NBA Live 15
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 This is what happens when you make a bug filled disaster in an annually released franchise. Some of the next games won’t be good! | ||||||||||||||||
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NBA Live 15 is a 2014 basketball game developed by EA Tiburon and published by EA Sports. Released on October 28, 2014 in North America and released on October 31, 2014 in Europe. It is the 18th installment in the NBA Live series as the successor to the infamous NBA Live 14 and the predecessor to NBA Live 16. It is also the 2nd installment after the four-year hiatus that started in 2010.
Servers were shutdown in December 2019.
Why It Didn't Get A Slam Dunk
- The main problem with the game is that it carried over a lot of problems from its predecessor leaving the game very buggy which causes the problems below.
- The graphics aren't really much better from Live 14. Even NBA Live 06 on Xbox 360 looked better than this.
- The ball physics are dumb and laughably bad. Even NBA Live 2005, a game 10 years before this released had better ball physics than this trashy ball physics in this game.
- Terrible servers.
- The AI is pretty dumb to the point in rising star you have to do the scoring almost all by yourself.
- Very painful shooting.
- Weird player movement.
- Head aching framerate. Even during replays.
- It’s basically pretty much the same as its predecessor but with the number 15 slapped on it.
- Little to no depth beyond ultimate team which shows that EA puts most of the effort towards ultimate team.
- The soundtrack while decent, is clogged up with censored rap music and only one rock song but with some electronic songs.
- A lot of features from older NBA Live games are missing such as Slam Dunk Contest, 3-Point Contest, FIBA Teams and FIBA Tournament, Shoe Walls, Freestyle Challenge, and Playable Training Camp.
- Lots of bugs and glitches. For example the game could get stuck during a free throw and you would have to start all over!
- The game costed $60 dollars at launch despite being a unstable, buggy, glitchy low quality product. Seriously $60 dollars for a half baked sports game with terrible graphics, laughable and dumb ball physics, terrible servers, bare-bones game modes besides ultimate team, painful shooting, and a glitch where a game gets stuck during a free throw?!
- Overall, the gameplays and feels like a half-baked NBA 2K game. The NBA Live Series has went downhill after NBA Live 06 on the Xbox 360, (the first downfall) and NBA Live 14 (second downfall) in which both these games are no better. (NBA Live 06 was still good on any platform except for its Xbox 360 version.)
Swish Qualities
- The new Learn Live mode can be helpful for beginners.
- Decent soundtrack, despite being almost filled up with censored rap music and barely any rock songs.
- it's a slight improvement over 14.
- This game can have a "so bad its good" charm due to how laughably bad the ball physics and graphics are.
- At least it had competition towards NBA 2K15.
- If you didn't have enough money for NBA 2K15 and you had EA access. You could get a free trial of this game or at least play NBA 2K14 until you get enough money for NBA 2K15.
Reception
NBA Live 15 was given mixed to negative reception from critics and gamers.
On Metacritic the game has a 59 critic score and 5.9 user score, 53 critic score and 6.9 user score for PS4 and Xbox One respectively. IGN gave it a 5.5/10 saying don't let the improved looks fool you – NBA Live 15's good ideas are all stifled by poor gameplay fundamentals.