EA’s recent trend of including narrative-driven single-player campaigns might seem laughable on paper, but you can’t argue with the results. Madden’s Longshot, FIFA’s Journey, and NBA Live’s The One modes have all been surprisingly impressive and engaging, and all three are doing it again.
In Live’s case, I had the chance to sit down and play the first hour or so of Live 19’s The One, and in a very complimentary way I can say that the hour flew by. I began by creating my player for the story mode, and I took the opportunity to create a female player (NBA Live once again brings WNBA teams and players into the fold, to its credit). I’m not sure if it’s always this way or just my experience, but every game I played had a female player on the opposing team to balance things out (i.e. so I wasn’t physically overwhelmed by a wall of 6’10” 260-pound male players). After choosing gender you’ll choose what type of player you want to be: a guard, a wing, or a big. True to my own childhood basketball experiences, I went with a guard so that I had a built-in excuse to handle the ball more often.
