NBA Live 97

The player animations were all created using motion capture. Sacramento Kings players Mitch Richmond and Tyus Edney were among the motion capture actors. Audio commentary was provided by Al Murdoch and Ernie Johnson Jr.

Producer Tarrnie Williams Jr. (son of Tarrnie Williams Sr.) explained the decision to have the series switch from using sprites to polygonal models for the players: With sprites, you're limited to prerendered animations, right? You're limited to the number of directions you choose, the number of frames you have for each animation, and, of course, because you're limited to the amount of RAM you have on the system, you're not really able to do all the things you want.

Most reviews for the original release on PlayStation were highly positive. Critics praised the dramatic improvement in graphics and animation over the previous installment, the large number of options, the exhaustive playbook, and the custom jerseys created through the create-a-player feature. A reviewer for Next Generation mentioned most of these merits but was a dissenting voice against the game, commenting that "The super-slow gameplay just accentuates the basic flaws in a dying engine that desperately needs to be revamped. ...

If you can get past the poor control and slow play, NBA Live '97 is extremely deep and beautiful to watch. Unfortunately, it's just not fun like it used to be." On the other side, Joe Rybicki of Electronic Gaming Monthly called it "a great game that will excite NBA Live fans", Tom Ham of GameSpot said "Boasting lightning-fast gameplay, tons of moves, great artificial intelligence, textured polygon players, and motion capture animation, NBA Live 97 may very well be the best Playstation-based basketball game to date", and GamePro gave it a perfect 5 out of 5 in all four categories (graphics, sound, control, and funfactor), concluding that "you won't find a more complete, dynamic, and in-your-face basketball game on the 32-bit market than Live '97."