Monday, August 13, 2012

5 Ways to Improve NBA 2k


The NBA 2k series is probably my favorite sports videogame franchise. In my opinion, it's really only rivaled by the MLB: The Show franchise and I just find basketball games more fun to play. It just blows away on pretty much every level anything that EA Sports is offering right now.

This is not to say the game doesn't have its faults though. It just seems that 2k fixes them a little bit every year and in general makes you feel more connected to the game of basketball with each fix. The announcing and presentation are amazing and I just wish that the football games on the market were this realistic and fun to play. Here are a few ways 2k could improve upon this already awesome basketball videogame franchise.

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This is pretty awesome right? 

1. Passing – Nothing is more aggravating than watching your player throw a pass right into the defender. 2K needs to allow you to choose whether you're throwing a bounce, chest, or lob type of pass. 2K12 added a lot of emphasis on the defense being more in the passing lanes, so this year they need to allow the player to counter this defense.

Also, there's absolutely no reason that when you throw a post entry pass your player lobs the ball 30 feet into the air to let the defender get under it. What exactly is the thought process behind this being in the game at all? It's so frustrating to make this pass and watch your opponent casually steal it from you. I get that they wanted to make post entry not as easy as it has been in the past but this is absolutely a ridiculous way of going about that.

They also added somewhat of a delay to each pass thrown now and that's something that just really has to go. It's basketball, you should be able to reverse the court quickly to find the player the defense rotated off of. This is not the case when you play NBA 2k12 and allowing quicker and more accurate passes could go a long way in making this is a more realistic game.

2. Online Play – I am yet to buy an NBA 2k game where the online play actually works correctly. Even now almost a year after NBA 2k12's release, I still get lag when trying to play a game online. This is just inexcusable and I do not understand why it is never fixed. There's really not much else to say on this one but it is definitely a reason why people buy the game and there's no reason it doesn't work. Online gaming is something every other company has seemed to figure out except 2k Sports.

3. Fast Breaks – The fast break system in NBA 2k12 is simply broken. It's not based on the speed of your player and it is easily the most unrealistic thing in the game. Andrew Bynum should not be able to chase down Chris Paul on a fast break. It'd be one thing if the defender actually made a play on the ball but what happens is your player just gets inexplicably slow and gets pulled into the defender behind him like the defender has his own gravitational pull.

I understand that in previous NBA 2k games it's been a little easy to exploit the fast break and that's why the system is this way. That said, it doesn't make it any less frustrating or unrealistic for the player. I really hope 2k figures out a work around for this system because it's just dumb watching fast players not be able to go on a clear fast break.

4. Post play – Despite improving post play in NBA 2k12 it still has a long way to go before it makes any rational sense. If you have a defender who has literally no post play defense but high defensive awareness and block ratings you can play him at 4-5 with no problem. Dwight Howard should not be shut down by Andre Iguodala. It's just a stupid system and it feels like good post offensive players have never been rewarded in this sports series.

It makes the game pretty unrealistic when the person your playing against doesn't have to account for your post players. Basically the Lakers are Kobe Bryant creating havoc and Andruw Bynum and Pau Gasol just there for rebounding and defense. It's pretty ridiculous when even the CPU when you play against them doesn't throw the ball down in the post when you're playing against the Lakers.

5. Team defense – I would like to actually see rotations and real team defense as opposed to the gravitational pull defense NBA 2k12 has. If you have a player with high defensive awareness in the middle (Tyson Chandler, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnet, etc.) they will just suck up every player who goes into the paint no matter how wide open they are to the basket. Tim Duncan is easily my most hated sports videogame star due to this as he's not nearly the force on defense he once was.

It's ridiculously easy to get into the paint against even the most stingy defenders, but when you get by the original defender you either get an easy basket or you get sucked towards a player with high defensive awareness. It is just frustrating when you burn the defender and go for an uncontested lay up only to have a player warp over from 7 feet away to contest your shot. It's also ridiculous how that unless you have a star player you always miss those shots. I swear you have to be a very good player to ever get a 3 point play in the game.  

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