Honor 8 — The predecessor of the NBA Live series

NBA Live is a series of basketball video games published by EA Sports. The series, which has had releases annually from 1994 to 2009 and 2013 to the present, is the successor to EAs previous NBA Playoffs and NBA Showdown series. Live primarily competes with the NBA 2K series and formerly NBA ShootOut.

The predecessor of the NBA Live series was the NBA Playoffs series, which featured Lakers vs. Celtics, released first in 1989 for MS-DOS-compatible PCs and later adapted for consoles in early 1990 for the Sega Mega Drive. This game was played from a horizontal view (while later versions moved to an isometric view before ultimately moving to 3D on newer consoles). The game was one of the first to feature an NBA license, containing both real NBA teams and player likenesses and signature moves. Details such as Horace Grants goggles are clearly visible, and Michael Jordans "Air Reverse Layup" is animated with very high accuracy. Player numbers were also visible. The game featured only eight of the sixteen teams that qualified for the NBA playoffs that year, as well as both NBA All-Star teams.