NBA Live 2001 Critic Reviews

Offers everything you'd want in a basketball game — fast and fun gameplay with tight and responsive control, gorgeous graphics and realistic animation, and many game modes, each with a boatload of customizable options.

NBA Live 2001 is beautiful, and it is still a lot of fun to play. By far, it's the best basketball game -- pros or otherwise -- on the PlayStation 2.

This is the very first basketball game in which I have ever, and I mean ever been able to get realistic numbers while playing a full game using 12-minute quarters.

True to their nature, EA Sports has created another title for the PS2 which delivers detailed graphics and sound, absorbing the gamer into the pseudo reality of video game sports.

Reminds me a lot of those so-called summer blockbusters. The game itself isn’t that bad, but it just can’t live up to the hype surrounding it.

Looks great, sounds great, and plays pretty well. It's the best of the PS2 crowd, but can't match "NBA 2K1" for the total hoops experience.

A few steps shy from a classic and offers no compelling improvements over Sega's NBA 2K1 to convert Dreamcast owners away from their online-savvy gameplay and get them on a PS2.

Taking the accepted route and reviewing the title on the quality by which it ape’s real-life however, we find a game which delivers exactly what hardcore b’ball fans would want. You know into which camp you fall.

A history of hoops that lets you bring almost every star player (dating back to the 1950s) out of the mothballs.

A solid if unspectacular start for EA Sports' next-gen hoops. Fans of the series will be genuinely pleased. But compared to what Visual Concepts is doing with the "NBA 2K" games, Live has a long way to go before it makes it to the Finals.

We are, already, looking forward to next year's version, which hopefully will be that much better.

More complicated moves like an over-and-under are possible, but nothing compares to working your man down low with Shaq, holding down the turbo button while turning the corner for a gorilla slam.

I'm sure that most players will find that the improved framerate and monumental step up in the area of visuals to be reason enough to play this Live over any other version.

Aside from the graphics, the PS2 version of Live 2001 can't hold a candle to its PSX counterpart.

A bare bones arcade basketball game short on simulation elements and long on minor flaws.

Aside from the insanely confusing menus and overly arcadish feel, Live isn't a bad game.

This is, in a nutshell, a piece of dung covered in gold dust.

Slowly becoming the Utah Jazz of console sports franchises -- produces enough so that you can't ignore it, but possesses neither the flash nor the innovation to beat the younger competition in the ratings game.