Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five times that we were able to alter the frontend in basketball video games without modding them.

You know, sometimes we focus so much on searching for the video game secrets that we wish were real, that we forget to enjoy the fun things we can actually do. Take Super Mario 64, for example. So many people have painstakingly collected every coin in every level, and done everything else they can to unlock Luigi; an endeavour that’s doomed to fail, because it’s been proven that he’s not in the game. Something that is in the game however is the ability to stretch Mario’s face on the title screen into goofy poses and expressions. Silly as it may be, I’ve laughed uproariously while doing that!

After all, there’s something satisfying about being able to mess around with a game’s presentation or frontend, without actually having to externally mod any files. It may not have a practical use, but it doesn’t need one. It’s still a novelty, something fun to do as you’re preparing to jump into gameplay, or you’ve just finished up a session. I realise that doesn’t gel with the idea of competitive play, grinding for rewards, and taking video games super seriously, but that’s not all that gaming is about. Whether it’s a prominent option that you can select, or a minor detail that you can manipulate, there’s joy in having the ability to alter the frontend in various basketball video games.

1. Player Uniforms in NBA Live 2003’s Main Menu

The players that appear in the background of NBA Live 2003’s main menu are in-game models, rather than pre-rendered clips. This is admittedly obvious from the fact that as the game cycles through different groups of players, they’re all performing the same array of animations as the previous one. Any lingering doubt is removed when you start moving those players around to other teams, and their jerseys on the main menu change accordingly. This synchronicity between the predetermined players in the frontend presentation and any customisation in the active roster helps keep things fresh. Indeed, that’s a running theme with all of the examples that I’m covering here.

As for NBA Live 2003, it was fun seeing details such as Gary Payton switching to a Milwaukee Bucks jersey as I kept the rosters updated for the 2003 season; again, this is the advantage of using in-game models instead of pre-rendered footage. Of course, it wasn’t quite as aesthetically pleasing in 2004 season updates, when Michael Jordan suddenly sported a Free Agents jersey! To that point, retro roster mods could really mess with the frontend in NBA Live 2003; especially when you started externally editing the databases to hide not-yet-active players, removing them from the rotation on the menu. For basic in-game roster customisation though, it was a cool feature.

2. Featured Players & Colours in NBA Live 2004’s Menus

NBA Live 2004 continued the approach of showing off in-game animations and models in its main menu, but took it a step further by having the players performing moves in an empty arena. This time however, gamers had control over who would appear in the frontend. The new “Favourite Team” option allowed you to nominate the team whose players would appear in those scenes. It also changed the colour of the menus accordingly, which is why as a Chicago Bulls fan, I always recall NBA Live 2004’s frontend with a red hue. Incidentally, you can also just choose the “NBA” option if you want to have a generic blue menu with an assortment of star players.

When a specific team is chosen, the top five players are the ones that are displayed. Much as the jerseys for the preselected players in NBA Live 2003’s main menu would change if they were traded, the five players from your chosen team will reflect any alterations in the active roster. Likewise, if you’ve chosen not to select a favourite team with the NBA option, those players’ jerseys will reflect any roster customisation that’s taken place. There are many things about NBA Live 2004 that are far more exciting and impactful than its frontend customisation options, but it was still great to have that kind of personalisation, as it even worked with mods like my 1996 roster.

3. Default Player in The Temple (NBA Live 06 & 07)

This is one of those details that I discovered quite accidentally, and then wondered how I’d managed to overlook it for so long! The Temple – the futuristic, industrial-themed practice arena in NBA Live 06 and NBA Live 07 for Xbox 360 – gets gamers onto the sticks before they’ve even seen a traditional frontend. For all the missteps that NBA Live made during the seventh generation, that was a cool and innovative idea! It’s a concept that was used right through to NBA Live 10, though NBA Live 06 and NBA Live 07 went all out on the idea, constructing the arena as the game finished loading, and then dropping in the cover player wearing their team’s road jersey.

Of course, you’re not restricted to only shooting around with cover star, as you can select any player in the league, and choose between their team’s home, road, and any alternate jerseys. So, what did I miss here? You can actually change the default player that you’ll begin shooting around with when the game boots up, if you save the game’s settings after switching to another player during a session. They’ll even wear the same jersey that you selected! It’s not a huge deal, but it’s still a nice touch to be able to be greeted by your favourite player on bootup. As for why it took me years to notice, I somehow never saw fit to save the settings after switching up players in The Temple.

4. NBA Live 08 & 09 Practice Arena (Plus a Jersey Glitch)

Because I’m not above cheating with a two-for-one example in The Friday Five, I’m including the ability the select the practice court that serves as a backdrop for the frontend shootaround in both NBA Live 08 and NBA Live 09. In NBA Live 08, it’s an empty arena with the chosen team’s branding, while in NBA Live 09, it’s the team’s practice facility complete with two courts, courtesy of the new NBA Live Academy. As in NBA Live 06 and 07, NBA Live 08 allows us to choose any player we like, independently of the selected arena. In NBA Live 09, we can only choose from the players on the designated team. Neither game allows us to select jerseys as before.

However, there is a glitch in NBA Live 08’s practice arena that I chanced upon when I was checking out a makeshift classic teams roster that I discovered among my save files. Normally, players will wear a grey team-branded practice jersey, and shorts in the team’s primary colour. If you switch from cover player Gilbert Arenas to another player, load a custom roster, and then back out to the practice arena again however, Agent Zero will now be wearing the Washington Wizards’ home uniform! Any other player that you select will also now wear their team’s home jersey rather than practice gear. It’s a weird little bug that isn’t particularly useful, but it was a fun discovery.

5. Player Uniforms in The Hangar (NBA Live 10)

Of all the interactive frontend environments in the seventh generation NBA Live titles, The Hangar in NBA Live 10 is the least customisable. We can’t choose the players that will be grouped together for a shootaround in The Hangar – though we can switch control between players in the current group – and the only way to get a new selection of players is to enter gameplay or Dynasty mode, and then exit out. This allowed the game to provide some fun Easter eggs for keen-eyed gamers as far as the theme of all the groups, but it wasn’t so great for shooting around with your favourite player. Once again, all players sported their respective team’s practice gear.

With that being said, roster customisation does allow us to make some minor cosmetic changes to the players in The Hangar. Whenever the game boots up, the first group of players that includes cover player Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Kobe Bryant, will always wear their jerseys from the default roster. If they or the players in any other groups are on a new team in an active custom roster though, they’ll be wearing the appropriate gear the next time the group refreshes (again, after exiting gameplay or Dynasty mode). As I said, these dynamic changes to interactive elements in the frontend were fun to look out for, and made the game feel more alive.

Which of these ways to alter the frontend in basketball video games were you aware of? Are they something that you’ve messed around with over the years? Have your say in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

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