NBA Live 16? More like NBA Day of the Dead 16

NBA Live is back again and we have to talk about it despite how horrible we know it's going to be. Why do we have to talk about it? Because, oh my god, it STILL looks terrible. Ever since their three-year hiatus from 2011 to 2013, EA Sports has been looking to get back in the NBA Live groove, only to be reminded that the NBA 2K franchise is far superior. In a video released on YouTube by commentator DLloydTV, we actually get to see just how terrible the facial renderings truly are. It's just... well take a look below.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the NBA Live 16 version of your Los Angeles Clippers! Or, um, I guess that’s what they’re supposed to be. No one knows. Anyways, let’s take a look at the character models for what are supposed to be the Clippers.

Overlook the weird rating system that somehow makes Chris Paul a better shooter from three than from mid-range, and that allows Josh Smith to have a 71 rating on three-point shooting. Overlook DeAndre Jordan being a 90 overall, Austin Rivers not being at least a 95 overall, and J.J. Redick only being an 82 overall. Once you get beyond the awkwardly terrible rating system, you start to realize just how horrific the faces are. I don’t even know how to describe them individually without showing them again.

From a rendering standpoint, Chris Paul doesn’t look too bad. He actually looks pretty close to the real thing. It only goes downhill from there, though. Blake Griffin’s forehead looks like it’s sad and has a frowny face, DeAndre Jordan’s eyes look so weird that it seems like he’s trying to fight off Mister Sandman, and Jamal Crawford has a face and head that only Gollum’s mother could love. Josh Smith has a head shaped like a pear, Paul Pierce looks like he’s slowly becoming cross-eyed, and Lance Stephenson somewhat looks like he has a unibrow and also hates his life at the same time. Perhaps this is one of those days during middle school where his mom didn’t pack a great bagged lunch and Lance is upset. No one knows. We need to move on and, coincidentally, we move on to the good (read: oh my god, it’s so horrible) stuff. J.J. Redick’s rendering makes him look like he went on a Vegas bender before having his forehead stretched out as a dare. He’s the fourth member of "The Wolfpack" from The Hangover franchise. Redick looks like he’s on the Benjamin Button aging process and is really 52 years old instead of only 31. Cole Aldrich looks like Herman Munster, Wesley Johnson’s head is shaped like one of those Ouija board planchettes, and Austin Rivers looks like he just found out that he got the role as the live-action version of Dumbo in a remake of the famous Disney movie. But none are as bad as Pablo Prigioni. Oh man, none are as bad as him.

Is it out of line to stay that Prigioni looks like a demon that’s peering deeply into your soul so he can harvest it for nefarious purposes? He looks like one of the Dementors from the Harry Potter franchise. If the rendering has him widening his eyes and shooting his mouth wide open, he’d look like the mummies from The Mummy Returns. Prigioni just looks creepy here. And it’s not his fault, obviously, but oh my god he looks creepy. Jordan Hamilton, who is no longer on the team, looks like he’s bored with everything and is depressed. And lastly, C.J. Wilcox appears to have a left eye that is completely disproportionate to the right eye. He has a lazy left eye, actually. Like, just look at that thing! It’s a lazy eye. He got done dirty. They all did. My god this was bad.

So, yeah. NBA Live 16 looks like it’ll be terrible from both a gameplay and visual standpoint. I’ve played the demo and the only thing I can say is that it’s not good. I’m also not shocked, but it’s still not good. Most demos aren’t great, but at least they get you to have some interest in the game and make you look forward to it. The only thing that I’m looking forward to doing with NBA Live 16 is laughing at anyone who actually spends money on purchasing this abysmal excuse of a game. It seems weird that the same company who produces the FIFA video game franchise also produces Madden and NBA Live. Get your act together, EA Sports. Or, at the very least, make character models that actually come close to what the players look like.

Other writers on the interwebs have addressed this, but I figured the Clippers needed their own topic. If you’d like to read more about the horrible NBA Live 16 renderings, you can visit SB Nation’s NBA section and enjoy this article written by Mark Hinog.