[360] NBA Live 07 - who needs physics?

[Destructor]

It's in the game, eh? Apparently physics wasn't part of the equation. Via 1up:

The title says NBA Live 07, but this feels more like Moon Physics 07. Gravity apparently triples on EA's parquet floor this season when players have the ball; they lumber around, struggling to lift their feet for each stride. The ball, on the other hand, has more of a zero gravity feel: it takes the orange ages to go from hand to floor to hand again when dribbling. Very close passes between players even feature lunar physics, as the ball will sluggishly float from player to player. This slow-motion feeling changes dramatically, though, once you fire up a shot or leap for a rim-rattling dunk. Once a player leaves his feet his body starts into dismaying convulsions at rocket speed. As a result, shooting the ball looks hurried and very goofy. This also makes it difficult to consistently judge the best point to release the rock-it appears that frames of animation are missing.

And via Bill Harris:

What the? Did I see that?

Because I thought that what I'd just seen was impossible, I went to the replay. Here's what I saw:

--As Parker dribbles the ball, it goes down at about a 10 degree angle until it's level with his knees, at which point it changes to a 45 degree angle until it touches the court. Then, it rebounds from the court--straight up.
--The next dribble is identical.
--When Parker pushes the ball down with his hand on the next dribble, though, it reaches the level of his knees--and bounces back up. I'm not talking an inch off the floor here--I'm talking the knee.
--the ball bounces back up at the right angle, incredibly, but never reaches Parker's hand before it heads downward again--at a 45 degree angle.
--The ball bounces straight back up, goes up to the top of his socks, and goes down again. In real-world terms, it was at least a foot away from his hand at all times.
--Another bounce up to the top of his socks, then down again.
--After bouncing back up and actually touching Parker's hand, the ball goes back down to his knees, then bounces up, but not quite to his hand. Then it bounces down again.

So how many hours did I have to watch the game to see all these incidents? This is the SAME TRIP upcourt. He hasn't even passed center court at this point!

Why do I constantly rag on EA? Because somedays, it's just so fucking easy. BTW - visit Bill's link for a link or three over to YouTube if you don't believe me in how fucked up the animations of this title are. And I thought EA's 'you can play any player in the game throughout a season, but if you play anything but a quarterback you risk the QB throwing the football backwards for 70 yards' flub was bad.

[denoginizer]

Why anyone with a 360 would even consider playing Live over 2K7 I will never know.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

IGN didn't like the game much either - they gave it a 6.0.

Turning away from the shooting issues and onto the squads themselves, it's extremely common to see a ton of A.I. issues or glitches on your team and the computer's team. Players that are inbounding the ball will often be standing on the court when they pass the ball in, which is blatantly wrong. During transitions, players will often run the length of the court out of bounds, making any passes to these morons immediate turnovers. While you can make immediate play adjustments thanks to the D-pad, it won't force these guys to remain in bounds, making it a toss up as to whether or not a player will be established on the court at any point in time. Even worse, the game will often slow down as you're passing the ball over half court, as if the gameplay got mired in bullet time (here's a quick hint: to cut down on the level of annoyance from this problem, pump the overall game speed up to at least 70 or 80). The computer will often inbound the ball to players that are either out of bounds themselves, or are in the backcourt, resulting in turnovers as well. It will also demonstrate horrendous shot clock and ball management, having one player hold onto the ball in one location without passing until the clock runs down to about five seconds. Then it will either take a shot or attempt to pass to another player, which can sometimes result in a turnover or a shot clock violation.

 

[USMC Kato]

You know this is kinda weird....I purchased both NBA2k7 and NBA Live 07 on release day. 

Even before NBA2k7's release, there were many positive reviews and its was a sure bet for me.  I bought NBA Live 07 as well because  :icon_confused: hey, how bad could it be? There were absolutely no reviews for LIVE during the first week of release.  Like when a very bad movie doesn't release its film for critics' review during opening weekend.