NBA Live '96

"Easily the worst basketball game I've ever played."

This game makes NBA In The Zone '98 look like NBA 2K2. Yep, it's that bad.

Graphics: 0/10

Someone apparently beat this game with an ugly stick, poured sulfuric acid on it, and beat it some more. It loses to the Game & Watch games in graphical quality. There are graphical glitches too. As they move around, players have large blank spaces in their bodies. It looks as if some mad serial killer chopped the players up with a chainsaw, then tried to glue them back together again, but did a horrible job. The players are all identical too, except for their uniform colors. One team has a black uniform, while the other team has a white uniform. I know this is the original GameBoy, but this game still looks like ass.

Sound: 1/10

The music is cheap, repetitive crap. This is coming from a person who loved the music in Bases Loaded and Paperboy. That is only in the menus, though. The sound in the real game is actually worse. There is no music when you're in a game. Only cheap sound effects. It sounds something like this:
*you pass the ball in*
(cheap bouncing sound)
*2 seconds go by*
(another crappy bouncing sound)
*2 more seconds go by*
(yet another cheap bouncing sound)
*your player sssslllooowwwlllyyyy shoots the ball*
(a different cheap bouncing sound as the ball hits the rim, followed by a static sound as the ball goes in and the crowd ''cheers'')

Yes, it is that horrendously bad. I've never met anyone who actually liked the music in NBA Live '96. Then again, I've never met anyone else who owns this abysmal game.

Gameplay: 2/10

Live '96 has a helluva lot of options, especially for a portable basketball game. It has a season mode, a playoff mode, and an exhibition mode. It also has 3 difficulties, custom rules, a team matchup screen and many other options. They could be refined, though. The CPU could actually decline trades, or it could let you choose what teams should be in, in the playoff mode. That stuff is nice, but too bad the real basketball isn't nearly that good. The game moves unbearably slow, which makes the minimum game time of twelve minutes seem like an eternity. I wonder if anyone actually has the patience to play through a full season of that....

Replay Value: 3/10

The various game modes keep the game interesting for a little while, but the slow paced games kill the experience for me. I guess if you find the games fun, then this game would have a lot of replay value, but in my opinion, the games aren't fun. In fact, they are quite the opposite, which is why I gave the replay value such a low score.

Overall: 2/10

The game is ugly, it sounds bad, and it is just too damn boring to warrant any higher of a score.

Pros:
-Lots of game options.
-It is pretty hard to find, so you don't have to worry about relatives buying it for you.

Cons:
-Slow, boring games
-Ugly as hell
-Crappy music/sound
-CPU never declines trades
-You can't chose your own teams for the playoffs.

Buy or Rent: Neither.
Unless you are obsessed with collecting GameBoy games, avoid it like the plague.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 02/24/02, Updated 02/24/02