NBA Live ’96 is the Super Nintendo Entertainment System version of EA Sports’ basketball sim, developed by Hitmen Productions and published by Electronic Arts in October 1995. The second entry in the NBA Live series, it added a Free Agent pool and a Create-a-Player mode, letting you build a custom player from scratch and add them to any team’s roster. At release, reviewers called it the strongest basketball game available on SNES, even if its game plan was simpler than the Sega Genesis version’s.
How to Play
Arrow Keys move your player on both offense and defense. The SNES face buttons (mapped to Z, X, A, and S in the browser) handle passing, shooting, and defensive actions like stealing and blocking, with Enter working as Start to bring up menus and pause the game.
Tips
- The Create-a-Player screen hides a bonus: building a player using the right name unlocks real NBA stars, including Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, plus rookies from the 1995 draft class who don’t otherwise appear on any team roster.
- This version’s defense is noticeably weaker than the Genesis release, so an up-tempo game built around repeated drives to the basket tends to outscore a slower, half-court approach.
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