Yes, this is a rant, and yes it’s been A LONG TIME COMING. Feel
free to check out the video at the bottom of this blog for my most recent
upload on the gaming channel, and subscribe if you like the content.
I’ve been holding this in for awhile, trying to give EA the
benefit of the doubt. Now most of you know, I go hard when it comes to wanting these games to be the very best it can be for us.
I stay on 2K’s head, and call them out left and right, however, when it comes
to NBA LIVE I let A LOT of things slide, things I would never let 2K get away
with. But in the end holding back does not fix anything. If we don’t give
proper feedback (not KISS ASS FEEDBACK) the franchise will never push forward.
EA had PLENTY of time to release a
solid game full of features, and although the game is fun it launched incomplete. Day 1 there
was no edit rosters, you couldn’t create players, etc. Little by little EA
started adding new things with updates, you know things that should have been
there DAY ONE. Things were looking
up, but patch after patch they were still missing KEY FEATURES. And here we are
today, 11 patches later, and we still can’t select jerseys
in Career, edit players in franchise or choose Playerlock, among other things.
I reach out to the devs about these missing features and about any bugs I see a few times a month, sometimes they respond sometimes they ignore.
I just really don't understand why so many key features like jersey selection (which should be in EVERY mode) is missing. It’s bad enough there is no Blacktop mode, weekly single
player (the one) challenges, proper CAP (Create a player) features that allow face sculpting, change skin
tone, eye color, hair color etc. a legit store (like NBA LIVE 16), body type
option, custom rosters for practice mode, All star weekend, custom playstyles
for career, traits for created players, among other things.
I let ALL OF THAT
SLIDE, mainly with hopes that we will see these things in NBA LIVE 19, but
really it makes me wonder. If EA didn’t add these things, or even frostbite
after working on NBA LIVE 18 for a year or two, will we really see that much
change in NBA LIVE 19?
As a fan of the franchise for 17+ years I truly hope that EA will continue to push forward, listen to the community, and don't abandon ship again.