To that end, they were meant to encourage gamers to use players to their strengths, while the CPU would also try to do the same. Of course, the Hot Spots in NBA Live 08 weren’t quite as sophisticated as Dynamic DNA, but they were an attempt to realistically represent the players’ shooting abilities and tendencies. If this sounds like Dynamic DNA, it’s because it was basically a forerunner to that concept, which of course debuted the next year. As you can probably glean, red indicated areas where a player was most effective from, yellow indicated areas where a player tended to at least shoot a decent percentage, and blue indicated areas a player struggled from, or tended not to prefer. The different colours represented a player’s abilities for that zone. If you’ve looked into stats regarding shot locations, or perhaps glanced at the relevant tab on a player card in NBA 2K, this breakdown will be very familiar. These attributes were based on real life data and tendencies.Īs you can see in the screenshot above, the court was divided up into different areas. Rather than generic parts of the floor, each player had their own Hot Spots – sometimes called Hot Zones – where they were more effective from. ![]() In some ways, the idea of Hot Spots in NBA Live 08 was based on that, but with more realism in mind. Obviously, the key to success in those games was to discover those areas on the floor, and shoot from them as often as possible. One of the most infamous examples is the “ Corner Three Glitch” in Double Dribble, though the game also featured other such “hot spots”. Now, many basketball video games have featured spots on the floor that offer higher percentage shots. In the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version of NBA Live 08, Hot Spots were intended to add further depth to shooting. As such, games began to expand their shooting ratings, on top of including attributes such as shooting range and preferred scoring area. ![]() After all, there is a large area within the arc, and a player that scores most of their points in the post needs different ratings and attributes to one who mostly goes to work in the midrange. Let’s take a look back…way back…īy the mid 2000s, it was clear that to accurately portray a player’s shooting abilities, simply assigning players a two-point rating (sometimes just labelled their field goal rating), three-point rating, and free throw rating, wouldn’t be sufficient. However, future games proved that when implemented correctly, it was a step toward achieving the realism that we desired. ![]() It’s all too easy to focus on the undesirable results of that first implementation of Hot Spots, and conclude that there was no value in the idea. It was a solid idea that paved the way for more nuanced shooting attributes, but that first iteration in NBA Live 08 also had negative effects on gameplay mechanics. It may be a sign that we’ve forgotten the reasons behind those ideas, and that poor execution doesn’t necessarily mean there was never any merit to them.Ĭase in point: Hot Spots in NBA Live 08. This is important to remember, as it can sometimes seem as if certain ideas were only implemented for the sake of adding something new to an annual release. Some of these ideas have worked out better than others, or laid the foundation and evolved into better concepts. The goal of implementing an increasing amount of realism in basketball video games has resulted in developers experimenting with a variety of mechanics and attributes. This week, I’m taking a look back at Hot Spots in NBA Live 08. ![]() This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time.
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