Even worse "The Rise" is hollow and meaningless as the choice between a male and female protagonist. There's no real change to the story mode, "The Rise," if the playable character is male or female.
Unfortunately the customization only goes skin deep. This is a fantastic and welcome addition and gives NBA Live a leg up on the competition.
A brand-new addition though is the ability to create a custom female character to use in Live's story/career mode.
Even the most significant selling points of NBA Live 19 come with drawbacks.įor example, NBA Live 19 carries over the full integration of the WNBA from NBA Live 18. It's possible to pick a female team and play with them in almost all the game modes. It's a barebones basketball experience with most of the standard modes and only a couple standalone features. NBA Live 19 doesn't really push anything forward. NBA Live 19's biggest sin isn't in what it lacks. The issues for Live begin to emerge once you focus outside the core basketball mechanics. On just a fundamental gameplay level, NBA Live 19 is an entertaining and welcoming basketball gaming experience. If the mechanics do feel overwhelming there are helpful tutorial modes to alleviate the pressure. It's extraordinarily easy to succeed even for the most casual of basketball fans. Though still a basketball simulation style game, NBA Live has a wonderful pick up and play feel. If there's a single area where NBA Live 19 excels it's in the gameplay. Related: Madden 19 Review - The Best Football Game Yet.
This year's game offers a stronger core experience but a lack of variety in features, an unremarkable story, and unnecessary microtransactions hold NBA Live 19 back from true glory. NBA Live 19 isn't a bad game and the series is is closer than ever to seriously challenging its main competitor, NBA 2K19, but it can't quite sink the three it desires. Gameplay has been refined and some exciting new features have been added, but better doesn't necessarily mean the best. NBA Live 19 makes strides to correct that problem and it's easily a superior game to NBA Live 18. Although its developer EA Tiburon is one of the bigger names in sports gaming, the Live franchise has been coming up a distant second compared to its competition. NBA Live 19 is the underdog of basketball video games.