NBA Live 2016 PS4 review
If
you consider each element of the on-court action--from the act of
shooting to playing tight on-ball defense--it’s fair to say that NBA
Live 16 is a much more playable basketball game than its immediate
predecessor. Executing crossovers or hesitations and pulling up a quick
jump shot actually feels good, with a new shot meter giving you a much
more accurate sense of your player’s optimal release point. The previous
gap between the peak of a player’s jump and the correct spot to release
the ball has been tightened to eliminate any visual disconnect, and the
smoother dribbling means you can fake and spin without always sloppily
losing the ball or getting stonewalled by poor AI defenders.
One-on-one,
NBA Live 16 is a responsive push and pull between offense and defense.
But with two full teams setting screens, rolling to the basket, crossing
from corner to corner, and attempting to execute double-teams, this
smooth operation capitulates quickly into a disjointed, jagged knot.
Off-ball players set strange screens in the paint when called on to hold
off immediate defenders, and limited layup animations force easy
buckets to devolve into odd low-percentage shots--leading to offensive
rebounds that send just about every player in the paint into an odd
state of shock. Maybe more importantly, making long jumpers is just too
easy. I put up 56 points in my first ever Rising Star game as a mostly
unskilled created player, and that was from using simple screens to
create just enough space to jack up a shot.
Each
of the individual systems has been tightened, but when it’s all put
together, NBA Live 16 has very little mechanical rhythm or consistency.
This is most apparent when running the fastbreak, where you’ll often
struggle to corral your team to fill gaps and take advantage of
defensive breakdowns. There tend to be wonderful moments in good sports
sims when it almost feels like the game knows exactly what you’re trying
to do before you do it. In NBA Live 16, it can feel like the game isn’t
just a few steps behind, it’s actively working against your train of
thought. Even the commentary, which features noted ESPN analysts Jeff
Van Gundy and Mike Breen, can come off as sporadic audio clips recorded
in separate buildings.
Despite
a few minor gameplay improvements, the quality and depth of game modes
remains disappointingly low. The modes start with the Rising Star
campaign, where you create a rookie player primed to become a top draft
pick. You adjust his height, weight, appearance, and position--with the
welcome addition of a specific shooting, slashing, or post play
concentration available within the five traditional roles. After that,
though, you just run through season after season of regular and
post-season basketball without any story or gameplay variation to drive
you. Rising Star is just a vehicle for you to boost stats and focus on a
single position rather than on the entire team, and with the recently
released NBA 2K16 putting such a heavy emphasis on story, Live’s Rising Star variation feels woefully undercooked and inadequate.
NBA
Live 16’s Ultimate Team and Dynasty modes suffer similarly from being
largely the same as last year. Collecting players in the form of cards
in Ultimate Team booster packs still holds an undeniable charm, giving
you hope that each booster pack will include some new, top-tier player
primed to turn your entire team around. However, since it’s relatively
easy to find your shooting rhythm, I nearly doubled the score of the
championship Golden State Warriors in my first game with volatile
shooter J.R. Smith acting as my star player. I still felt compelled to
earn new cards, but the massive impact of one sharpshooter makes the
collection process feel a bit unbalanced. Dynasty, which lets you run
team operations as a general manager, is still just as bare-boned and
uninteresting as last year. Setting up a fantasy draft, proposing
trades, and signing free agents gives you something to do off the court,
but without any real standout new features, there’s little draw in
taking on the managerial role.
Thankfully, the
addition of the online Pro-Am and Summer Circuit at least gives NBA Live
16 a whiff of freshness. Here, you take your created player and either
run through progressively more difficult co-op challenges in Summer
Circuit, or join a full five-on-five pickup game against nine other
online players in Pro-Am. It’s in this wild, fast-moving streetball
jamboree where NBA Live 16 has the ability to shine brightest. Sure, you
might run into a group of ball hogs who prefer taking deep, contested
threes rather than spreading the ball around the floor. But when my
stitched-together team of diverse created players actually came together
to form at least the semblance of a real basketball squad, I actually
found myself having fun with NBA Live 16’s unpolished systems. Plus,
this mode gives you much more reason to care about building up your NBA
talent in Rising Star.
Even
with improved on-court control and an online Pro-Am mode that can lead
to pockets of outlandish fun, NBA Live 16 still fails to justify its
existence. Its Rising Star and Dynasty modes are too underdeveloped and
unvaried to remain interesting beyond the first few hours of play, and
the basic dribbling, passing, and shooting tend to trip over themselves
during offensive rebounds or fast breaks. NBA Live 16 is heading in the
right direction, but at this pace, the series will never be able to
challenge--let alone surpass--its only real contemporary.
