Game developers, EA Sports and 2K Sports, have been going head to head in the past few months in coming up with their respective NBA-based video game. In the past year, NBA 2K14 was the clear-cut winner. This year, EA Sports is trying its best to come up with a realistic environment for NBA Live 15 to give fans a more dynamic feel.
According to Game Informer, "The commentary team of Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy returns. Given last year's wooden performances, this year EA's focus is on getting more banter injected in the proceedings."
Jalen Rose will still be the "master of ceremonies" as "EA plans to continue to deliver live commentary updates with Rose throughout the year to recognize league happenings and call out users who have made remarkable accomplishments within the game," the site added.
According to NBA Live executive producer Sean O'Brien, in his interview with Game Informer earlier this month, "The purpose with Jalen is to first act as that host, sort of what he does so well on his podcast on Grantland and his work as a studio host for ESPN. We marry the two and give you a bit of that flavor as well as with those live updates to provide you relevant info about what's going on in the league and then do some call-outs and shout-outs to people who have done some cool stuff in the game."
Although Rose was warmly welcomed by gamers, the interaction between Breen and Gundy did not get the same treatment, Game Informer observed.
O'Brien further explained how they are addressing the situation.
"We're taking a new approach to get more banter. We're recording more with them together in the studio at the same time and getting a lot more banter going on that you would normally see and then having that banter interruptible. I think 2K does a really good job with that stuff. Dissecting what we think they do best, that's one of the things they are really good at," O'Brien added.
"You kind of get that back and forth and then it's interrupted at the right time. If we're talking and something happens, naturally we just sort of stop and say, "Did you see that?" That's what we need to have happen, so I think commentary is getting a lot better. We just recorded with those guys end of last week, so a lot of that stuff is still coming in," The NBA Live executive continued.
In a report by Sports Grid, 2K Sports have been aggressive in improving its commentary. Ernie Johnson and Shaquille O'Neal will be featured in NBA 2K15. However, Charles Barkley will not be part of the group.
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