What’s the greatest basketball video game of all time?

chilluminati · Post #61 » by **chilluminati** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 1:43 pm

Sixteen wrote:NBA 2k5 with Ben Wallace on the cover along with NBA Live 2005 are my two personal favorites. Both were innovative and ahead of their time. I spent way too many hours on NBA inside drive 2003 as well. So those 3 would be my choices

Tracymcgoaty wrote:Espn NBA2k5 and nothing will ever come close to it ever.

Impeccable taste gentlemen. Sports games going into the PS2/Xbox era were goated. Especially ESPN 2K5.

NBA Street and NBA Ballers were two cool non-sim style basketball games that were fun as hell too.

Mean_Streets · Post #62 » by **Mean_Streets** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 2:27 pm

The rise and fall of NBA Live

Watch on YouTube

JujitsuFlip · Post #63 » by **JujitsuFlip** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 2:35 pm

Street Hoops on PS2, for me. I loved traveling the world and unlocking all the real life And1 guys.

Some honorable mentions would be...

Hangtime on N64, customizing the characters looks was cool.

NBA Street on PS2. Unlocking the street ballers as well as Yeti the snowman, Magaman, and an alien lol

NBA Live 2005 on PS2, my brother and i did a fantasy draft and would play 2 player vs the computer on career mode.

Then I've gotta cap it off with NBA2K10 on Xbox 360, it was the first year of MyPlayer. I had so much fun in the summer league and D-league just building my guy up and working my way to the pros.

And one final honorable mention to the honorable mentions...

Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City on Super Nintendo, not really a basketball game but i still had fun playing it.

Calvin Klein · Post #64 » by **Calvin Klein** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 2:46 pm

You have no idea how exciting playing this game was :lol:

Watch on YouTube

Calvin Klein · Post #65 » by **Calvin Klein** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 2:48 pm

Also, this: :lol:

Watch on YouTube

Mean_Streets · Post #66 » by **Mean_Streets** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 4:37 pm

Watch on YouTube

;t

thejigglyroom · Post #67 » by **thejigglyroom** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 4:46 pm

NBA Street Vol. 2

bonita_the_frog · Post #68 » by **bonita_the_frog** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 4:48 pm

I'm officially AND unofficially the luckiest person on earth

today i got ps1 AND nbalive2003

bonita_the_frog · Post #69 » by **bonita_the_frog** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 6:31 pm

-Sammy- wrote:

My favorite detail is that there are separate buttons for slamming and jamming. Sometimes during the course of a competitive, exciting basketball game, you need to be able to slam without jamming, or vice versa.

What is the difference between slamming and jamming? I thought slamming was a power dunk. So what is jamming?

Tmac970 · Post #70 » by **Tmac970** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 6:54 pm

It was NBA Ballers for me. Loved embarrassing my opponent by bouncing the ball off their head and having a random person in the crowd throw alley oops. Spent hours on this game.

Tnasty4l · Post #71 » by **Tnasty4l** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 7:18 pm

The Mattel electronic handheld basketball game,lol.

Long2_noD · Post #72 » by **Long2_noD** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 8:36 pm

Live 2000 because I was 12 and had all the time in the world to play video games...

Blame Rasho · Post #73 » by **Blame Rasho** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 8:47 pm

Arch Rivals: A BasketBrawl!

SkyBill40 · Post #74 » by **SkyBill40** » Sat Oct 4, 2025 11:36 pm

NBA LIVE 95 changed everything when it came to basketball on consoles, going from a side scrolling platform to an isometric view. My mind was pretty blown when it first came out. Still have a copy for the Genesis along with Coach K College Basketball (and several others), which was essentially a college skinned version of 95.

Sent from my SM-F936U using RealGM mobile app

Black Jack · Post #75 » by **Black Jack** » Sun Oct 5, 2025 12:34 am

SkyBill40 wrote:NBA LIVE 95 changed everything when it came to basketball on consoles, going from a side scrolling platform to an isometric view. My mind was pretty blown when it first came out. Still have a copy for the Genesis along with Coach K College Basketball (and several others), which was essentially a college skinned version of 95.

Sent from my SM-F936U using RealGM mobile app

Yeah Live 95 was just great, I remember playing that a lot.

FollowTheSound · Post #76 » by **FollowTheSound** » Sun Oct 5, 2025 1:44 am

bonita_the_frog wrote:
FollowTheSound wrote:PS2s and PS3s are backwards compatible with PS1 games and upscale them btw!

Ps1 discs work when you push them into Ps2 and Ps3? that's handy

infinite11285 wrote:An absolute gem.

Spoiler:

I've never played that but that photo looks really delicious and whenever i've seen pictures of the Bulls players and Blazers players together from 1992 it looks really yum their uniforms look so tasty together.

Yes, all of them.

Tracymcgoaty · Post #77 » by **Tracymcgoaty** » Sun Oct 5, 2025 2:21 am

I just have to mention again ESPN 2K5...Aside from the fantastic gameplay for it's time....THE SOUNDTRACK....The **** soundtrack man...

This game introduced me to People under the stairs and honestly for that alone it's a 10/10...the soundtrack in that game is impeccable. I booted up 2k26 and the soundtrack is a damn war crime.

Mean_Streets · Post #78 » by **Mean_Streets** » Sun Oct 5, 2025 2:32 am

Tracymcgoaty wrote:I just have to mention again ESPN 2K5...Aside from the fantastic gameplay for it's time....THE SOUNDTRACK....The **** soundtrack man...

This game introduced me to People under the stairs and honestly for that alone it's a 10/10...the soundtrack in that game is impeccable. I booted up 2k26 and the soundtrack is a damn war crime.

I appreciate your love for 2k5, but objectively speaking, it probably wasn’t even better than NBA Live ‘05. Both were very good games, could make a good case for both.

I wouldn’t call 2k5 ground breaking the way NBA Live 95 and 2k11 were.

Tracymcgoaty · Post #79 » by **Tracymcgoaty** » Sun Oct 5, 2025 2:38 am

Mean_Streets wrote:
Tracymcgoaty wrote:I just have to mention again ESPN 2K5...Aside from the fantastic gameplay for it's time....THE SOUNDTRACK....The **** soundtrack man...

This game introduced me to People under the stairs and honestly for that alone it's a 10/10...the soundtrack in that game is impeccable. I booted up 2k26 and the soundtrack is a damn war crime.

I appreciate your love for 2k5, but objectively speaking, it probably wasn’t even better than NBA Live ‘05. Both were very good games, could make a good case for both.

I wouldn’t call 2k5 grounding breaking the way NBA Live 95 and 2k11 were.

It's probably got a lot to do with nostalgia as well. I remember there was that gameplay mode where you were playing 1v1 streetball and could build your own player from ground up putting accesories and outfits which made it really dope! You'd go and battle against other elite streetballers 1v1. Days playing against my brother and him using Steve Francis because he was completely broken in that game lol. And the soundtrack.

Hieroglyphics
People under the stairs
abstract rude

I still remember the soundtrack two decades later lol. People under the stairs especially.

azcatz11 · Post #80 » by **azcatz11** » Sun Oct 5, 2025 2:40 am

Bad Bart wrote:Kobe Bryant NBA Courtside 2 was an awesome game that fell through the cracks. The way you could control players, and the moves available, would change depending where the player you were controlling was on the floor. For example, you could back people down in the post and then you'd be able to use post moves. Anyway, very intuitive game.

Good call. Court side actually felt like a basketball game unlike nba live which felt stiff and robotic.