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 another list of five times that basketball video games messed up player appearances.

To reiterate a point I made in my previous article, I’m not the harshest critic when it comes to graphics. Games of all genres have come a long way since I got into the hobby, particularly the likenesses in basketball titles. When you grow up with games where players have minimal facial details and team jerseys are primarily distinguished by having the correct colours – well, maybe – you aren’t really all that bothered by a face that’s 99% accurate, or a shoe with a minor error. Those are valid criticisms of course, but they’re not at the top of my list.

Nevertheless, I still notice visual oddities and inaccuracies. It’s highly unlikely to ruin my experience compared to buggy and broken gameplay, but glaring issues do stick out like a sore thumb. Whether it’s a poor likeness or there’s been some mistake with their face texture, some games have really messed up when it comes to the appearance of a player or two. That can be funny to point out and look back on of course, which brings us to this latest instalment in a series all about messed up player appearances. It’s difficult to top Giannis Antetokounmpo in NBA Live 14 when it comes to a lack of visual fidelity, but I’m sure you’ll agree that these players didn’t look their best.

1. Dennis Rodman in NBA 2K9

NBA 2K9 has rapidly risen up the ranks of my favourite NBA 2K titles. In addition to further enhancements to the gameplay – including some course correction following the missteps of NBA 2K8 – NBA 2K9 demonstrated continued improvement in terms of graphics, particularly player likenesses. The angular faces of earlier seventh gen releases were being phased out, and while there was still room for improvement, the game boasts some good likenesses for its time. NBA 2K9 also includes a healthy amount of Legends and retro jerseys, as evident from my features that placed several historical players back on teams representing both their famous and infamous stints.

That brings us to Dennis Rodman, available as a member of the 90s All-Stars. While The Worm does have a pretty good likeness – better than some active players, in fact – there’s definitely something wrong with his eyes! As you can see from the screenshots above, he has a tendency to either go cross-eyed or wall-eyed as his head moves and expression changes. This doesn’t seem to happen with any other Legend, and it isn’t a common issue with faces in NBA 2K9 in general. As you can imagine, this presented a challenge while trying to capture those historical screenshots, as Rodman’s esotropia and exotropia spoiled what were otherwise great poses reminiscent of real photos!

2. Anthony Miller in NBA Live 06

Although he only played in 181 career games, Anthony Miller was a Los Angeles Laker in 1995, putting him in the right place at the right time to make a cameo in Space Jam. That appearance, his nickname of “Pig”, basketball cards, and a presence in NBA Live games during the late 90s, all ensured that I’d still remember him three decades later. Indeed, I can still picture the portrait that he had in NBA Live 96 PC in my mind’s eye! To that end, despite Pig’s relative obscurity and unremarkable NBA career – Space Jam cameo aside – I’ll definitely clock it whenever a game messes up his appearance; for example, NBA Live 06 giving him the same face as Andre Miller.

One can easily see how it probably happened. Pig signed with the Atlanta Hawks in October 2004, returning to the NBA after three years in the CBA. This was too late for him to appear in NBA Live 2005, but he ended up being included in NBA Live 06 as a Free Agent. Previous games used ANMILLE as Anthony’s PLAYERPKG, which forced Andre Miller to use ADMILLE instead. Dre’s files were very likely copied and renamed so that they could be used as placeholders for Pig, which was subsequently never fixed seeing as he was a low priority and thus easy to overlook. It’s not as big of a blunder as other messed up appearances, but still recognisable to 90s kids like me.

3. The Class of 1999 in NBA Live 2000

NBA Live 2000 PC is one of the greatest basketball video games of all-time. While it naturally does show its age a quarter of a century later, it remains a blast to this day. With that being said, if you dust it off and play with the default rosters, you’ll soon be reminded of one of its few flaws: thin lineups. Due to the timing of its release and the roster cut-off date, there are teams with less than 12 players, and significant names are conspicuously absent. Those absentees include veteran Ron Harper – a champion with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000 – and rookie Richard Hamilton, the seventh overall pick in 1999. Of course, the rookies who did make the cut had lacklustre likenesses.

While NBA Live 2000 PC boasts some incredible faces including a few that are more realistic than their counterparts in recent NBA 2K games, this sadly doesn’t include the Class of 1999. Due to being late additions to the game as the rosters were being finalised, Elton Brand, Lamar Odom, Steve Francis, and other rookies all have generic faces. They’re also missing portraits and sport placeholder jersey numbers in the 80s, except for Francis who is wearing his college number of 23. This was preferable to the Class of 1999 being left out of NBA Live 2000 altogether of course, and it gave our modding community an obvious project to immediately sink their teeth into.

4. Dominique Wilkins in NBA Live 99

If you don’t remember Dominique Wilkins’ final NBA stint with the Orlando Magic in the lockout-shortened 1999 season, you’re definitely not alone! Between it being an unremarkable stint and generally unrepresented on the virtual hardwood, I’d suggest many long-time basketball fans and gamers have naturally (or deliberately) forgotten about it. It did happen though, and despite him only appearing in 27 games with two starts while playing an average of 9.3 minutes per game, you can actually find a few highlights of Magic Nique on YouTube. Thanks to the official patch for NBA Live 99 PC, we also have an interactive reminder of one of Nique’s weird post-Hawks stints.

EA didn’t exactly do him justice, though. Granted, proper cyberfaces were still in their relative infancy, and NBA Live 99 PC’s textures and models were still among the best at the time. The face that the patch included for Nique was incredibly generic though, especially compared to other returning veterans and even the Class of 1998 rookies. It’s passable at a glance, and it’s great that he wasn’t left out when EA updated the rosters with the official patches. He certainly could’ve looked much worse, so given the circumstances, criticising it does feel like looking a gift horse in the mouth. All the same, it’s one of the least flattering depictions of Dominique Wilkins in games.

5. Nikola Jokic in NBA Live 16 & 18

Considering that he’s now a seven-time All-Star, three-time MVP, Finals MVP, NBA Champion, and has put up some truly ridiculous numbers, it’s very easy to forget that Nikola Jokic was a second round pick who was shaping up to be just “pretty good”. To that end, the notion that his virtual hardwood counterpart would be an afterthought with a laughably generic face is unfathomable now. In NBA Live 16 however, rookie Jokic looked like a poor attempt at replicating teammate Danilo Gallinari in Create-a-Player, and also lacked a portrait. On top of that, he was rated a lowly 61 Overall in the default rosters. Again, it’s certainly funny to see given the player that he’s become!

It’s somewhat understandable that Jokic had a lousy likeness in NBA Live 16. Not every player sat for a scan in time for a game’s release, though it was still a poor job of sculpting a face the old fashioned way. However, there was no excuse for Jokic to still have a generic face in NBA Live 18. By that point, he was on the brink of being an All-Star for the first time, having already shown hints of his current brilliance in the increased minutes he saw in his second season. Presumably EA were still unable to get him into the studio during the 2017 offseason, though once again, it’s a subpar model and texture in lieu of a scan. Fortunately, this was rectified in NBA Live 19…

Do you recall seeing these messed up player appearances? Which other oddities with player likenesses have stuck in your mind? 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 Times Games Messed Up Player Appearances (Part 3) appeared first on NLSC.