Monday Tip-Off: The Novelty of Older & Newer Rosters

In this week's Monday Tip-Off, Andrew discusses the novelty of making older rosters for newer games, and newer rosters for older games.

The post Monday Tip-Off: The Novelty of Older & Newer Rosters appeared first on NLSC.

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on the novelty of updating older games for new seasons, and modding retro seasons into newer games.

Although I wish we had more than just NBA 2K coming out every year, the fact that we do still have an annual release means that we can always play with current rosters. If we do feel like revisiting a past season, it’s as easy as dusting off an old favourite, stepping into an interactive almanac as it were. We can have a blast exploring NBA history and keeping up with the current league alike via the virtual hardwood, simply by having an array of games on hand. What I’m getting at here is that we’re not reliant on customising any single game in order to experience different seasons.

Of course, while full season mods aren’t necessary, they’re still fantastic! There’s a real novelty in seeing contemporary players in a game that came out long before they were in the league, or indeed, before they were even born! Likewise, an authentic re-creation of the league from decades ago in a modern video game is a joy to behold. That novelty is why I’ll always advocate for going back and tinkering with an older game, or getting creative with a newer one. In both cases – older rosters in a newer game, or newer rosters in an older one – it’s an interesting combination of nostalgia and appreciation for the contemporary, leading to an enjoyable gaming experience.

Obviously, there’s novelty in most any kind of total conversion mod. If you take an NBA game and completely overhaul its rosters and aesthetics to essentially turn it into an NCAA title, or perhaps a EuroLeague or Australian NBL game, it’s impressive! A ton of work goes into those projects, especially when they’re so detailed that you can almost forget that what you’re seeing isn’t official content. The same goes for any retro season rosters for a newer game, as well as a current roster update for an older release. There’s excitement in knowing that a game shouldn’t look and be like that, and yet it does and it is! The fun begins even before you actually get to the gameplay.

In fact, this was even the case long before we had detailed total conversion mods with all of the necessary art updates and proper cyberfaces. When I discovered the NLSC way back in 1997, I was immediately taken with the idea of current roster updates. It’s something I’d already been doing with NBA Live 96 PC, but now I knew that it was possible to overwrite original players, add missing bio data, and generally create a more authentic update, using the tools that our founders had developed. Downloading the NLSC roster pack showed me what was possible with current updates, but the retro rosters also demonstrated that winding back the clock could be a fun idea, too.

Those older season rosters in the NLSC updates for NBA Live 95 and NBA Live 96 PC didn’t have accurate team branding. There were some logos, courts, and jerseys that were too new for rosters set in the 80s, or earlier in the 90s. Overwritten players still had their original portraits and career stats, which could be distracting. Of course, current roster updates also ran into the same problems, only the team art was now outdated rather than being too new. Given the limitations of art modding back then though, it wasn’t really an issue. Sure, we noticed those details, but the mere fact that we were playing a newer or older season in a game we liked was far more important.

Expectations naturally changed once we were able to modify branding more easily and in greater detail – to say nothing of feasibly distributing larger roster packages – but the underlying novelty remained the same. Additionally, the games in general were becoming better, with deeper controls and modes. Combine that with the first pangs of nostalgia for the 90s, and you get projects such as my 1996 rosters for NBA Live 2001 and NBA Live 2004. Sure, I could’ve just as easily gone back and played NBA Live 96, but by adding older rosters to a newer game, I could enjoy the best of both worlds by combining a nostalgic season with what were then modern mechanics.

It’s what makes Stildo33’s Classic Seasons for NBA 2K19 such an awesome project. I have no problem dusting off NBA Live 95 to throw it back to the 1995 campaign, but it looks so much cooler with detailed faces, jerseys, and so on, not to mention more advanced controls and realistic animations. Also, by stretching back into the 80s, the project covers seasons that were either represented in far more primitive titles, or not at all. Dee’s Ultimate Classic Teams Roster doesn’t represent a single season, but it similarly reaches into the past to combine fun squads with all of the advancements of a newer game. Again, it’s indulging nostalgia through contemporary conveniences.

That novelty is easy to understand, but what about putting newer rosters into older games? On the surface, that’s combining interest in the contemporary NBA with outdated graphics and mechanics, which we presumably want to move beyond! What we have to remember, however, is that modding is a creative outlet. Just as there’s satisfaction in authentically replicating an older season in a newer game, successfully revamping an older title so that it looks like a newer one – at least in terms of rosters and team branding – is a fun accomplishment for modders. Once again, there’s novelty in knowing a game shouldn’t look and be a certain way, but modding has made it so.

My “complete update” for NBA Live 96 PC, which added 2001 rosters along with a handful of art updates, is an example here. NBA Live 96 was and still is one of my all-time favourite basketball games, and it was also my introduction to modding. As such, I wanted to make one last update for it, doing as much as I possibly could with the mod. I wasn’t playing the game much by that point – very few people were – so unlike my 1998 roster, it wasn’t something I was doing just so that I could play along with the current campaign. It sounds pretentious to say that I was doing it as a kind of “artistic expression”, but it was definitely more about creating it than playing with it.

However, that isn’t universally the case with current season roster updates for older games. Some games do hold up well years later, particularly those that aren’t too far removed from modern titles. Even those that do feel more retro – relatively speaking – can still be a blast to play. Indeed, there are basketball gamers that prefer the simpler mechanics of older games and don’t mind the outdated graphics. With the focus on the online scene and live service content in newer titles, a number of games from 10-15 years ago can actually feel more authentic and NBA-oriented than more recent ones. There are plenty of valid reasons that basketball gamers stick with an old favourite.

At the same time, they may still have an interest in the contemporary NBA. And so, just as creating older rosters in newer games combines nostalgia for the NBA of yesteryear with modern video game mechanics, creating newer rosters in older games combines enthusiasm for the current league with nostalgia for a particular style of gameplay. As I said, it’s an interesting mixture of nostalgia and appreciation for the contemporary. No matter which you prefer – re-living old seasons in modern games, or playing with current players in an old favourite – it comes down to the same desire to combine the best aspects of a bygone era with something new that you also like.

I’d suggest that this is a common desire, not just in technology and sports but in life and society in general. The novelty of mixing old and new has wide appeal. It’s why there are costume parties where we dress up in retro fashions. It’s why NBA teams have had classic jersey nights for decades now, and why a number of City jerseys have paid homage to past designs. Even if a club’s current squad is better than the one that wore a certain uniform, and even if you believe that jersey represents an NBA that’s inferior to the modern league, it’s still fun to see current players wearing it. As the saying goes, and as Barenaked Ladies once sang, everything old is new again!

From a modding perspective, there’s also novelty in the challenge of striving for as much authenticity as possible. In my aforementioned 2001 season update for NBA Live 96 PC, this meant including some art updates that had never been featured in previous roster mods for the game. “Complete update” was admittedly overselling it, but thanks to the new logos, “Wizards” wordmark, and updated jersey colours from Bobby H – who I regrettably forgot to credit in the readme – it was still a significant overhaul. My 1996 roster for NBA Live 2001 was fairly light on art updates, but the NBA Live 2004 version of the mod is quite detailed, thanks to its many contributors.

Similarly, there’s a challenge in getting a newer game to play like the older NBA, or a classic game to reflect the contemporary style. Can you get players in NBA Live 06 to take as many three-pointers as players in 2024 do? Can you tweak the gameplay in NBA 2K19 so that the players in a mid-90s roster favour the midrange and posting up? Sure, it takes a great effort to essentially re-skin a game with era-appropriate faces and team branding, but the truly impressive roster mods also replicate the style of play from a completely different era; at least as much as the engine is capable of, at any rate. Oftentimes in modding, you’ll have to settle for what the game will allow.

I hope that we continue to see retro season rosters for recent games – as well as mods that combine an assortment of classic teams like UCTR – and current rosters for old favourites. It’ll always be a novelty to mix the old and the new to get the basketball gaming experience that we’re after, and marvel at a well-made mod that has gone far beyond a cosmetic overhaul. I’ll always enjoy revisiting games in their vanilla state, taking in the snapshot of what the NBA and basketball gaming was like at the time. I’m also interested to see what new games can bring to the table. However, the mods that superbly combine past and present will always make those titles even more fun.

The post Monday Tip-Off: The Novelty of Older & Newer Rosters appeared first on NLSC.