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 game modes that are sorely missed nowadays.

Being a long-time basketball gamer eventually means missing a feature or an entire game mode that’s disappeared from recent releases. It may have been big and popular, or it might have been small and relatively niche, but either way, you wish that it were still available. There are countless examples that we could all cite, but there are five modes in particular that I believe are sorely missed nowadays. It doesn’t mean that we haven’t had other great modes and features, or that the games haven’t been any good since we lost these modes, but we still hated to see them go.

We must of course acknowledge that there are many reasons why modes we sorely miss were removed, and it’s not always malicious. If a mode wasn’t very popular, or if there was difficulty integrating it with new features, or there’s a solution that’s mostly better but for a couple of differences that appeal to a small contingent of the userbase, it’s going to end up on the chopping block.  If the removal of a mode or feature helps generate recurrent revenue…well, that feels much shadier! Mind you, whatever the reason may be, it still stings to lose modes that we’re fond of. With that in mind, here are five modes that I’d suggest are sorely missed by basketball gamers these days.

1. Creating a Legend

Unsurprisingly, many gamers model their career mode avatars after real NBA players. Some even take it a step further by giving their avatar a real player’s name and face, essentially role-playing as them. Personally, I think that’s a fun idea, even if the story doesn’t necessarily accommodate it! Of course, there was once a much easier way to step into the shoes of a real NBA player in NBA 2K: Creating a Legend. The mode debuted as MJ: Creating a Legend in NBA 2K11, and was a reward for completing the Jordan Challenge. It saw us take control of a rookie Michael Jordan, placing him on the team of our choice in the 2011 season in order to re-write his legendary career.

It was a fun extra on top of some milestone historical content, but not everyone was interested in the concept. However, there was definitely a lot of interest in playing through a career mode as a real NBA player, which naturally led to some modded My Player save files. Creating a Legend in NBA 2K12 and NBA 2K13 alleviated the need for such mods, allowing us to play through a streamlined career mode as the player of our choice, be it a rookie or veteran. Sadly, it ended up being a very short-lived mode. It likely didn’t help that MyCAREER was ultimately more popular, but I’m sure the lack of monetisation and connection to online play were major factors in its removal.

2. Offline MyCAREER

Creating a Legend isn’t the only mode to get axed thanks to a heavier focus on online play. While it’s important to cater to what is a very popular scene, and there have been some advantages to making MyCAREER a connected experience, it’s unfortunately cost us the offline version of the mode. It’s a shame, because it didn’t have to be that way. Sure, the offline version of MyCAREER in NBA 2K14 through NBA 2K17 was missing some key features with more and more being stripped out of the mode as the years progressed, but it remained playable. Not only that, but as my ongoing NBA 2K14 MyCAREER demonstrates, those modes are still enjoyable for retro gamers!

Again, there’s no denying that the connected experience can benefit us as gamers. It’d be a massive hassle to have to be on the grind to upgrade multiple avatars, and I can only imagine the cheating that’d take place if we could start a file offline and then take that player into the online team play modes. Nevertheless, it’s a pain to lose a single player mode in its entirety when online support ends. Offline MyCAREER was also fun for experimentation, whether it was externally tinkering with your save file, or just trying out a wacky idea. It’s an example of how chasing profits and trends can end up stripping video games of fun modes, because it’s no longer about our enjoyment.

3. All-Star Weekend

When it comes to the mistakes that NBA Live made during the seventh generation, removing the All-Star Weekend in NBA Live 10 wasn’t the worst blunder. It was a disappointing move though, and in hindsight, a sign that the series was moving in the wrong direction. NBA Live isn’t the only series to have All-Star Weekend festivities, but as far as the integration of those events into season/franchise play and also being a standalone mode, I maintain that no game has done the NBA’s midseason classic as well as EA Sports did from NBA Live 2005 through NBA Live 09. Sadly, it never returned on the eighth generation, and NBA 2K hasn’t seen fit to pick up the slack.

It’s not just the on-court experience in NBA 2K’s Slam Dunk Contest and Three-Point Shootout that makes me wistful for NBA Live’s All-Star Weekend mode, though that definitely is part of it. The best part about All-Star Weekend being a standalone mode is that we could play those events at any time. Not only did that give us something fun to do in between regular games, but it allowed us to practice the mechanics of those events. And yes, you can set up a MyNBA/MyLEAGUE, sim through to the All-Star break, and practice that way, but how is that enjoyable or convenient? The Weekend has lost its lustre in real life so I suppose it makes sense, but it’s still sorely missed.

4. Create-a-Team & Fantasy Team Play

I’m talking about a few different modes that are sorely missed here. We have the old school custom teams with fictional branding, where you populate the rosters with the players you want for some fantasy showdowns. There’s also Create-a-Team, a very similar idea except that you can name your squad and design its branding. And then, there’s fantasy team play, which may be available as a separate mode, or perhaps as an option when setting up an exhibition game. Unfortunately, all these modes have been phased out over the years. As a result, it takes more time and effort to set up a fantasy scenario for a once-off game. Create-a-Team was also a useful function for modding.

Now, some might suggest that Create-a-Team and other custom/fantasy team modes have basically been replaced by the card collecting modes, as well as the ability to re-brand teams in MyNBA/MyLEAGUE. In a way, that’s true. There are similarities, and they effectively did replace those old concepts. They’re not adequate replacements for custom teams and Create-a-Team, though. Card collecting modes obviously restrict our choice based on the players we’ve gathered – possibly through microtransactions – while team re-branding is part of a larger experience. There’s value in those modes, but they’re not exactly conducive to setting up a quick game with fantasy lineups.

5. Scenario Modes

As NBA Live modding (or patching, as it was then called) was entering a golden age in the late 90s/early 2000s, I remember a few people creating scenarios using NBA Live 2000’s in-game save function. They were mostly re-creations of real scenarios, such as Michael Jordan’s game-winning shot in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals. It was a great use of a handy function, though it obviously took quite a bit of work to set up! Needless to say, once games such as NBA Live and NBA 2K began including a scenario/situation mode, we could re-create iconic moments or devise challenging fantasy scenarios in minutes. Scenario modes weren’t vital, but they were a blast.

That’s pretty much the story of all these modes that have fallen by the wayside. The games will definitely survive and can still have plenty of depth without them, but we did lose fun concepts. You only have to look at BIG Moments or the scenario-based challenges in Ultimate Team and MyTEAM to see that a short game based on a real event or intriguing hypothetical situation is an idea that still holds great appeal. Like custom and fantasy teams, it’s a way to set up a quick once-off session that still has some interesting stakes. I realise that games are all about live service content feeding us these scenarios now, but I for one miss the ability to be creative and imaginative.

What are some other modes from basketball video games that you really miss? 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.

The post The Friday Five: 5 Modes Sorely Missed Nowadays appeared first on NLSC.