Other times, players like Candace Parker or Allie Quigley cameoed. That did a couple of things for me: First, it was more interesting to see who I’d be getting in the opposing squads on the Tour, often themed to a particular city or style.
#NBA LIVE 18 FRANCHISE MODE SERIES#
NBA Live 19 saves EA’s troubled series with a fantastic playground Players will encounter women on the Pro-Am World Tour (and in the user-populated Live Run and Court Battles) whether they’re playing as one or not. It’s another thing to have women as AI-controlled teammates and opponents, as they are in NBA Live 19. That’s nice, but it’s effectively an avatar option, nothing more. It’s one thing to give a user the choice of creating a woman and placing her on a team with men. NBA Live 19 is a first, however, in that it offers true mixed-gender team competition. EA Sports UFC 2 and 3 have also featured women fighters, and given them parity in the career mode that is such a strong appeal to that game.
#NBA LIVE 18 FRANCHISE MODE PRO#
EA Sports’ FIFA series has had women’s national teams for the past four editions, and the NHL series has let users create female players since 2011, including in the Be A Pro mode. NBA Live 19 isn’t the first licensed sports video game to include women. Mixed-gender team competition: A sports video game first Even acknowledging the work it would take to build what is a separate career mode, that seems to be a glaring shortcoming since the NBA is such a large component of the male player’s experience in NBA Live 19.īut the inclusion of women still deepens The One and makes the pick-up games and streetball tour - which is better than half of The One’s offerings - more interesting, whether the user is playing as a woman or not.
No, there isn’t a WNBA component for a created female star to explore the way men can also play league games in the NBA.
In light of the skimpy, almost thrown-in treatment of the WNBA that followed such a praiseworthy announcement last year, EA Sports deserved a little more scrutiny of what it was really bringing to its basketball franchise this time.Īfter taking a woman to level 20 in The One, as the career mode is called, I think the developers at EA Tiburon have given women’s basketball, its players and fans a rather sincere and reasonably deep mode. So July’s announcement that women would be part of NBA Live 19’s career suite was, sure, another milestone. Fans got all of the league and its players, sure, but they only got them for one-off play-now games - no season-long franchise, or even a playoff tournament - and the generic commentary didn’t mention anyone, team or player, by name. EA Sports’ NBA Live series introduced the WNBA last year, a milestone for the series and for women’s sports but one that was barely supported in the game’s presentation.