This NBA lockout is killing me.  There are only a certain number of times I can hear or read about Ron Artest changing his name to something ridiculous prior to entering a dancing show.  The guy is a doofus. We get it. We don't care if you come to the BBL (you won't) and we don't care if you want to go and be an astrophysicist (no idea what one of those is). Just stop telling us about it.  You, Ron Artest, are the number one reason I hate the lockout.

All I care about is basketball and without it, my spirit is dying.  

I don't know how you guys and girls have managed to survive the painful period of time between the end of last season and the future start date of the 2011 season but I have been doing it by playing computer games.  And I am more excited than usual about the release of NBA2K12 as it will fill my lockout shaped hole with basketball goodness.

So my question to you is... 

... which computer basketball game is your favourite?

Here are a list of a few to help kick start the thinking process:

NBA JAM:

We all recall just how awesome this was - the basic sound effects, the unrealistic athletic feats performed by some of the NBA's less than athletic 'stars', the ease with which you could score, the 'rapid swatty hands' that would poke the ball away - all of which added up to many a day spent in an arcade playing it and then, when I got a SNES, the many days I spent at home playing it.  

NBA Live '95:

Any game where you can stick Billy Owens on a team and go through the season unbeaten is a great game. Or so my memory tells me.

There aren't many better things in this world than wanting to dominate with a player in a game, selecting said player and then spending the next 48 minutes dribbling casually in and out of everyone while nailing off balance three pointers and hitting people for open looks.  That was how I rolled when I was Penny Hardaway and playing this game.  I miss you pixellated, Orlando version of Penny Hardaway from 1995. And sadder than that, I think Penny misses that version of Penny.

The latter years of NBA Live (before it went 'elite' and then promptly died):

I know that in the last couple of years, NBA gamers were split into two camps with 99% of people being in the NBA 2K camp and the rest of the people in the NBA Live camp.  But while NBA Live was still in existence, I actually liked it.  The latter years were pretty fun with the 'hot spots' and special moves they had.  I liked it.  Admittedly, I wasn't such a big fan of needing to alter the line-ups to decide the distribution of playing time each time my squad picked up an injury but otherwise, the franchise was pretty special.  I never fully understood why the Elite game never came out.  Were they that scared of the 2K product?  Come back NBA Elite

2K

That number and letter combo makes me excited.  And I'm sure it makes you excited too.  That is all.

So feel free to vote on your favourite NBA game in our poll down below or alternatively, let the world know what your favourite moment is from an NBA game.  It could be the 60 points you put up while playing as Gary Trent or even the last second 32 foot bomb you dropped in triple OT while leading the newly formed Heat franchise to their first victory. Whatever it is, tell me, tell the Brightsiders, tell the world!

And finally, this video is criminally underviewed - The Evolution of the video basketball game