I didn’t expect to like NBA Live 19 as much as I did. It’s not without its flaws, that’s for sure, but the actual basketball that takes place on its court feels and looks great. It even has some inventive modes, such as a surprisingly entertaining tower-defense style court battle, alongside the money-hungry Ultimate Team mode that’s become a staple of every EA Sports game. But while it feels like a fluid and realistic game of hoops, it also comes up short in the personality department, which allows a lot of potential excitement to slip through its fingers.

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Control the Court

“ An excellent training mode teaches basic and advanced moves, almost like a fighting game.

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Hoop Dreams

“ My personal court looks straight out of a 1990’s Nickelodeon game show.

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Player models look the part of their real-life counterparts, to the point where they’re instantly recognizable — there’s no mistaking Aron Baynes and his manbun for another player. Live 19 also brings back the WNBA players that were introduced in last year’s game and adds the inclusive ability to create a female basketball avatar just like you can with the men.They’re even better in motion. Animations are powered by the same system used in Madden NFL 19 and FIFA 19, and I have to say they look better than those in NBA 2K18. Players jockey for position, bump into each other and weave through defenders realistically. It gives them real weight and fluidity of movement. Everything involving close contact in NBA Live 19 works well, and specific player animations, like LeBron James’ aggressive lane-driving dribbles, are spot-on.On the court, Live’s control scheme instantly makes sense. The path that appears between your player and the one you’re aiming at makes passing hard to mess up, which leads to fewer frustrating moments like accidentally throwing to a heavily-defended player, leading to a turnover. There aren’t any surprises. Shooting, too, is simple and intuitive; pulling off a dunk instead of a layup is as easy as holding down the trigger while shooting near the basket. I definitely felt like I knew what I was doing right away.As simple as the controls are, NBA Live 19 has more in-depth moves available to take your game to the next level once you’ve internalized the fundamentals. An excellent training mode teaches basic and advanced moves, almost like a fighting game. I felt like a complete boss when I successfully dribbled behind the back of a defender in training, then I went back and replayed it again to master it. Fancy handles aren’t required, but I love being able to visit the training mode to work on improving my game at any time.But NBA basketball is as much about culture as it is about the game, and that’s probably Live 19’s weakest showing. The whole presentation feels like a collection of pieces that all fit together but never quite gel into a whole. Music, shoes, street hoops, and even Stephen A. Smith’s shouting are all part of NBA Live 19, but overall it feels sterile.Much of that sterility comes from the sound design. Court battles have a single looping song – closer to a raw beat than a fully realized track – and aside from a few shouts for picks and other player noises it’s underwhelming in how subdued a typical game feels. That isn’t helped at all by the fact that Franchise mode, where games look as much like television broadcasts as possible, has extremely limited commentary. Canned snippets repeat during individual games, and the large percentage of them are enormously broad generalizations that sometimes only match the action in the most basic way. When a defender intentionally fouls to stop the clock in the last minute or so of the fourth quarter and the commentary treats it like any other intentional foul without acknowledging the strategy behind it, it’s an unignorable reminder that the lights may be on but there’s nobody home.EA’s Ultimate Team mode returns to NBA Live 19. I understand companies need to make money, but Live Ultimate Team isn’t going to be the way I spend my cash. The rewards for playing are way too small and the cost for NBA Points to buy new packs is designed in an infuriating way. Packs are in multiples of 100 but points can only be bought in multiples of 150, so unless you spend twice what you might want to spend, you end up with 50 left-over points. Mercifully, microtransactions play a diminished role in the rest of Live’s many modes, so if you aren’t into building a dream team through LUT, you can skip them entirely.