Wayback Wednesday: Creating Michael Jordan in NBA Live 96 PC

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at creating Michael Jordan in NBA Live 96 PC.

Today, I’m forty. I’ve been alluding to it in articles and on the NLSC Podcast, and finally, the day has come. It’s a confronting realisation that I’m now technically middle-aged, but then again, I’ve been leaning into a few Grumpy Old Man opinions for a while now! Of course, that invites some armchair psychologist to dismiss those views as blind nostalgia, born of a desperate desire to cling to my youth and a time when everything felt simpler. Joke’s on them, though; I was born to be a retro gamer, and I was going wayback before I was even thirty, let alone forty!

Snark aside, it is my birthday and a milestone one to boot, so I’d like to do something fun to mark the occasion. With that in mind, I’ve been mulling the possibilities as the date drew nearer. I could revisit a favourite game. A couple of the features that I’d already planned would also certainly fit with the reflective nostalgia of another trip around the sun. In the end though, I decided that I’d reminisce about something that combines a favourite game, my all-time favourite player, and the hobby of modding: creating Michael Jordan in NBA Live 96 PC. Let’s take a look back…way back…

On this day in 1996 – my twelfth birthday, obviously – my basketball fanaticism was in full swing. I was playing with friends at school almost every day, shooting around on my hoop in the backyard just as frequently, collecting trading cards, watching real games and highlights, reading magazines, and of course, playing video games. It was the embodiment of the NBA’s old slogan: “I love this game!” Michael Jordan was my favourite player, the Chicago Bulls were my favourite team, and both were on top of the basketball world. My games of choice were NBA Jam Tournament Edition and NBA Live 96, both on PC. There’s nothing quite like the early days of your fandom!

Of course, back then, Michael Jordan – or more specifically, his absence – was a sore point in basketball gaming. As has been widely discussed over the years, MJ opted out of the agreement that allowed video game developers to include NBA players, necessitating that they come to terms with him separately. EA Sports did have a working relationship with His Airness, which resulted in titles such as Jordan vs. Bird, Michael Jordan in Flight, and Chaos in the Windy City, as well as the ability to keep including him in the NBA Playoffs games. When MJ returned to the NBA in 1995 though, EA were unable to secure his rights for the re-branded NBA Live series.

Similarly, Midway and Acclaim were unable to license him to appear in NBA Jam TE. As such, my fondest memories in that game revolve around Scottie Pippen! NBA Live 96 PC featured a Create-a-Player function though, which meant that the Bulls didn’t need to be without their franchise player. It sounds corny I know, but when you’re twelve years old in a time before modding, adding missing players such as Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley was exciting! Any disappointment about MJ’s absence faded immediately as you crafted that 6’6″, 216 lbs player wearing #23 for the Chicago Bulls, and added him to the roster. Instant Jordan, no cyberface necessary!

This is the part where I have to admit that the first time I created Michael Jordan in NBA Live 96, I maxed out all of his attributes. I mean, I was twelve, and it was MJ; he was the greatest, of course he should have maxed-out ratings! It didn’t take long for me to realise how misguided that was, especially when I began taking an interest in updating the rosters with further trades and signings. I ended up re-creating MJ a couple of times due to other mistakes, including messing up his fatigue rating, and giving him the name “MIchael Jordan” thanks to an overlooked typo. His ratings were probably still slightly inflated, but at least he wasn’t 99 in every single category now.

Needless to say and to put it mildly, it’s great that graphics have improved since then! However, the benefit of those graphics at the time is that the created players used the same heads as the originals. To that point, if you see Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, or any other created player in NBA Live 96 PC, it won’t be instantly apparent during gameplay that they weren’t there to begin with. I actually recall marvelling at that when I began tinkering with the rosters, adding MJ, Chuck, and so on. It may sound strange with the amazing mods we’ve seen in more advanced games, but it was really cool to add those missing players, and not have them stick out like a sore thumb.

Well, for the most part. Even though a couple of original players didn’t have portraits in NBA Live 96 PC, there was no getting around the fact that my created Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley having “No Portrait Available” made them stand out in overlays and roster screens. Create-a-Player in NBA Live 96 didn’t allow us to specify the number of Years Pro, so veterans like Jordan and Barkley were listed as rookies. They were also missing a date of birth, draft information, and other bio data, as well as career statistics on their player card/”view player” profile. That screen also quite clearly branded them a Created Player, so there was no getting around it completely.

The novelty of having Michael Jordan on the court in NBA Live 96 generally made up for those inaccuracies and lack of detail. Again, he blended in with the original players during gameplay, and the rest was what it was. Still, I dreamed of being able to add a more complete MJ to the game. And then, when my family finally got online in August 1997, searching on Altavista for NBA Live 96 content brought me to the NBA Live Series Center. The rosters and editors that our founders had created made those dreams come true. From then on, no Michael Jordan that I added to NBA Live 96 PC would be without his birth date, draft information, or correct NBA experience!

I imagine that the concept of a licensed NBA video game missing one of the biggest stars of the sport is near-unfathomable to younger gamers. A lack of likeness rights and placeholder Roster Players are easy enough to understand because we see that in the classic teams in NBA 2K to this day, but an active superstar being completely absent just doesn’t happen anymore. The notion that one of the first things to do with a brand new basketball game is to add the most famous player in the NBA must seem incredibly bizarre. Looking back, it certainly was! Nevertheless, that’s what we did with NBA Live 95, 96, 97, 98, and other sim basketball titles of the same vintage.

As much as it wasn’t ideal, there’s something oddly nostalgic about that ritual now. Mind you, that’s probably because it sparked my interest in modding, and I’m sure that other modders from the early days of our community can say the same. It was exciting to be able to easily add any missing players using an in-game function, and then make them even more complete with external tools. Create-a-Player wasn’t yet a common staple in sports games – indeed, 96 was the first year that we had it in NBA Live – and roster customisation in general was in its relative infancy. Given my failed attempts to mod NBA Jam Tournament Edition PC, it wasn’t something to be taken for granted!

1996 being the year where my basketball fandom truly blossomed is undoubtedly a major factor in why it’s been the season I’ve preferred to re-create with retro roster mods in later games. However, I believe that having such fond memories of NBA Live 96, and it being my introduction to modding, has also influenced that choice. Ironically, thanks to his inclusion as a Legend in NBA Live 2001 and 2004, Michael Jordan is one of the players that I didn’t have to create in those mods! Naturally it’s preferable to have MJ in the game by default, but I’m grateful that as I was getting into sim basketball games, his absence wasn’t a hindrance that couldn’t be overcome.

At the risk of proving the “you’re stuck in the past” crowd correct, I’m inclined to agree with a point made by my fellow Elder Millennial, “Yahtzee” Croshaw. In discussing the “Boomer Shooter” genre of FPS games, he described being around the age of twelve as “that wonderful nostalgic period in most people’s lives when they’re just old enough to properly appreciate their entertainment, but not yet old enough to be cynical about it”. Again, that’s the age I was when I was creating Michael Jordan in NBA Live 96 PC, and falling in love with the beautiful sport of basketball. There’s no question that it’s inspired powerful nostalgia that isn’t fettered by weary cynicism.

However, that nostalgia hasn’t left me believing that NBA Live 96 was the peak of basketball gaming, or that creating Michael Jordan was necessarily a desirable task. I don’t believe that basketball gaming should be as it was in 1996; not in that regard, anyway! That being said, those wonderful memories that I created with my earliest forays onto the virtual hardwood, and watching the real NBA, absolutely solidified my basketball fandom. I’ve had several interests and hobbies over the years, but many of them were merely passing fads and fancies. Conversely, my love of basketball and enthusiasm for basketball gaming have endured, because of those early experiences.

It’s something that the anti-nostalgia crowd may never understand. Sure, nostalgia can be blinding. One can get stuck in the past and become too close-minded to appreciate the new. That’s the potential downside of nostalgia, but it’s not all that it is. It’s also appreciating the memories of those meaningful moments that shaped who you are, and led you to where you are today. It’s ultimately a foundation for enjoying your passions years and indeed decades later. Some people talk about becoming so jadedly nostalgic that you can’t enjoy the present. I get that, but personally, I hope I’m never so jaded that I can’t appreciate the joyful events that inspired my love of basketball!

If not for combining my newfound passion for hoops with my established hobby of video games, I wouldn’t have gone out and purchased NBA Live 96 PC. I wouldn’t have been motivated to add Michael Jordan to a game where he was missing, and then expand that interest into creating further updates. I wouldn’t be running the NLSC, or likely even part of our community. In turn, I wouldn’t have ever attended community events and gained fascinating insights into video game development, or made friends with fellow hoop heads all around the world. I wouldn’t have created even more fond memories watching basketball, and playing (and modding!) basketball video games.

Maybe that sounds like I’m ascribing too much importance to an activity from my early days of basketball gaming. Maybe it’s not that deep, as people like to say. After all, I wasn’t the only person creating Michael Jordan and other missing players in NBA Live 96 PC and other games. As I said, it was an annual ritual for anyone who wanted to play with complete and accurate rosters! If MJ had been in the games by default, we’d have hardly been disappointed, or felt robbed of an essential experience. We ended up being bonded by the activity and the desire for accuracy though, and it became forever linked with our enjoyment of those classic releases from our youth.

To that end, it would still be a fond memory for me even if it didn’t lead to more fun and even some rare opportunities as an online content creator. Yes, being twelve at the time helps, but creating Michael Jordan in NBA Live 96 PC and playing with him on the Chicago Bulls represent some of my purest enjoyment of the virtual hardwood. It’s tough to say that without sounding like I’m stuck in a romanticised past, but it’s that introduction to basketball and basketball gaming that has inspired an ongoing fandom. Today of all of days, it’s not about grumbling about the good old days, but rather being grateful for the passions and experiences that still bring me joy at forty.

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