on the team and worse yet, my teammates mostly stood around like stunned mullets, leaving defense entirely up to me. When a 6ft player was taking rebounds over my 6’8″ character, regardless of positioning, I knew that defense was broken.
NBA Live 16 is a slick production, with menus easy to navigate and a wealth of options to discover. Visually, it’s a massive improvement over previous years, but it’s still not quite right. Only a handful of players have been given the face scan treatment, like LeBron James and cover star Russel Westbrook, and these guys look great. The others who haven’t though…well, they just look like a random assortment of men. Not who they’re supposed to be.
Throughout all available modes, there is some fun to be had, but the problems always outweigh the enjoyment after a while and I found myself wanting to stop. In spite of the many improvements, there is noticeable input lag, especially on the left stick, which makes moving your player feel like driving a boat. There’s a slippery quality and it always feels like you’re fighting the controls to put your player in the position you want. The same goes for the sprint button. Pressing it seems to take a few seconds to be recognised and by the time you’re player is sprinting, the fast break is over and the other team has scored.
There is an initial shine to Live 16 that gradually wears off the longer you spend with it. The main focus is the Rising Star mode which forces you to focus on a single player and single position while constantly upgrading to get higher stats and become better on-court. In theory, it’s great. But when the systems behind Live 16 start coming apart at the seams, playing season after season becomes a chore. The brand new Pro-Am mode sees you taking your player online and into a 5 v 5 match with 9 other real-life players. If you can find a match and a group of players that can and will play like a team, there’s some real basketball magic to be found. But having everything fall into place like that is rare and what you’ll usually find is empty lobbies or players who just go for 3 after 3.
NBA Live 16 shows further improvement for the franchise, but it’s still not quite there. Having competition for the NBA 2K juggernaut means that both games will continue to improve, but until NBA Live gets closer to the elite level, it’s going to feel like LeBron going one on one with your mum. And we all know who wins in that match-up.
NBA Live 16 was reviewed using a promotional code on PS4, as provided by the publisher.
Review: NBA Live 16
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