Wow...that looks like garbage. Look how stupid the AI looks on defense! How did Tony Parker blow by Calderon (?) so easily AFTER he did a useless spin move beyond the 3p line? And then whoever that was under the basket Moon (?) did not even make an attempt to defend the shot; in fact, he does not even LOOK at Parker! Then Bargnani driving and dunking on a crossover? Also, why did Drew Gooden turn right towards the sidelines after getting screened? He should turn towards the offensive player! And Deng driving baseline with his left and doing a layup OFF THE BACKBOARD? Does that even look natural to you in the video? He might want to try banking it if it were his right hand, but even then, it's a very tough angle....

man...disappointed. The last good Live game was on the Sega Genesis....

cheetos82

Reading about global cover athletes, you forget to mention that Tony Parker is from France.

Phoenicks

+ Watch video

Orionsaint

The music sounds like Chromeo

Orionsaint

@bubassi:
Yea, this looks stale... I really liked the way the ball so statically bounced off of of the glass... I just got finished studying game programming and I know it's hard stuff, but damn, stuff like the ball bouncing is IN the game every year...

Sentientv2

@flight240: Well, it's more that the video is in HD, slo-mo, so it's much easier to scutinize the animation and find flaws in the transitions. Even moreso when the graphics are good enough now to pass off as the real thing.

Basketball's probably the hardest sport to get to "look" right; animations for bball games are still more about how many they can record in a given year to give an impression that layups, shots, and dribbles are different. Transitions from one animation to the next (e.g., pass, to pick & roll setup, to catching a ball, taking a dribble, and shooting the ball) still don't work quite well, so if you look closely you can see the endpoints of a captured piece of animation are like keyframes for transition animations. It's not like football where a clever physics engine can recreate realistic player collisions.

Hey, at least there are lots of custom animations for each archetype of player and special acts for specific superstars. Remember when Shaq shot three pointers lookin' like Nash?

Datheron

@jmb8504: When did he win those championships? It wasn't this year was it? He's garbage, washed up. Mr Longoria. Yesterday's news. Tomorrow's fish and chips paper.

etchasketchist

I wonder if this version will come with a button to flop, since that seems to be a huge trend in the NBA :)

Moopman133

@Cloral: Third best is pretty high esteem when number one is the best PF of all time and number two is arguable the best international player in the league. So.... thanks for the compliment! I'll let Tony know you said "hi"!

jmb8504

"NBA LIVE 09 Made Fresh Daily" wow its just like a bakery slogan

eaglesphily1

NBA Live games suck. 2K won my heart back in 2005 and I haven't looked back.

JustJake

@vibinvo: yeah you got that right he's just a jumshooter last season and kinda inconsistent too. good thing tha JO will be playing for the raptors now so that AB can just come off the bench

eaglesphily1

@jmb8504: Yeah, pretty much. He's the third best player on a team nobody outside of San Antonio likes.

Cloral

@Datheron: You're right. I just want them cancel this game, and bring out the real version of NBA Live 09 instead. Because this has been like three year long April Fools joke they just forgot to end.

And you're right, the Sony NBA games are just dreadful. They're like the sports game equivalent of Voldemort. People die playing this game.

wild homes loves you but chooses darkness!

That trailer reminds me why EA shouldn't be allowed to buy Take2. If (WHEN) that happens, NBA 2K gets cancelled and we're left with NBA Live and other regurgitated EA Sports offerings.

NBA Live 97 was the only game I've have bought, and then returned to GameStop the following day. Terrible. And this trailer doesn't give me any hope of improvement.

Shok

Andrea Bargnani CANNOT do what we see on that video. I am a big follower of the raptors and I will be the first to admit that AB cannot penetrate the paint!

vibinvo

@etchasketchist: I guess three championships, two all-star appearances, a Finals MVP, international acclaim, and being one of the best scoring point guards in the league counts for garbage now-a-days huh?

jmb8504

@Thorax:

:( i didnt know that,i was just expressing my opinion on the graphics while also recognizing my superiority in posting speed :D, also to punkateer
[www.hi5.com] like i said it's been done :D

vig0r

@wild homes loves you but chooses darkness!: You don't really want that. As good as 2k Sports is, I don't doubt for a moment that the NBA2k series will take a huge dive the instant they lose competition. And no, I don't consider Sony's NBA series "competition".

Datheron

@Punkateer:
i'll have you informed that i have already done that ;)

vig0r

the movements look really awkward. i dun quite remember past Live games looking like that.

something must have happened.

ahh well, i'm a NBA2K fan anyway.

flight240

what the fuck is up with the horseshit ps1 graphics.

Nimsim

@vig0r: I'm amazed we still have to tell people this, but posting "first" on Kotaku is an automatic ban usually.

Thorax

Yikes. Live needs to be canceled. This series needs a really great iteration to get back on track. 08 was OK, but the two previous installments were leprosy on a disc. Give us a real next-gen engine. Why is it that 06 still looks better than 09? Why did they underhaul (is that a word? It should be) the next-gen Live engine just because that 06 had some real presentation problems-- as in, the presentation was brilliant but it made the game somewhat unplayable? Come on, EA, you've been getting your butts kicked in the basketball world for getting on half a decade now. Give me a good iteration of this franchise, or go home.

wild homes loves you but chooses darkness!

I think the game would be better if it wasn't always in slow motion.

MeanMF

This game is garbage. So is Tony Parker:

+ Watch video

etchasketchist

Lets hope this one actually plays right.

Thorax

@vig0r: Wow. We're so envious of you being first. Fwd this page to all your friends as an indicator of your coolness at once!

Punkateer

ea sports: rinse-and-repeat at its best

bubassi

The NBA is fixed.

Punkateer

yay first post,and i dunno but those graphics seem abit like they're from 06-7

vig0r

When EA does buy Take-2 (not if...WHEN), the NBA Live Franchise will be made by the 2K developer. 2K will die only in name. The NBA Live team will be disbanded and working on other EA titles. They'll do the opposite for NHL, meaning they'll have EA Canada do NHL and kill off the 2K Hockey.

Indiedog

You'd think that somebody, knowing this was going to be a showcase trailer for the game, would have seen the Gasol post-up and noticed the two identical fans, sitting one in front of the other. I mean, jeez, it's like three seconds into the thing, there's three crowd models on the screen, and two of them are the same person... it's not exactly subtle, and not the kind of thing that should get past editing.

dan

They couldn't work in Celtics?, surprise of the century; something in the PR's coffee.

PsycheE

@Orionsaint: Came in here to say exactly the same thing... Tenderoni by Chromeo.

Astrofox

Highly unlikely that this will surpass the NBA2K series for a long time. Player animations, especially dribbling just aren't up to snuff.

jedi420

Damn, I hope 2K9 pwns this badly...

Been waiting for a quality basketball game to hit consoles for way too long..

aR-Tard

Really stiff animation still. I thought that they were overhauling this thing. I switched to the 2K series in '06. Sick of the "Get it to T-Mac, Spin-move, spin-move DUNK!" gameplay of Live.

J-Fro

I just want hands to grab the rim.

Strider-No.9

Yay suffix games.

kagebutsu

@Indiedog:
Wouldn't it make more logistical sense for EA to dissolve 2K Sports, since the infrastructure for creating their own games would already be present? From an economic standpoint, I'd imagine it would cost less for the duplicated jobs (i.e. 2K) to be axed than the ones EA already has in place.

Don't get me wrong, I would love if 2K took over all b-ball related projects, but it won't happen if it doesn't match up with the company's bottom line.

magilacudy

Well I'm glad they didn't change anything; NBA Live 08 was just fine.

ChiChi_BBQ

And HORRIBLE graphics that are ten fuckin years old!

KroKan

I left playing after NBA 2005 and looks like this is the same lousy animations/sticky balls/physics/bullshit :/ While FIFA improved every year, NBA stayed the same game since 2004. What a shame!

I hope 2K's next nba title can pull me back into NBA games...

KroKan

@cheetos82:
2K games are guilty of crappy defensive AI as well(don't know how many times I've had a pg get burned and watch dwight howard stare at the guy as he makes an open layup), but at least it has the superior gameplay/graphics to make up for it.

d-guy

@cheetos82: You don't know who Jose Calderon or Jamario Moon are? Fail.

whalleywhat

In cheetos82's defence...Moon and Calderon did exactly what they do in real life...so bonus points to EA for getting some realism...

...Which they epic fail when Bargnani actually takes the ball to the basket instead of taking a long range 2.

Inhocmark

@d-guy:

You mean that doesn't happen in real life?

c0rnpwn

Lol this look so fake, the ball fly in the basket too easily and smoothly, and the basket animation look like crap even the 2k8 ps2 version basket looks better. Look like 2k gonna win again this year even though it hardly made any progress Lawl

Arihara