NBA Live 08 online impressions
September 28, 2007 by pastapadre
I had the chance to play a handful of NBA Live 08 online games with Shawn from over at 5w-g last night. Here are my thoughts on the online performance, details on some of the options for online play, and the results.
The first thing to address would be overall performance. All three games were practically flawless. There was absolutely no difference between online and offline in terms of lag or frame rate. I don’t know if I’ve ever been able to say that before. Now of course there were only the two of us playing so there was no stress on the servers and it’ll have to be monitored come release. However it is certainly very encouraging.
Options wise I noted in a previous posting that there are few different modes. Versus is the traditional head to head game and you can have up to three guests on your console. Quick Pick Play allows you to choose any 10 players for your team and can be ranked or unranked. The Online Leagues are identical as far as I can tell to the ones found in NHL 08. There is also the addition of the EA Locker for sharing roster files and created scenarios. You can use all teams including the All-Stars, Rookies, Sophomores, Team Adidas, and FIBA in both ranked and unranked.
Ranked games are locked in with five minute quarters on All-Star difficulty. We played one ranked and the other two unranked with the same setup.
Again it seems you can not challenge someone on your friends list to a ranked game which is unfortunate. You have to go into a lobby room to do that. In the lobby you can challenge to the normal ranked games but not to the Quick Pick Play games. So any Quick Pick Play games you wish to play against friends will have to be unranked.
Continue on for more details, notes on the games, and a recap of general thoughts.
Fatigue is not a factor as we never saw it drain despite being turned “on”. Some people may find that to be a problem, but it isn’t a surprise because the majority of players probably don’t want to worry too much about substituting during online games.
The momentum and rebounding seemed to vary wildly from game to game, and the only thing we were able to correlate them with was home court advantage. We weren’t sure why one team seemed to always be in good position for rebounds and the other wasn’t (even if choosing to specifically crash the boards). Can’t say that it has to do with home court for certain, but as you’ll hear in the recaps below there was a large differential (and as Shawn pointed out Denver was the best rebounding team in the NBA last year). It could’ve just been coincidence I suppose.
The statistics in general came out pretty realistic (outside of the final score due to the 5 minute quarters). Shot percentages specifically look good, falling in the 40-50% range. We were generally taking good shots, being selective, so if someone just starts jacking up contested shots I’d expect them to have trouble. Once again we didn’t really worry about Hot Spots. Getting open shots vs contested shots is more important than anything else.
We were quite surprised at how great the game seems to play head-to-head. There were several instances where both of us commented on that. I think people will look to tweak the offline experience vs the CPU with sliders, but online as is it was a lot of fun and seemed pretty balanced. I think it just tends to flow better against another user.
Game 1: Seattle Sonics (Pastapadre) 52 @ Denver Nuggets (Shawn) 60 Ranked
We both shot about 45% from the field. The Sonics went 6/15 from 3pt range while the Nuggets went 5/7. The Nuggets jumped out early to a big lead and were feeling comfortable throughout but the Sonics went on a run in the 4th quarter cutting it to four at one point but couldn’t get closer than that.
Game 2: Team Adidas (Shawn) 61 @ Golden State Warriors (Pastapadre) 73 Quick Pick Play - unranked
After choosing the teams (essentially just being about the uniforms and home stadium) we picked the starting five and then let it auto-fill the remaining five (since the fatigue doesn’t factor in we only concerned ourselves with the starters). The auto-fill gave us very good players and seemed to have a backup for each position. You are allowed to have any of the players on both teams as it isn’t like a draft. It is neat that you can go through players by different categories that they’ve broken down to the top 25 at each position, or you can search through the team rosters. Makes the selection process go by relatively quick.
This game was naturally higher scoring since we were playing with superstars. Ray Allen had 16 points in the first quarter for me but finished up with only 20. Everything seemed to open up for me but Shawn was getting frustrated with my second chance opportunities, open outside shots, and an inability to stop my drives. Yet on the other end of the court my team was boxing out and getting the boards, in his face constantly, and prevented him from driving to the lane.
Game 3: Denver Nuggets (Shawn) 57 @ Seattle Sonics (Pastapadre) 66 League game - unranked
I set up a league with a max of two players and a one game season. The pressure was on for this game as it all came down to this! League games appear to be automatically unranked. For details on the league setup you can check them out here.
The rebounding discrepancy was very apparent in this game. The Sonics finished with 12 offensive rebounds to the Nuggets two. In comparison the Nuggets only had 15 defensive rebounds. Kurt Thomas had 20 points and 9 rebounds in this game.
Still to come: Trying out the EA Locker for both roster and scenario sharing, more time in with games of all modes to test performance, playing with guests.
Overall: This could be the best online offering from EA to date, although NHL has one up on it with the co-op across multiple consoles. That should be the first thing added in next year as it seems ideal for basketball. We were both pleasantly surprised with how well everything went. The games felt identical to offline which made for a very good experience. Hopefully it is one that continues come release and beyond.
no fatigue huh…
Awesome eval Pasta! I am looking forward to playing this game. I took a weeks vacation, which co inside with the release of LIVE, works out perfectly! After playing the NBA 2k8 demo I transfered all my reserve money over to LIVE 08. Your impressions are helpful and also the fact I wasn’t really impressed with 2K8. Thanks, keep up the good work!
IM CONFUSED ARE QUICK GAMES RANKED OR UNRANKED? CAN U DO QUICK GAMES FROM LOBBY? ITS A LITTLE CONFUSING BECAUSE I THOUGHT U SAID QUICK GAMES CAN BE RANKED OR UNRANKED?
i wish they had the slam dunk contest and 3pt shootout as an online feature, along with a street mode where you can do 2on2 3on3….not just 5on5 games i really believe live would be better in the future if they added a mode that featured street games(like 2k has)
No fatigue!!! No subbing??! Doesn’t that mean we don’t get to see 70% of the NBA players. If starters play the whole game there is really no way I can take this game seriously. Playing with/against a team with a deep bench is satisfying. How is David Lee going to get his numbers if he is never in the game. Lol (not)
well in MY opinion i kno i wouldnt like it if you couldnt use kobe or tmac in the last couple of minutes because of fatigue and that they wouldnt be effective because even in real games if they are tired they are gonna play and at least for kobe he is still effective, but they should have some sort of fatigue involved…also i wish you could make the ranked games longer. but is there like a mercy or concede thing like in madden? and when someone quits do you have to play the computer the rest of the game to get a win or lets say they quit in the 2nd, do you just get the win and stop playing? i hope you can because it is so annoying in madden when someone quits early and you have to play the cpu for the rest of the game to win
Jeff i agree about the timing of ranked games, they should be able to be longer if we want but at least 5 minutes. I also agree that the starters should be in the game (or the best players) at crunch time. But we have to get the bench in the game sometimes. If not, and only starters play I think the stats would be upsurd. no bench points, kobe would probably average 50ppg (not realistic) and all the starters would get all the stats. Barbosa for example is a big part of the pheonix offense, as he averaged like 18ppg off the bench. What about a defensive stopper like ZO who comes off the bench? If the substitutions aren’t realistic it is definately a gamebreaker.
oh yeah that is true like no ranked games under 5 minutes but you can choose anything higher, i mean i wish they had longer times ranked because of the bench especially with a team like the rockets, who have a lot of bench players now, but they will really not be needed at all, but i kno people who use the lakers will easily get at least 40+points with kobe every game, overall though if there isnt much lagging i can get over the fact of the use of bench and fatigue, pasta i kno you probably havent played the game as much but i read something on ea that player will be saying things during the free throws especially star players, is that true?
You guys,
Come on, who cares about Kobe and D-Wade getting 40pts? Stop being so nitpicky!! You can’t take the game serious because of online fatigue? Everyone has their own opinion, but please!! Their are bigger fish to fry than fatigue in an online game. I personally would rather have fatigue off so I can use my best players more! Understand, I am not coming down on you two guys, but the game is never going to be real! I played four years of college basketball and no game has ever got it 100% right! 2k8, with all of their little things has come close, and Live with their player models increases the realism; however, it will never be perfect. Enjoy Live 08, if you don’t like it, buy 2k! If you don’t like 2k, don’t buy anything!!!! Both games will be very nice!! Enjoy!
Knowlegde is Power!!
im not sayin i wont play the game im glad they dont have fatigue but i think they should have some, i mean you cant go sprinting around for even a game thats only 20minutes long, but the only thing that would really really bother me online is if there is a lot of lagging, but i like live n 2k cuz they have more plays than isolation, if u ever played NBA07 The Show you would know what im talking about, you can actually have some kinda relism when play calling in Live and 2k, and i kno the games will never be perfect trust me that is not what im asking for i graduated from hs last year n played for 3 years but didnt want to my senior year because of the coach was a complete a$$ lol but i kno the game very well i think and i still play about every day and i know no video game is ever gonna be perfect but i think they are still some things that could be easily fixed without too much effort, but pleasee i hope there is no lagging, and especially when you are in a crowded room, Pasta can you creat your own custom rooms?
Pasta, since we have EA locker can we do an online franchise?
Hey pasta can post a video of a online game like you did for nhl 08?
coco- I don’t think so. As far as I can tell its just for sharing roster files (like March Madness last year) and to download scenarios that others have created and try to beat them.
kurdish- I plan to. Hopefully tomorrow.
are they able to send a patch to edit players shoes, and acessories cuase it will be mess up if they cant i hope so…..
The results are realistic given a 5 min quarter game? The scores you posted translate to game scores in the 150 to 175 point range. That’s no D.
release day is here and this continues to be the best online experience EA has offered up yet. Very pleased.
Joseph
All I can say is WOW! Extremely nice layouts, awesome graphics and great articles. No matter how many times I come here, I am still impressed by the very professional appearance. Congratulations on a job well done.
add my msn: cassinimarcelo@hotmail.com for play online IP x IP nba live 2007 or 2008
I would like to know how to use the freestyle and if you could talk to each configure controller on its significance?
wait reply
Marcelo Cassini
BRAZIL
hi…
I’m Michael from Jordan , i got NBA live 08 on PC and the only online feature in it is the direct connect (IP vs. IP) and i’m just wondering if there is any other online playing method for PC? and also if anyone here wants to crack an online IP game with me just send to michodevil@gmail.com
thanx a looooooooooot
Let’s play… I will give you my IP address. Thanks
hi, pls we have nba live 08 pc league, and we looking for new player, please, write me zec.zach14@seznam.cz