Yes, they have this 'If it's in the game. may actually do you goodĮA Sports have never really cared for the simulation part of their games. But is it good enough to restore our faith? So many polygons. And so, this year, in came NBA Live 98, stomping around the arena with the usual showmanship. The third incarnation, Live 97 (this time it was less surprising), was somewhere in between- it regained some of the original's playability, and upped the ante on graphics, but it was still not as much fun as it were two years back.ĮA Sports had to do something, fast, or they would lose their fans. It was much worse, and made me feel very sorry for myself because I already traded my original Live 95 copy. The successor to Live 95 was called, surprisingly, Live 96 - remember, that was before everyone started accepting the change of two digits at the end of the title as normal practice.

One such series is NBA Live, the first of which was the first really good 5-on-5 game since TV Sports Basketball. Overall, though, EA Sports continue to supply us with perfectly serviceable games annually (except, maybe Fifa 97, winner of last year's 'game which sold a huge number of copies even though it was almost unplayable' award by a huge margin). Yes, failures occur from time to time, but that can only be expected. To be honest, they wouldn't have been so successful if they weren't any good. And so, every year in time for the holidays, we have a new bunch of 'em coming in, most simply changing the title by adding one to the yearly designation. Their 'yearly' franchise, which includes games from most major sports, has become so successful, that a lot of people are buying them year-in, year-out, as loyal as puppies. Have they learned their lesson?ĮA Sports is, without a doubt, the most successful PC sports games company in the world.

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