As someone who only plays 2k for MyCareer. I'm about ready to make the jump to Live. First thing i noticed is how smooth the animations were. They feel so fluid. You play 2k for all of 10 minutes and you can see the game run through it's set of stunted pre-canned animations depending on the situation. Things just felt more natural here and i liked it.
Going back to the animations, when players would run plays on offense whether it be trying to find their spot on the 3pt line or setting a PnR they looked very natural and fluid. I felt myself actually scanning the court a lot more to ensure that someone wasn't open off a cut somewhere because all the movement looked believable. When you call for a PnR in 2k, its so slow and clunky it's almost like you can see the system thinking about what you're asking it to do.
The $40 price point is sweet too. I think i might bite.
I am glad a lot of folks are liking the game, but come on. Live's as guilty of these pre-canned animations. All you gotta do is get someone to hip ride you and initiate a step back jumper to see.
I am as happy as everyone else that Live put out a competent product this year, but some of the gushing about how this supposedly is the exact opposite of 2k's "animation heavy" gameplay are just drinking that cool aid.
I've got a lot of clips on my ps4 to show receipts, but going over OS, there are already a bunch of people pointing this out.
1) Watch as how Steph Curry is ahead of Kyrie on the break here,and should have an easy lay-up. He instead gets sucked into an animation to force a contest. Two things to look at here: 1) Steph slows down as he gathers for the lay-up, and 2)Kyrie speeds up like Usain Bolt when he's about to initiate the contest animation.
2) Watch the initial sequence after the pick and roll, where a guy should have an easy layup or dunk gather, but instead, a scripted 2 hand block-steal sequence was activated: http://xboxclips.com/Teebone21/859e65af-e0cb-4a42-970a-a64941521244
3) Watch here as KD attempts a blow by after lebron slides away out of position, only to get sucked into Lebron and resulting in a contact layup animation leading to a block:
4) Lastly, watch as Steph counters a hip ride animation with a step back to force an exaggerated reaction from kyrie to get an open shot.