Early on in NBA Live 18's career mode, “The One,” your created character is christened “the Comeback Kid”, and also you get the sense that the game is referring to itself too. EA took a year off between NBA Live games, and while NBA Live 18 is definitely an overall improvement on NBA Live 16's promising baby-steps toward redemption, will still be not living up to its full potential.
To be fair, NBA Live 18 has improved on most of the areas where NBA Live 16fell flat. The biggest and many obvious improvement is within its core gameplay. Surprisingly, defense is nearly as fun to experience in NBA Live 18 as offense. While the definitive goal of defense continues to be about basically getting in the other person's way and closing shot opportunities, NBA Live 18 features new mechanics for shutting down the dribble. When guarding a rival, arrows on either side of the opponent will clue you in regarding how you ought to be guarding. Adept, quick dribblers it's still in a position to juke yourself on their way to the basket, but when you successfully guard a dribble, you'll stop the other person's momentum and make them reset.
This system plays into forcing steals as well-timing a defensive move correctly (as soon as your attacker makes his move) and you will leave using the ball, but mistime it and you will be left eating your opponent's dust. You may also “pull the chair” out from under a rival who's aggressively backing down against you, making them fall and lose control of the ball. However, by trying this move and misread the problem, you could end up stepping away and giving them a totally free lane towards the basket. These types of risk-reward elements give a totally new depth to playing defense.
Offensive gameplay feels better, too. NBA Live 18 has both simplified and expanded its controls in order that it seems like you have additional control. That's because NBA Live 18's offensive control scheme is almost just like that of last year'sNBA 2K game. Lob passes and bounce passes are actually allotted to face buttons and, perhaps more significantly, right-stick shooting is an option. Personally, I favor shooting with the face buttons, and so i was glad to determine it was still a choice, however for individuals who prefer right-stick shooting, NBA Live 18's right-stick shot choices are nearly as comprehensive as its on-court rival's.
Additionally, the shot meter is most likely my favorite in any basketball game so far. Replacing the monochromatic, percentage-based meter from NBA Live 16, NBA Live 18 introduces a color-coded indicator that changes depending on the situation on the court. While this element was present in NBA Live 16 in the form of indicators that were beneath players' stamina bars (because it is in NBA Live 18), this system now means the particular shot meter itself. For instance, for those who have a wide open look at the basket, you'll have a green zone at the top of the meter, and when your shot indicator lands within the green zone, you're 100 % guaranteed to make the shot. However, if you're guarded, that green zone will appear reduced, introducing some chance in to the shot, no matter how perfectly you nail the timing. It requires some of the unnecessary guessing out of shooting the ball, as well as it's visually more attractive and more instantly readable, which is important during those split-moment decisions and off-dribble shots.
Likewise, pulling off a Euro-step move is really as simple as driving towards the basket and double-tapping the shooting button, as opposed to utilizing the inexplicable “gather” button from NBA Live 16. Stringing together dribble moves using the right-stick and driving to the basket is both simpler to accomplish, because of smoother dribbling animations, and much more challenging, because of the more engaging defensive gameplay.
One place where I felt like NBA Live 16 topped NBA Live 18 was at the particular player movement. If you have the ball, players control fine, but as soon while you quit the ball, players feel much heavier if they are getting around, and for that reason have way more momentum. While this might be more realistic, I preferred NBA Live 16's more precise feel. This resulted in some moments of me falling my spot while watching defender, although it does make defending dribblers like Steph Curry or Kyrie Irving about as frustrating when i imagine it would feel in the real world.
In accessory for getting around the court, I found this too often my player got stuck on the other players in the game, and it led to several frustrating moments where I simply couldn't keep up with the player I was defending since the hit detection stopped me cold, leaving my opponent wide open to have an easy two or three points. And that i wasn't getting stuck on players who were purposefully screening, but instead players who have been simply standing around. Obviously I'm not going my player to phase through other players, however, many sort of movement system (or a button I can press) where my player knows to merely push through other players would have been helpful.
NBA Live 18 has also seen some decent improvements off-court, particularly when it comes to the game's career mode. “The One” will task you with creating a player and grinding your way to the peak from the NBA superstar list. However, unlike Live 16, in which you almost immediately jump in to the NBA, Live 18 enables you to earn your stripes by playing a number of 21-point games on a variety of celebrated street ball courts like Rucker Park and Venice Beach, eventually earning yourself a spot in the NBA Combine, where your speed and agility determines what pick you're drafted at. All throughout this first area of the career mode, live-action segments starring ESPN's Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman will inform your story, with some details within the dialogue changing depending on how well you play in a few games.
From there, The main one is divided into two halves: The League and also the Streets. While your ultimate goal would be to dominate the League, you may still play the Streets by playing Pro-Am tournaments against the CPU, or by playing with four other actual players either co-operatively against computer players or against another five-man team. These two modes, that have been separated within the last iteration's career mode, are wholly tied together here. Burying Pro-Am in the career mode adds a pleasant level of consistency in your created player's game-life, and it ties into the consistency of the character's progression.
Like in Live 16, you will be graded for every performance. The higher your grade, the more experience you earn, which you'll then feed back to your player's stats and talents. All the games you play, whether it's an NBA game, a Pro-Am game, or perhaps a street game, will earn you XP toward leveling your character. If you're obtaining a lot of minutes in the League, then it definitely is effective grind it out there. However, should you be a lower draft pick, you might want to buff your skills in Pro-Am games against other players or against the CPU, which you'll have more time in the game. It results in you using a satisfying relationship together with your created character. The more you level them up, the greater you will be against tougher opponents, both on the internet and off.
What's not as satisfying has to play with AI teammates. Live 16's AI was pretty abysmal, and while Live 18 takes some steps forward, inconsistent decision-making as well as an almost magical ability to suck at getting defensive rebounds resulted in a lot of moments where I felt like my team was playing against me. It's slightly better when having fun with human teammates online, though probably you will be available for any corner three as well as your teammate will insist on driving to the basket while triple-teamed and doinking a layup.
On the topic of multiplayer, connection issues for that early adopters seemed okay. I was dropped from one head-to-head game, though it did say my opponent quit the match before it even began. As far as the Pro-Am five-on-five online is concerned, it ran quite smoothly. The main downside with this mode is that, if you're within an online lobby and other players quit, it appears as though the sport will simply fill those empty spots on the roster with AI players instead of finding new players to fill in the blanks. While it is easy enough to quit out and join another lobby, it's an odd choice, though it's possible that the relatively fewer players who had early access managed to get harder to find available players. Still, it isn't the most elegant solution, and it appears like you'll want to go in having a full team more often than not anyway, as having fun with strangers can often lead to dropped plays and selfish players.
That's to say, when it comes to sporting activities, I much prefer controlling the entire team. Unfortunately, Live 18's Franchise mode is simply kind of boring. There's plenty to do if you wish to concentrate on a single team and play every game, but don't search for much beyond that. You may still micro-manage your roster and you may jump in to the middle of simulated games in case your team is losing and you would like to try to correct the ship, but trading and picking up free agents is created somewhat awkward by the fact that the calendar is split into weeks. Additionally, news from round the league may also be just completely wrong, like when I simulated a game title as the Cleveland Cavaliers also it asserted Richard Jefferson earned a double-double, which would be awesome (otherwise a little unexpected) except for the truth that Jefferson hadn't played just one minute that game. It does not break the mode, but it doesn't help it, either. All of this implies that Franchise mode isn't necessarily terrible, but it makes zero significant changes or improvements over Live 16's, which is pretty disappointing considering the developers had 2 yrs to buff what has historically been the most popular mode in sporting activities. Live 18's Franchise mode just isn't immersive in any way.
Outside of Franchise mode, one other interesting addition to Live 18 is the WNBA to Play Now. When you can't play a WNBA franchise or career, you are able to play an exhibition game with two WNBA teams. While the inclusion from the WNBA is a fairly nod towards the historically under-appreciated league, EA Sports falls far lacking providing the same experience. It's immediately noticeable that EA Sports didn't bother having the commentators record just about any of the WNBA players' names. Additionally, you can't play WNBA games online, run a WNBA franchise, or produce a WNBA player, so it seems almost like an afterthought whose purpose ended up being to gain some kind of social brownie points that appear to be good in marketing campaigns. That said, something is preferable to nothing, I suppose, but my hope is that EA Sports will continue this trend and expand on the WNBA the coming year.
And that virtually sums up my experience with NBA Live 18 in a nutshell: it took some steps forward, but it might have gone further. Whether that's with the career mode, which could have introduced a more compelling narrative device other than text messages between both you and your agent, or whether it's player models, which look less stiff compared to what they have but nonetheless are afflicted by some weird animation issues and odd facial tics, NBA Live is probably at a better place than it has been inside a long time. Still, some of which was by mimicking what NBA 2K is doing for a while now. Just like NBA Live's career mode is, it has been done before. What hasn't necessarily been done before is a completely immersive Franchise Mode. Either way, NBA Live will need to invest in something greatly if it wants to stay relevant, though by continuing to refine its gameplay, particularly when you are looking at one-on-one defensive situations, and alternatively going full-scale using its franchise mode next year, NBA Live may have a future after all.
