NBA Live 19 demo dropped Aug, 24th and like many,
I was pretty hyped to play it. The first night alone I spent about 5 hours,
excited to finally play a new basketball game. The first thing I noticed is of
course the graphics have improved. I also noticed the game felt familiar to NBA
LIVE 18, though the game pace seems faster. The movement is more fluid than 18,
however I noticed that there’s still quite a bit of
stiffness. Player body likeness still needs improvement as well.
My favorite thing about NBA LIVE 19 so far has definitely
been the introduction of the icon skill.
At first I was disappointed to find out that we would still pretty much
have the same playstyles, but once I understood the icon skill and what it
could do, my disappointment turned into excitement. With the introduction of
the icon skill you’re able to branch off and build your player around different
NBA ICONS, for example I went with my favorite build, the 6’8 wing scorer,
except this year the build is much more well rounded. I chose the Vince Carter
path, not only will I still be dominant in the dunking and dribbling category ,
I now have a much better 3 pointer at a max of 85. Last year my 3 was in the
60s, which was my biggest complaint, playstyles felt too one sided.
Career mode
known as the one has gotten even more love this year, though the story mode is still text style (not a feature I enjoy) outside of joining the
league we get to travel all over the world and experience different courts. Not
only do we have the pro am world tour they have implemented a new mode called
court battles, which seems pretty interesting in the name alone.
Now this is
right up my alley as I enjoy street career mode more than anything. Not only
can we build a squad and gain new cpu players we can battle other players teams in
the community, think NBA Live Mobile, but on console. And if that’s not enough you can even create a female player and
enjoy something new.
Create your own court from colors to logos (no custom logo features as of yet, or location change. I would love to have an outside custom college court), in the demo the features are
limited, as you can’t practice with your “the one player” or invite friends.
Now that I’ve touched on some of the good, it wouldn’t be me
if I didn’t talk about some of the bad. First and foremost the facescan app has been disastrous,
definitely a step down in quality from last year’s app. Not only that we still
can’t change skin tone, eye color or add eyebrows. We’re still missing facial sculpting tools, we can’t edit default heads,
and we can’t choose different hairstyles/beard colors for each style. It
was also disappointing to see that the facial hair hadn’t been updated and with
better quality. To some this may seem like nothing to others
these missing features may be a deal breaker, especially if you enjoy
making custom players or just want your player to look more like you.
Movement and Dribbling
As I stated earlier, the movement feels more fluid in NBA
Live 19, however it still feels stiff. Not only that, there are times when you
get dragged around on offense and defense, that can feel very irritating as we
should have complete control over our player at all times. There were times when I
wanted to stop at my favorite sweet spot behind the 3 point line and I got dragged in closer or worse dragged into the midrange or paint. There were times
when I’d pass to one of my squad members when were playing live events, and they would get thrown into a drag animation
that moves them from their initial position.
On defense there were times where I hadn’t
even pressed a button yet my player moved into certain defensive animations. This
is something that definitely NEEDS to be fixed. NO auto movements and NO AUTO DEFENSE!
Dribbling feels very
similar to NBA LIVE 18, from the movement to the combos, not many differences,
however there has been a speed increase, and some new animations added. Overall
the movement is not as fluid as I hoped, but improved nonetheless. Combos still
feel too limited and we still can’t create our own dribble packages (at least that’s
how it is in the demo, who knows what the future of NBA LIVE 19 updates holds).
NBA LIVE 19 demo compared to NBA LIVE 18’s demo is definitely more limited, as of now there is no live run to play against other players. We can't earn more than 20,000 RP at a time. We can only level up to 10
(last year we could level up to 20) and our players overall is fairly low
compared to the NBA LIVE 18 demo.
Offense and Defense
The first thing I noticed on the defensive end was push
backs and being able to make the dribbler pick up the ball a lot more than NBA
LIVE 18. Blowbys seems to be less effective, at least against cpu. Even with
that I still found myself dominating, pushing my way past at times, breaking
ankles and making my way to the cup. But there were definitely times that cpu felt
like a brick wall that was almost impossible to get past, even in play now
mode. Players like Kyrie, Curry and
Durant at times were stopped firmly in their tracks and forced to pick up their
dribble even by centers, other times they were breaking ankles and easily able to blow by
defenders.
Contested green lights and dunking on 3 defenders is still in the game,
however once again this is against cpu, and hopefully toned downed when it comes to online
PVP (player vs player).
I also noticed that the bounce back aka snapback meter is still in the game (when the bar hits the top of the meter and bounces back). I saw it happen more in live events than in single player. Hopefully NBA LIVE 20 will have a new meter (similar to NBA LIVE MOBILE) but for now, maybe something can be done for the stiff slow jumper animation that results in a early release and the glitch that makes the meter bounce back, sometimes resulting in a penalty.
I also noticed that the bounce back aka snapback meter is still in the game (when the bar hits the top of the meter and bounces back). I saw it happen more in live events than in single player. Hopefully NBA LIVE 20 will have a new meter (similar to NBA LIVE MOBILE) but for now, maybe something can be done for the stiff slow jumper animation that results in a early release and the glitch that makes the meter bounce back, sometimes resulting in a penalty.
Overall the demo though limited has been enjoyable, and I’m pretty hyped
for release. I still haven’t pre ordered, as I stated many times in my videos.
This year EA has a lot to show and prove, last year I pre ordered without fully
knowing anything about the modes and features. I was disappointed about many
things missing (and never updated after launch). The biggest deal breaker to me
this year is if franchise mode does not allow editing of the roster. I enjoy
making my own custom created team. There are things I always find I want to
change during the season, be it hairstyles, accessories, etc. This was
something that was missing in Live 18, along with being able to choose player
position lock ( if you only want to play as PG, C, etc.) jersey selection in
every mode, franchise co-op, 1v1 (with scoreboard) and many other things. EA
still has plenty of time to release news about other modes and features, hopefully some of these features have been added to NBA LIVE 19.
