NBA Live 16's free demo is pretty much basketball Destiny

So hear me out on this: NBA LIVE 16 Pro-Am's Summer Circuit is basically Destiny but with Air Jordans instead of Gjallarhorn. The new mode, which is one of several available in NBA Live 16's upcoming free-to-play demo/spinoff, lets you team up with four friends or matchmade allies to take on increasingly difficult AI opponents at Strikes, er, courts across the US.

You'll play against both amateur players and actual NBA pros (you could call them, say, named enemies) as you work your way through five-game ladders at seven real-life courts. Each rival team will have its own tactics and strengths, and your crew will need to react accordingly to win the first-to-21, streetball-inspired competitions.

You'll earn Skill Points to improve your custom player's abilities as you play, as well as Reward Points to buy him new gear. But certain items (let's call them exotics) can only be earned by completing specific objectives in a given game, so you may have to try a particular match several times if you really want that one pair of kicks.

NBA Live 16 Pro-Am also offers Live Run for competitive 5-on-5 play (let's call it The Crucib... too much?) complete with SP and RP rewards. Or you can get a look at NBA Live proper with the exhibition-style Tip Off mode, which features six teams pulled from the full game. NBA Live 16 Pro-Am will be available for download free starting on September 15 - you can naturally keep your player in the full game, which will come out two weeks later on September 29.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.